About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
DC chef Keem Hughley’s first effort, Bronze, had a high-concept, sci-fi and Afrofuturist-inspired menu and vibe. The H Street corridor eatery closed late last year after less than two years.
On October 31, Hughley will open a new hotel rooftop bar, Realm. His inspiration this time is a bit more down-to-earth—specifically, the Indian Ocean.
The loungey space atop the Hyatt House in Shaw is sleek and tropical, inspired by five-star resorts in places like the Maldives. It’s got an outdoor space with firepits, and a private dining room for business and special occasions.
For culinary inspiration, the chef looked to Seychelles, which he picked because of its distinctiveness—no other restaurant in the area serves the cuisine–but also because of its adaptability for diners used to beachy Mediterranean rooftop bars.
“We’ve been trying to solve for how we create a sustainable business model in DC that’s not Mediterranean,” Hughley says. “So we’re kind of focused on the Indian Ocean, but a lot of those Mediterranean techniques that are really successful in the market, we’re going to be bringing those things over.”
The cuisine of the Francophone Creole archipelago in the Indian Ocean revolves around coconut-based curries, fish, and rice. Though it’s oceans away from the Caribbean, there are some surface-level culinary similarities to the West Indies-inspired global cuisine Hughley served at Bronze— in particular, the heavy use of tropical fruits.
Raw oysters can be topped with a coconut-lime mignonette, and smoked-white-fish dip is blended with coconut cream. Crabcakes are made with even more coconut, and come with a mango-tamarind chutney. Tamarind also goes into the glaze for lamb chops. Smoked chicken is flavored with lemongrass, and a vegetable flatbread blends South Asian flavors with a more Mediterranean presentation.
House cocktails include the Golden Hour (gin, passionfruit, lemon, vanilla, and brut) and non-alcoholic options involve tropical flavors like hibiscus and soursop.
From its Shaw perch, Realm will have unmistakable views of the DC skyline. But Hughley and Evens Charles, the DC-born investor who owns the hotel’s hospitality group, are clearly trying to transport guests somewhere else. Along with Seychelles, they named Tulum and Florida as places they wanted to evoke.
“People that walk up there, they say they feel like they’re in another city,” Charles said. “They feel like they’re in Miami, or some other place.”
