The best part of eating at Tallula has always been chef Nathan Anda’s menu of two-bite snacks. In the restaurant’s newly renovated lounge, which has been rechristened EatBar and reimagined as a Notting Hill–style gastropub, he’s doing small plates all the way.
Anda’s a carnivore at heart: There’s a “pig of the week” special and a thick burger. He wraps butter-poached figs in bacon, and his aïoli-bound steak tartare is perfect bar food. The hot dog is made entirely in-house, from the thick all-beef sausage to the buttery bun and sharp mustard, and it’s often delicious. Seafood is less so—seared-tuna salad is bland, fried oysters limp. You can conclude the meal with a wedge of Lambchopper cheese or an unexpected treat: a Guinness cupcake with Harp-ale icing.
In the main room, lit by candelabra, chalkboards tout a list of obscure beers and such throwback cocktails as the Moscow Mule, a bracing vodka-and-ginger beer concoction that was Hollywood’s it-drink in the ’50s.
Open Tuesday through Friday for lunch, daily for dinner.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
