Chef/owner Cathal Armstrong likes to keep things fresh, so this tasting room/bistro/lounge is a constantly evolving mash-up of his Dublin upbringing, French technique, and New World sensibility. Toss in mixologist Todd Thrasher, the father of the local craft-cocktail movement, and you’ve got one of the more exciting dining experiences around. The $13 weekday lunch menu at the bar is one of Washington’s best deals.
Every room has a different mood, but all are done with style. The luxe Tasting Room is set with cartoonish throne chairs; in the lounge, retro-modern light fixtures cast a cozy glow. Armstrong has taken the farm-to-table movement a step further with an organic garden out back, the source of herbs and seasonal vegetables on the menu.
What to get: A Pleasantly Bitter Beginning cocktail with grapefruit bitters, citrus vinegar, vodka, and Sauvignon Blanc; crispy tuna roll with pickled watermelon and smoked-olive-oil vinaigrette; pork-belly rillettes with harissa aïoli; Basque seafood stew; perfect creamy risotto (the version changes daily); quenelle of foie gras with house-made fig newtons and butter-poached lobster with hollandaise mousse (Tasting Room); sweet-corn and dark-chocolate pots de crème with smoked panna cotta and rock-salt ice cream. Irish-bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich and papri chaat from the lunchtime bar menu.
Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday for dinner. Expensive to very expensive.
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.
