LOCAL LIFE

Spicing things up
New restaurants aim to enliven D.C. dining scene

AMY CAVANAUGH
Friday, August 22, 2008

After a summer in which several popular Washington restaurants, including Colorado Kitchen and Butterfield 9, closed, the local dining scene picks up this fall with a crop of new restaurants, including super chef Alain Ducasse’s latest venture and a sibling for Agraria, Georgetown’s farm-to-table restaurant.

COMMONWEALTH, the latest venture from lesbian chef Jamie Leeds, who owns two outposts of Hank’s Oyster Bar, in D.C. and in Alexandria, opened in August.

Commonwealth, a British gastropub that serves, among other dishes, a Sunday roast, provides a neighborhood gathering spot for Columbia Heights residents. Also on the menu: British favorites including fish and chips, stuffed jacket potatoes and sticky toffee pudding. As a gastropub, Commonwealth has, as expected, a noteworthy beer list with ales from the United Kingdom and beers from U.S. states that are Commonwealths (Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania). It’s at 1400 Irving St., N.W.

Another recently opened eatery is REDWOOD, located at 7121 Bethesda Lane, the new street filled with shops near Bethesda Row. Owned by the group behind Georgetown’s Mendocino Grille and Capitol Hill’s Sonoma, Redwood features West Coast chef Andrew Kitko in the kitchen, where he whips up dishes like ivory king salmon served with grilled summer squash succotash and lime butter and rotisserie Amish chicken with toasted breadcrumbs and hand crushed herb sauce. Mendocino Grille and Sonoma both feature extensive wine choices, and a similar program is running at Redwood, where 125 wines are available.

It may not be new, but the JOCKEY CLUB, a Washington epicurean institution, returns this fall (probably October) with a makeover after a seven-year hiatus. The Club, which was open for 40 years at the then-Fairfax Hotel, 2100 Massachusetts Ave., N.W, attracted the likes of Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Warren Beatty. Look out for classic cocktails and international small plates in the Fairfax Lounge, and an update on Jockey Club classics like steak Diane, Dover sole and crepes suzette. Maitre’d Martin Garbisu will return, but helming the kitchen will be new chef Paul Marshall.

When Logan Circle’s Dakota Cowgirl closed in December, a gap was left in an area without many restaurants, but a replacement comes in October with BIRCH & BARLEY. The latest offering from Neighborhood Restaurant Group, the creators of Northern Virginia’s Rustico, Buzz Bakery, Tallula, EatBar, Vermilion and Evening Star Café, the restaurant is divided into Birch & Barley downstairs and ChurchKey upstairs. The focus on both places is on beer, with about 500 options available, and Frank Morales, the chef at Alexandria’s Rustico, created different menus for the two spots. It’s at 1337 14th St. N.W.

Agraria, which serves up dishes using products that come from a collective of family farmers, gets a little sister this fall with the opening of FOUNDING FARMERS, 1924 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. The restaurant is green-friendly — is the first restaurant in Washington to seek the Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) certification criteria, and it will operate as an officially green-certified restaurant by pledging to reduce waste and incorporate other green activities into its mission. The menu includes rustic farm sandwiches and soups, pot pies, roasted chicken and pies from the in-house bakery. Small batch brewery beers and family-distilled Bourbons, along with organic wines, are on the drink menu.

The biggest name in D.C. dining this fall is Alain Ducasse, who opens ADOUR at the St. Regis, his 23rd restaurant, in September. Ducasse, the only chef to have three restaurants that have each earned three Michelin stars, offers up contemporary French American cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including baked striped bass with a duo of half confit tomatoes, balsamic reduction, lemon zest and capers and natural cooking jus, and a seared foie gras served with date marmalade and preserved lemon confit. Julien Jouhannaud, who has been with Ducasse’s restaurant group for eight years, is the executive chef. 923 16th St., N.W.

Another big name coming to the District is celebrity chef Art Smith, who is also Oprah’s former personal chef. Smith, who owns TABLE Fifty-Two in Chicago, launches ART AND SOUL in September in the Liaison Capitol Hill, a hotel located at 415 New Jersey Ave., NW. Heading up the kitchen is executive chef Ryan Morgan, the former sous chef at Ten Penh. Cuisine will be regional, with a focus on Southern cooking, and appropriately adorning the walls will be murals of political figures.

Dessert lovers — watch out for the impending opening of HELLO CUPCAKE! on Monday, which will bring a wide variety of tiny treats, including dulce de leche and cinnamon chocolate chili cupcakes, to Dupont Circle. Owner Penny Karas uses fresh, local and seasonal ingredients to bake cupcakes each day in her shop. 1351 Connecticut Ave., NW.

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