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5 Restaurants to Make You Forget Resolutions
January 3, 2012
Washington Flyer
5 Restaurants to Make You Forget Resolutions
These new havens of food goodness beg us to leap from the wagon...quite happily.
I know this is the time of year for resolutions that usually involve going to the gym, cleansing, cutting back the carbs, and other forms of torture and deprivation. But I’m just not down with that. My waistline might whisper, “Salads! Vegetables! Fruit!” but my brain screams, “Steaks! Burgers! Oysters!”
If you’re wondering who won that battle, read on.
Talk about finding a pearl in an oyster! Chefs Jeff and Barbara Black, who brought us BlackSalt, Addie’s, Black Market Bistro and Black’s Bar and Kitchen, ventured into the heart of D.C. this past fall to open the latest in a string of hits, this time on 14th Street.
Pearl Dive Oyster Palace (1612 14th St., NW; 202/986-8778; $75 per person, all inclusive) snares you even before you walk in its door. A bar opens up to the street, where impulse slurpers can down a few bivalves on the way to Whole Foods. (I’ve done this.) By all means, though, step inside the 78-seat restaurant for the full experience, but be prepared to wait. Pearl Dive doesn’t take reservations, and this place is a hot ticket.
TheBlacks spared no expense to outfit their new baby, having wisely boughtthe building. I call it shacky chic: lots of whitewashing (rafters, floorboards, wainscoting), exposed brick and stripped plaster to imbue asea-worn effect, plus aluminum-edged wood plank tables, nautical lighting and gewgaws, including hanging sculptures fashioned from anchorchains.
The vibe is bustling, and the crowd is well-heeled and diverse; PearlDive is already a fave of the neighborhood’s old and new guard, who mingle easily with trendies, Hill staffers and singles on the town.
The first sign of good things to come from the kitchen is that the tables are outfitted with three kinds of hot sauce (Frank’s, Crystal, Tabasco). Oysters are the order of the day (and night) here, and in any ilk they are terrific. Start with ice-cold, raw, on-the-half-shell Dragon Creeks, Skookums, Malpeques or Belons (they offer four sauces to match different favor profiles). From there, migrate to the cooked variety: grilled bacon-wrapped angels on horseback are weep-worthy; Tchoupitoulas with oyster confit, crab, tasso and corn cream are rich and flavor-packed.
Next stop: gumbo. (Have you caught on to the New Orleans influence?) I’mpartial to the oyster, shrimp and crab version jazzed up with andouillesausage, even if I prefer my gumbo a little darker and less floury. I haven’t tried the braised duck and oyster gumbo yet, but it intrigues me.
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