The exterior of Café Atlántico. Photo by spectreman.Superstar Chef José Andrés will temporarily shut down Penn Quarter’s Café Atlántico this summer to open a pop-up restaurant paying tribute to the history of American cooking. In a partnership with the National Archives, Andrés’ America Eats Tavern will complement their new exhibit: What’s Cooking Uncle Sam? The Government’s Effect on the American Diet. The exhibit will feature records, photos, films, public programs and a recipe book on the influence of the government on what Americans eat, with Andrés serving as chief culinary advisor.
The restaurant will serve up Andrés’ take on some iconic staples of American cooking with a casual menu on the ground floor and fine dining on the second and third, with a portion of the profits benefiting the Foundation for the National Archives. The menus will include brief descriptions of the history of the food being served.
There will be Burgoo or Brunswick Stew, a sustenance dish typically made with whatever meats and vegetables were regionally available for those scraping by in Kentucky and the southeastern states. (Will Andrés feature the traditional ingredients of squirrel and opossum in his?) You may find a shrimp and grapefruit dish with a story about the introduction of grapefruit to America. There’s sure to be classics such as New England Clam Chowder and Clams Rockefeller. And for dessert, maple syrup drizzled over snow, a children’s staple in many a Vermont backyard. The Washington Post reports that the first floor of the space will serve grab and go foods like hot dogs, lobster rolls and cheesesteaks.
The exhibit, housed blocks away at the National Archives, will display classic posters advertising vitamin donuts and a food chart with butter as its own food group, discuss school lunch programs and war-time rationing, and portray the government’s role in what we eat through regulation of farms and factories. An enticing lineup of events for the first month of the exhibit includes discussions on Jewish holiday cooking, the White House kitchen during the FDR administration, the emergence of foods that make up African American culture and talks with Andrés and exhibit curator Alice Kamps.
It’s an exciting and smart move to see the National Archives dive into America’s obsession with all things food. The Archives, thought of by many as a stuffy place that houses some historic documents and long lines of tourists, is getting in on the action that’s made celebrities out of chefs and elevated kitchen-based reality shows to gold status in television lineups.
There’s not a whole lot of food-as-culture options in D.C.’s national museums. The Smithsonian (of which the Archives is not a part of) has Julia Child’s kitchen and its own sort-of pop-up restaurant every year at the Folk Life Festival. But we’ve seen the kitchen already, and the attempts at cooking up Bhutanese food in tents on the mall often falls flat. Café Atlantico is feeling a little old itself, too. So it should be a big win for both sides, as well as the public, which gets to consume the edible and intangible parts of the partnership. The opening of the restaurant and exhibit has the potential to string food and learning together in the same successful way that Mitsitam Cafe did when it opened in the National Museum of the American Indian six years ago.
America Eats Tavern is scheduled to open, appropriately enough, on July 4. Café Atlantico and Minibar will close on June 12 to remodel the space into America Eats Tavern, which is scheduled to remain open until early 2012, coinciding with the run of the Archives exhibit. Andrés’ lauded Minibar will remain open alongside America Eats and expand its seating capacity after the pop-up shuts down in January. Andrés, who was recently named Outstanding Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation plans to reopen Café Atlantico in a yet to be determined new location.
