The prime Pennsylvania Avenue spot once occupied by Anthony Bourdain’s brasserie Les Halles, finally has an occupant. Del Frisco’s Grille announced its entry into the D.C. scene with a VIP preview last week before it officially opens on Saturday.
The restaurant is billed as a modern American bar and grill with an emphasis on shared plates. Among the appetizers are lollipop-style buffalo wings with a French cut leaving a clean shard of bone that makes them easier to grab. There’s also some kind of Philadelphia-Hong Kong fusion in a cheesesteak egg roll. Four flatbread pizzas, including a blue crab-topped number with creamed leeks, provolone and shaved fennel also share well.
The salads and sandwiches are what you would expect to find—Caesar, steak and bleu cheese, seared ahi tuna. The sandwiches include a juicy two-patty cheeseburger, a lamb burger with tzatziki sauce, crab-cake sliders, a homemade veggie burger, and, keeping up with trends, a fancy grilled-cheese. A modest menu of entrées includes a veal meatloaf, chicken schnitzel, and a couple of seafood options. Five prime cuts of beef are served in the evenings.
The menu is safe and the prices are affordable, on par with nearby competitors like Chef Geoff’s Downtown and Elephant and Castle.
The décor offers a clear visual cue to focus on the drinking. The walls are mostly glass enclosures of selections from the seemingly endless wine list. The bar area spills through folding glass doors that open onto a sidewalk patio sheltered from the street by wooden dividers, umbrellas with built in lights and heaters, along with a flat-screen television.
At the opening party, every cocktail-dress-clad hostess was gorgeous or enthusiastic, but none more than the two ladies beckoning guests to try the restaurant’s signature cocktails filtered through a luge carved out of an ice sculpture of the Del Frisco’s logo. One concoction, the Apt 5D, mixes Tito’s vodka with muddled strawberries, simple syrup, lemon sour and balsamic vinegar, topped with an optional crack of fresh ground black pepper. The pepper and vinegar add alluring bite and depth to the sweetness of the berries. The name comes, a manager said, from the temptation to drink too many of them, after which one is likely to wake up with regret in someone else’s apartment.
Del Frisco’s Grille
1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC
(202)-450-4686
