The Shaw Bijou bar. (Photo by Kevin Carroll)
By DCist contributor Kim Vu
For new restaurants, expectations are everything—and expectations are usually telegraphed by price. At the range of The Shaw Bijou and its contemporaries, it had better be a memorable experience, something both delicious and entirely unique. That’s a lot to foist on any restaurant, much less one from a first-time executive chef. But when you announce a $185 “ticket” (not including drinks, tax, or tip), you’ll get an earful based on those expectations. The commentariat seized on the price tag as presumptuous and reviewers took issue with the service, while The Washington Post called out some duds and said it left their party hungry.
I have no idea what any of them are talking about. This is one of the best dining experiences in the city, and it is worth the cost—assuming you’re someone who would consider spending this much on a dining experience to begin with. And if you’re not, the restaurant recently began offering an a la carte bar menu to get a taste of the experience.
So, how did the Shaw Bijou surpass my expectations, lowered or not?
I had been excited for the restaurant long before its provenance was announced, as I watched a run-down townhouse restored into a stately royal blue charmer. The Shaw Bijou maximizes its space: dinner starts with a walk upstairs to a beautiful wood bar for cocktails and a canapé, progresses through the humming kitchen for a quick tour, and settles into a warm and spare dining room, with the occasional bounce back into the kitchen for a bite. It manages to feel graceful rather than put-on. Plenty of places say they want to make you feel like you’re at a friend’s dinner party; this is the first time I’ve actually felt it.
The service was warm and starts from the top. Chef Kwame Onwuachi cracks jokes as he traverses kitchen and dining room. Rather than a fixed cocktail menu, a bartender asks questions that play out like a choose-your-own-adventure: do you want refreshing and citrusy or maybe brooding and warmer? The end result varies but the reaction is the same: a companion’s mint gimlet is as pitch perfect as another’s bourbon negroni. Shaw Bijou is also one of the only times I’ve ever felt truly engaged by a sommelier (we got the midrange $100/head pairing; there is also a more expensive one). There’s no standoffishness here, just an effortless and friendly explanation of the excellent pairings.
Where some places feel like they’re putting on a performance while keeping an eye on the clock—like some sort of culinary Cirque de Soleil—dinner here is allowed room to breathe. By the time we look up at our watches, four and a half hours have passed from the time our 7 p.m. seating started, all the better to let us enjoy the birthday we’re celebrating. And that special occasion is marked by an off-menu chocolate cake the size of a cantaloupe.
There are times when this warm service can be a bit much. Most dishes come with an explainer of how they draw from Onwuachi’s journeys—his time eating street food in New York or chasing down elderly clam-mongers in Thailand—which grow a little tired as the night goes on. Still, they always feel like they come from a place of exuberance rather than performance.
Unlike the stiff experience at some fine dining establishments, dinner feels fun. One course involves Chef Kwame asking the vegetarian member of our party to crack open a salt-encrusted sweet potato, like a branzino, with a mallet in the kitchen. After a beets and cream dessert, my wife mentions the beet tattoo I’d gotten earlier that day (this is a true and silly fact). Minutes later, Chef Kwame arrives with an off-menu course, saying “I heard someone here likes beets. So I made you guys sort of a cheese course. Camembert and beet mole on flatbread.” These are the giggly moments that make you remember meals.
Yes, fun also occasionally means having to stifle your eyerolls at overdone elements, like the liquid nitrogen chilling your glasses, or the much-talked-about Icelandic sheepskin barseat covers. But those bits are fewer and farther between than the early reviews suggested.
Most importantly, dinner was freaking great. Three pieces of crab poached in garlic butter and topped with shaved bottarga recreates the texture of the most delicate chunks of lobster you’ve ever had. A play on steak and eggs is taken up a thousand notches by the use of Wagyu and quail egg—even more so when you dip the meat into the “yolk,” a mellow onion soubise. Squab empanadas dipped in foie gras cream and chased by a habanero soda are rivaled only by the remixed version that arrives a few minutes later with the squab breast seared to perfection on a habanero mojo sauce. A lively conversation about politics is stopped dead in its tracks by chortles over a companion’s face when she melts while eating a simple Moroccan flatbread with pesto butter. Even the alternative options dazzle: several dishes beget a round of pleas to the table’s lone vegetarian for bites.
The restaurant has clearly heard its early critics. Gone are the odd garnishes and the so-called dud dishes that the Post claimed didn’t work, replaced by more focused plates. The foie gras/pineapple combo? Not the salt bomb that Tom Sietsema experienced. The desserts that are too sweet or too incomplete? Scrapped or fixed. Are there flavor combinations and dishes here that can be found elsewhere? Sure, but that doesn’t stop the honeynut squash veloute with parmesan foam from being a worthy competitor of the Inn at Little Washington’s liquid autumn soup.
The Shaw Bijou invited a lot of comparisons to a number of celebrated D.C. restaurants based on its price: Komi, Pineapple and Pearls, Minibar, the Inn at Little Washington. Based on this meal, that’s deserved company for it to be in.
The Shaw Bijou is located at 1544 9th St NW. Reservations can be made online, and a ticket costs $185, without tax, tip, or drinks. The a la carte menu is available Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 p.m. to midnight. Reservations can be made on the day-of by calling the restaurant at (202) 800-0640 between 1 p.m and 5 p.m, or by email.
