Photo by a namesless yeast
Tucked inside the Brad Pitt-fronted June/July issue of Esquire is the venerable men’s magazine annual list of what its contributors believe to be the finest drinking establishments in the United States. And this year, six D.C. bars made the cut, ranging from exclusive and pricey to dingy and dumpy.
The magazine picks out Columbia Room, Jack Rose Dining Saloon, Off the Record, Raven Grill, Round Robin Bar, and Tabard Inn. Ranging from the mixologist Derek Brown’s hideaway, appointment-only bar to stodgy hotel lounges, to the darkness of the Raven is quite the range, but it speaks well to D.C.’s drinking styles.
And relative to the rest of the country, the booze historian David Wondrich seems to have quite the affinity for D.C.’s drinking places. In total, just 28 bars across the United States made the list; D.C.’s tally of six is as much as the combined showings of New York and San Francisco, which means one of two things: Either D.C.’s bar industry has the best hype machine in the nation, or our bars are just that good.
It feels like the latter, especially considering Wondrich’s description of his excursion to the Raven, the Mt. Pleasant mainstay that makes no attempt to justify the word “Grill” in its title, zaps cell phone reception, and only recently made modest cosmetic upgrades. Wondrich writes:
Within five minutes, I was working on a hooker of Old Overholt and a can of Natty Boh ($7), deep in conversation with the bartender and one of the regulars about snow chains, old-school methods of child rearing, the late dustup in the Philippines between Generals MacArthur and Yamashita. There’s a poster of Marlene Dietrich between the ones of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Prominent among the men’s-room graffiti is the phrase “Fuck Brooklyn.” I don’t know of a sounder bar in America.
Agreed. And the jukebox remains excellent, too.
The other selections seem very much in line with the Esquire motif. Jack Rose wins points for its deep whiskey selection, Columbia Room for its secrecy and price points, and Tabard Inn for its antiqued library feel. As for Round Robin Bar, at the Willard Hotel, and Off the Record, in the belly of the Hay-Adams, those feel like very bland, typically federal choices. Then again, as the Post’s Fritz Hahn notes, Off the Record still makes one of the best martinis around, while the Round Robin Bar is the apocryphal birthplace of the mint julep.
