By DCIst contributor Jenny Holm
After a six-week closure for remodeling, Dupont standby Urbana reopened last week with new Italian-influenced food and cocktail menus and an airier, Art Deco look. The bar and lounge area now boasts twice the space, while the main dining area feels more integrated with the bar and the Palomar Hotel’s lobby. “It’s much brighter down there,” Jacque Riley, a publicist for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, said. “The bar is like a beacon now that you can see it gleaming from every angle.”
Chef Ethan McKee remains at the helm in the kitchen. His revamped menus feature plenty of seafood options and a tantalizing selection of house-made pastas (most of which are available in gluten-free versions). This includes a black squid ink bucatini with calamari, shrimp, and mussels or the wild boar ragu with porcini mushrooms and pecorino. They’ll be served family-style during weekly Sunday suppers. Urbana’s dried pastas, jarred sauces and preserves can now be purchased directly at the restaurant.
Standouts among the antipasti include the duck sausage flatbread with caramelized onions, goat cheese, and figs, the risotto with lobster-scallop sausage, and the house-made charcuterie. Several dishes throughout the menu incorporate produce from the chef’s rooftop garden (at least while the weather cooperates). After-meal options include a frosty affogato and the chef’s rendition of his Italian grandmother-in-law’s ricotta cheesecake.
If you’re eating at the bar, seafood is available crudo (yellowfish, king salmon, red snapper); marinated (we’re happy to see sustainable and low-mercury sardines on the menu); on the half-shell (oysters); grilled (calamari); or pan-roasted (prawns). Deep-fried options include the mushroom arancini or fritti misti, the Italian tempura.
Not everything has changed. The restaurant’s signature pizza oven will go on artfully blistering thin-crust pies for bar and lunch customers, while bartenders will keep slinging those bottomless brunch bellinis with seasonal fruit purees.
Barman Lee Carrell has taken over as lead bartender and is rolling out an ambitious array of cocktails featuring a variety of house-made sodas, syrups and plenty of herbal accents. Go for the Show Down (rye whisky, cardamaro, pear and mole bitters) and stay for the Grapparinha (grappa, maraschino liqueur, lime and simple syrup).
Carrell is jumping on the kegged cocktail bandwagon, offering Negronis on tap for $10 each during happy hour (4-7 p.m., Monday through Friday). Other drink specials include $5 house red, white and sparkling wines, Peronis and Yeunglings; and $7 Aperol spritzes. Saturdays bring “aperitivo hour” (4-7 p.m.), featuring a rotating selection of cocktail specials that will hone your tastes for amari (Italian bittersweet liqueurs) and other cordials.
Urbana is located at 2121 P Street NW, at The Palomar Hotel.
