Grilled Oyster Company’s Chesapeake cioppino with grilled shrimp, clams, mussels, and rockfish, as well as grilled corn.
Dish of the Week: Winter Stews
Where to get it: Dukem Restaurant; Republic, Grilled Oyster Company, Bistro du Coin
We’re gonna call it: stews are so…hot right now.
Soup’s chunky, brash cousin, stews keep us going in these dark, Siberian-style days. They are cooked for hours—even overnight—to create depth of flavor as all the ingredients get to know each other better. Stews also cross the international spectrum, since pretty much any culture located where people can get cold has come up with something to throw over a fire and share.
We’d be remiss not to start with something from D.C.’s most famous imported cuisine: Ethiopian. The highlands get pretty chilly in the winter, as close to the equator as it may be. Visit any of D.C.’s local spots, like Dukem Restaurant (1114 U St. NW), for variations on wat. This traditional stew’s spice base is berbere, a deeply warming (and quite spicy) mix of cumin, nutmeg, tumeric, paprika, garlic, onion, coriander, and other spices. Check out the key wot, with beef ($14), or doro wat ($15), with chicken and a hard-boiled egg. The earthy, spongy injera bread it’s served on was seemingly made just to eat this dish. There are also plenty of veggie, lentil-based stews as well for the non-omnivores.
And the city’s most beloved meal isn’t left out. At Republic (6939 Laurel Ave. Md), there is a brunch stew featuring local pork belly in an umami broth. Billed as “ramen without the noodles,” it has roasted mushrooms, broccoli, scallions, and to reinforce its brunchiness, two delicately poached eggs that seep into the bowl when broken open.
Grilled Oyster Company (3701 Newark St. NW) also represents local with its Chesapeake cioppino (i.e. seafood stew). It features several local-water swimmers: grilled shrimp, clams, mussels, and rockfish, as well as grilled corn, and it also comes with housemade cornbread ($26).
Grilled Oyster Company’s owner Valerie Dugan said she knows the local bounty, even in the winter, is superbly soul-warming. She said the stew “was inspired by the great array of local seafood available in the Chesapeake Bay. It’s a delicious way to enjoy the best flavors our region has to offer…perfect for a wintry night.”
The French probably love butter, cream, and meat in equal parts, and the stews at Bistro du Coin (1737 Connecticut Ave. NW) don’t disappoint in any of those areas. With six options, you can find anything from classic cassoulet ($25), to veal with mushrooms, to rabbit in a creamy mustard sauce ($24). Make sure to ask for extra slices of fresh French bread to soak up all of that sauce.
Polar vortices have nothing on hearty bowls of stews, whether meaty and spicy or veggie and bright.
