Sarah Thompson and Henji Cheung don’t have prep cooks at their newly opened restaurant in Columbia Heights, Queen’s English. The married couple does their own chopping, washing, weighing, and mixing, and they don’t mind one bit.

“We have our hands in everything,” Thompson says. “We’re just trying to cook the food that Henji grew up eating and serve it with the wine that I’m in love with and goes great with the food.”

For my money, some of the District’s best food has been coming out of small restaurants that are exploring a range of Asian cuisines in ways that are simultaneously playful and contemplative: Himitsu’s lively Japanese (and Crane & Turtle before it), Kyrisan’s inventive French-Chinese (RIP), Bad Saint’s heady Filipino cooking. Cheung’s bold menu of dishes inspired by his childhood in Hong Kong belongs squarely in that pantheon.

Nearly everything starts with ginger, garlic, and scallions. “They’re kind of our holy trinity,” says Thompson, who manages the front of house and the bar and otherwise serves as a jack-of-all trades. The dishes are defined by high heat, wok cooking, fresh ingredients (the seafood is delivered daily), and a confluence of flavors that she describes as “sweet, sour, bitter, savory—kind of like all the umami flavors all at once.”

The menu is made up of just over a dozen shareable plates (priced at $13-$27), including a shrimp and scallop mousse that is somehow transfigured into a “naked dumpling.” Young pea shoots are enlivened by cured duck yolk. I might have fought my dining companion for the dregs of the soy-braised enoki mushrooms.

Queen’s English is also joining D.C.’s burgeoning natural wine scene, offering an extensive menu broken down by cider, fizz, rosé, orange, red, fortified, and “a different color”—a category of Thompson’s own invention that includes wines somewhere between the pink of a rosé and the deep maroon of red wine.

But Queen’s English opened about two weeks ago in an unusual way for a town that’s constantly flocking to trendy new spots: quietly.

“We don’t have a PR company,” Thompson says. “We’re just me and my husband trying to open a restaurant.” 

The word got out anyway. The 39-seat restaurant (and 10-seat patio), which doesn’t take reservations, has been steadily busy since its opening. Last Friday night, they even had to turn diners away.

But the couple’s goal isn’t a line up the block filled with trendy restaurant chasers. They’d rather be a part of the fabric of the neighborhood for the long haul. “The dream is to make this [restaurant] work for the rest of our working lives and then retire,” Thompson says.

Together, she and Cheung have more than 30 years of industry experience in New York, and they’ve long dreamed of opening their own restaurant—even purchasing lanterns they found at an antique shop for it years ago. But they realized it would never be feasible unless they moved to a less frenetic, expensive city. 

After nearly moving to downtown D.C., the pair bought an apartment in Columbia Heights. Thompson remembers walking around her new neighborhood and musing that the building that housed Good Silver (and before that, the Kangaroo Boxing Club) would be the perfect size. “I said ‘If anything happens with that place, we should jump on it,'” she recalls. “We had no idea.”

Six weeks after scouting commercial spots with a realtor, that’s exactly where they found themselves.

Thompson says the surrounding community has been supportive of their efforts, and it might help to explain how bustling the restaurant has been. “We really got to know our neighbors. It really helps to basically not leave the neighborhood for like six months,” she says.  

Where the Good Silver went for a dark, grandma’s house vibe (and a befuddling Monty Python-themed mural), Queen’s English has a glamorous warmth that reflects the couple’s desire to throw something like a nightly dinner party. The decor was inspired by the lanterns they bought years ago. Gorgeous panels of woven Brazilian wood were made by an artist friend. The kitchen is open. It’s a bit like eating at your most put-together friend’s house.

“I don’t want to be the next big thing. I want to be the next 20 years sustainable thing,” Thompson says. “We’ve worked in restaurants for a long time. Things don’t work out when you expand too fast, when you blow up. I’d love in the next 10 years if we’re still prepping our own food.” 

Queen’s English is located at 3410 11th Street NW. It is open Tuesday-Thursday from 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 5:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.