When Hollis Silverman began conceiving the Duck & the Peach, she imagined a restaurant with a dual personality.
“I wanted a kitchen counter vibe during the day and then a bigger, grander dinner party at night,” says the former chief operating officer of José Andrés’ ThinkFoodGroup.
Her inaugural independent endeavor opened in late December on Capitol Hill with a two-for-one mentality, operating as a casual café during the day and a restaurant offering elegant, rustic New American comfort fare in the evening.
The name, too, has a pair of meanings. One interpretation nods to the restaurant’s ingredient-driven ethos. “And we used to have a black lab nicknamed the Duck and my daughter’s nickname is the Peach,” says Silverman, who lives just a few blocks away. “Naming a restaurant is hard. I put so many names into the GoDaddy domain search.”
Silverman developed the menu with well-known chef Douglas Keane, whom she used to work with at Jardiniere in San Francisco. The kitchen is presided over by Jim Diecchio, whose rich resume includes time working as the culinary director for North Carolina-based restaurateur and TV personality Vivian Howard’s restaurant group, and local stints working at Brine, Zaytinya, Vermillion, and Iron Gate.
By day, the café — with patio seating for 40 — offers plenty of pastries, including cinnamon rolls, scones, muffins, and Catalan xuixo (croissant dough filled with pastry cream, deep fried, and rolled in sugar). Tomato toast is a play on Spanish pan de cristal con tomate; diners have the option to coronate it with ribbons of jamón or a fried egg. House-made sourdough laced with aniseed and coriander comes toasted golden, lacquered with goat’s milk butter, and finished with seasonal preserves. “We’re playing towards the comfort foods people want,” says Diecchio.
When darkness falls, the Duck & the Peach flips to a currently takeout-only operation. Dinners are built around quartet of large-scale entrees serving two to four people ($40-$85 per meal). The star is whole roast chicken from FreeBird in Pennsylvania Amish country rubbed with a mix of sumac, lemon zest, and wild oregano. After becoming a glistening gold from a spin in the orange Rotisol rotisserie, the bird gets a pop of acid from charred lemon. Red wine braised short ribs arrive on a bed of polenta, so does lamb neck simmered with apricots, Calabrian chilies, cumin, and orange and lemon zests. For vegetarians, a cauliflower head, seasoned with the same spice mix as the chicken, arrives on minty tzatziki-ish spread.
Each main arrives with a cluster of included sides, such as modernist tabouleh made with finely chopped kale and cauliflower “rice” pepped with pickled onions and fresh herbs, and crispy cubes of duck fat fried potatoes with aioli to plunge them in. To complement the meal, there’s a tight selection of self-proclaimed “cheerful wines” and large format cocktails designed by bar manager Philip Keath.
There are a few desserts, including tender olive oil cake — a recipe Diecchio picked up staging for James Beard Award winning chef Marc Vetri — and crispy chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with Maldon sea salt.
In keeping with the ingredient-driven ethos, Diecchio sources locally from Path Valley Farms, Karma Farms, and Shepherd’s Whey Creamery, and tries to hit up the Dupont Circle farmers market on Sundays.
The food has been deeply influenced by the pandemic. “Dining is not at all the same, so cooking is not at all the same,” says Diecchio. “It changes everything we learned to do in kitchens in the past.”
Research and development for a dish involves testing its durability, either putting it in a takeout container, waiting for 20 minutes, and then tasting it, or taking it home and reheating it to see how it held up. Not seeing guests enjoy the food has been difficult for Diecchio, who misses the “instant gratification of making people happy.”
When the restaurant does start welcoming diners, it will seat 70 spread across tables, booths, and the bar. Silverman wanted the space “to feel like you were walking into someone’s house,” so the open kitchen is the central figure. Bookcases along the wall are dotted with cookbooks and some of Silverman’s father’s impressionistic paintings. There’s an emphasis on light woods, gold accents, and plenty of light, giving the space an auric brilliance.
This is first of three interconnected concepts from Silverman, all powered by the Duck & the Peach’s kitchen. La Collina, a family-friendly Italian restaurant, and the 30-seat gin bar the Wells, an upscale gin joint, will both open later this year.
The Duck & The Peach is located at 300 7th St SE. Hours are Wednesday- Sunday 8 a.m.-3 p.m. for breakfast and lunch on the patio or to go and 5 p.m.-8 p.m. for dinner to go.
This post has been updated to correct details about the creator of the bar’s cocktails, the upcoming restaurants from the team, and the inspiration behind the restaurant’s name.
