Last April, the pandemic forced Jury Meneses and his business partners to shut down Wheaton Lounge, a music venue and bar in Wheaton serving Dominican and Central American cuisine. The 350-seat establishment just couldn’t sustain itself doing takeout alone. Rather than get out of the hospitality business, Menses, Rafael Reyes, and Jose Lopez (who also co-owns El Catrachito, a Honduran restaurant in Wheaton), began looking for spaces in D.C., where they could focus on Latin American and Caribbean food.
At the beginning of January, they opened 3321 Bistro on Connecticut Avenue NW in the heart of Cleveland Park, drawn to the neighborhood due to its proximity to the zoo and the high volume of foot traffic. It’s a smaller, more manageable proposition than their last restaurant, with 82 seats during normal times.
Diners are greeted with a sprawling set of choices, encompassing dishes from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Spain. “It’s all the most popular platters from across all those countries,” says Meneses, who was born in Bolivia and raised in Argentina (Reyes is Salvadorean; Lopez is Honduran). “We haven’t seen a restaurant that combines all these cuisines under one roof.”
To help diners navigate between cultures, flags denote most of the dishes’ origins on the menu. A top seller is the Cuban ropa vieja, the country’s national dish. Beef is sauteed with paprika and other seasonings before being steamed, shredded, and accentuated with garlic, capers, olives, cayenne, bell, peppers, carrots, and celery. The finished dish is a saucy proposition ribboned with the tatters of tender meat, which goes well with rice and beans and patacones (twice fried smashed plantains, also referred to as tostones).
Another customer favorite is the chicken Milanesa, popular with Argentina’s Italian community. A large chicken breast is pounded thin and breaded with crumbs redolent with cumin, parsley, garlic, and oregano. First deep fried, it’s finished in the oven. The hefty slab is served either as a sandwich with mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato, or as an entrée with fries, rice, or a salad.
For those looking for another taste of Argentina, there’s a choripan sandwich. Slathered with chimichurri sauce green with parsley and oregano, the slightly spicy sausage arrives on a baguette.
The patacon burger substitutes in fried plantains for the bun to give it a South American twist. Enlivened with garlic, cumin, and oregano, the beef patties are flame grilled and garnished with lettuce, tomato, and a mayonnaise-ketchup mixture. For dessert, there’s tres leches cake, lava cake, and cheesecake.
Non-alcoholic drinks include house-made lemonade, passionfruit juice, and tamarind juice. 3321 Bistro’s showiest beverage is a pineapple piña colada served in a hollowed out pineapple — though their passion, lime, and mango mojitos, each forged from fresh juice, have earned a strong following.
There are a sizable number of vegan options, in part because Meneses is a former vegan and his sister’s family continues to follow a plant-based diet, so he always keeps them in mind. “Plus, a lot of stores and restaurants in Cleveland Park have a lot of organic and vegetarian options,” he says. “We wanted a little bit of everything for everyone.”
Currently, the restaurant is open for limited indoor seating, while offering takeout and delivery. Meneses hopes to set up outdoor seating in front of CVS next door, but he is waiting for permission from the pharmacy to move ahead with those plans.
3321 Bistro is located at 3321 Connecticut Ave. NW. Hours are Wednesday and Thursday 4 p.m.-10 p.m., Friday – Sunday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
