Can’t decide what you want to eat or dining out with a group with diverse tastes? Assembly, the area’s latest food hall, located above the Rosslyn Metro stop in Arlington, hopes to entice you by taking a something-for-everyone approach, including plenty of healthy-ish options.
Their lineup includes Great Lake Diner; Charo’s vegetarian tacos; Asian street food stall Beng Beng; GiGi’s salads, smoothies, and grain bowls; Big Day Coffee; sandwich joint Sammy Pickles; modern-minded bodega PNTRY; and Fog Point, a 40-seat sit-down oysters and seafood restaurant with a separate entrance. Diversity of cuisines and dining experiences was top of mind for the team at DMK Restaurants, which developed, owns, and operates Assembly, as well as other restaurants and culinary ventures in Chicago and elsewhere.
“We wanted it to be the kind of place you could come regularly and never get tired of the offerings,” says owner David Morton. “Shareability is always important to us, so is portability.”
Customers can order dine-in, takeout, or delivery from any of the concepts individually. However, the full experience is to sit down, order from one or more concepts via the QR code menu, and a server will bring food to the table.
The menus are a collaboration between DMK Restaurants’ company chef Brian Huston, a James Beard nominee for Best Chef in the Great Lakes Region, and executive chef Cameron Cousin, whose long resume includes stints with the EatWell DC restaurant group (Grillfish, Logan Tavern, et. al.) as well as The Smith on U Street. The pair spent three weeks hashing out all the dishes for each concept, while keeping an eye on the overall offerings. “We went through the whole menu and all the ingredients to make sure we cross-utilized just enough, so it didn’t seem like we put avocado on everything,” says Cousin.
Currently, the venture is still finding its sea legs and not all concepts are fully open, so there’s what Cousin’s calls a “greatest hits menu.” Options include everything from a sandwich packed with corned beef slow-cooked in IPA and three-cheese mushroom flatbread to xiaolongbao hiding pork-rich soup, pan seared salmon on a summery cucumber salad, and a broad range of house-baked goods, like oversized chocolate chip cookies and doughnuts whose flavors will change with the season. For those seeking the healthy-ish options, there’s also a raspberry-spinach smoothie fortified with flaxseed and almond butter, tofu-topped noodles tossed in scallion sauce, and pesto-dressed kale on a bed of brown rice.
The opening bar menu features half a dozen beers on tap, and another half dozen in bottles and cans. Cocktails stick to the classics, like a mojito perked up with pineapple and ginger zest, and a cinnamon-blackberry syrup-sweetened Old Fashioned. There are nearly 20 wines, split between California labels and global varietals from Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, and elsewhere.
The space is massive — 29,000 square feet spread over two floors and the terrace — with capacity for 500 diners inside and another 125 outside. With clean lines, light woods, and plenty of natural light, Assembly’s look is modern and minimalist. One thing it doesn’t evoke is a mall food court. That was intentional.
“We wanted a place that had a cohesive feel to it,” says Morton. “In food courts – and a lot of food halls – you get a lot of visual diversity, because there’s your brand next to mine.”
Interestingly, the pandemic didn’t reshuffle many components of the food hall’s design. “These are long-term plans for us,” says Morton, “and we’re hopeful, along with the rest of the world, that COVID isn’t going to last forever. We always wanted to deconstruct and reconstruct how a food hall can work.”
Food halls have been trending for a while, and the D.C. area already has a number of them, including The Roost, The Block, and Union Market. Like some others, Assembly is filled only with its own concepts. “We like that from a continuity perspective,” says Morton, “having the ability to oversee every nook and cranny from a hospitality standpoint and it gives us total flexibility to flip a concept if something isn’t as popular as we hoped.”
Though Morton is based in the Chicago area, he has a strong connection to the D.C. region. His father, Arnold J. Morton, co-founded Chicago-based Morton’s The Steakhouse; D.C. was the first city where he expanded the brand. “So I’ve felt a closeness to the market forever,” says Morton.
Currently open only during the week, the team is waiting to see what customers want before expanding hours further.
Assembly is located at 1700 N. Moore St., Arlington. Open Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-9 p.m. (not all concepts are open for all hours).
This post has been updated to accurately reflect Assembly’s ordering system.
