On a recent Sunday night, just eight days after opening, Opal was buzzing. Waiters in pressed white shirts and black trousers deftly dashed between tables at the new Chevy Chase D.C. restaurant, with the chatter of dozens of conversations nearly drowning out the contemporary music playing from above.
Opal is the latest venture of the owners of Nina May, Shaw’s popular New American eatery, but guests here can look forward to a different culinary experience — one focused primarily on coastal eats sourced from across the country.
“Nina May is so unique and I love everything we’ve created there, but the idea of copy-pasting that anywhere else seemed like something we could never actually do successfully,” said Chef and co-owner Colin McClimans.
McClimans and his business partner, Danilo Simic, wanted to broaden their options from the menu that drives Nina May — curated primarily from foods that can be sourced within 150 miles. For Opal, they wanted to pull from a broader radius. “We’re really looking at the West Coast and what we have in Maine and Massachusetts,” said McClimans. “There are a lot of different seasons that we’ve never really gotten to play with because [Nina May is] so mid-Atlantic focused.”
Opal’s guests can order a la carte or they can play roulette with the simple supper offering in which the diner choses an entree but trusts the chef to choose and prepare the rest of the multi-course dinner. (DCist was gifted this option.) The cocktails on the drink menu create by Simic are listed starting with the lightest beverages — like the citrusy caipirinha — to the strongest: the cognac sazerac and smoke.
Sometimes the simple supper items are plucked directly from the menu, and other times the appetizers and sides are experimental contenders for the main menu. One example of the latter is the roasted autumn squash, which just recently made the cut. “We wanted to do something that was an experience for the guest,” said McClimans, “Just like Nina May, we’re doing some family style so you can try a lot of things — really experience a lot of what we’re doing.”
Opal’s white brick exterior stands out amongst the strip of darker colored shops and restaurants that line Connecticut Avenue. The interior’s white walls and hardwood accents look beachy in daylight but modern and warm in the evening. The 1,900-square-foot dining room has a small bar along the right wall and a bustling open kitchen at the back end of the first floor. There is also a second-floor private dining area.
“We want to thank the neighborhood for recognizing what we’re doing. For the opening weekend we were fully booked in advance,” said General Manager Nenad Simic (no relation to Danilo).
“Downtown has so much — up here in Chevy Chase there’s really not as much of an experience-driven restaurant,” said McClimans, who is a Chevy Chase native and current resident. “We really wanted to try to bring something that was experience-driven and something that was worth coming uptown for.”
Opal is open Sunday, and Tuesday through Thursday, from 5 p.m. to 9:30 pm and Fridays and Saturdays from 5 p.m. – 10:30 pm.
