That restaurant helped to usher in a new type of free-form tasting menu that borrowed from the Japanese tradition of kaiseki. Andrés is famously a disciple of Ferran Adrià of the now-closed El Bulli in Spain. Back then, the avant-garde destination was a six-seat counter located inside Cafe Atlantico, another restaurant owned by the chef (the restaurant got its own dedicated home in 2012). Minibar by José Andrés started service in 2003, one year after 2941 opened its doors in Falls Church. The city's most famous restaurant of the tasting menu variety opened more recently. We can help provide that as much as a lecture at the Smithsonian." "There's this appetite for interesting, intellectual experiences. Peter Pastan took a chance opening Obelisk in 1987, and it still lives on today, serving a five-course Italian dinner every night near Dupont Circle. The influence of nouvelle cuisine, which was popularized in France in the 1960's, eventually trickled down to American restaurants and ushered in the beginnings of the modern tasting menu in the 1970's. in the early 19th century, and many French restaurants continued to offer them even when a la carte service became fashionable. They were the norm until the modern restaurant arrived in the U.S. Tasting Menus: A Historyįixed price meals aren't actually anything new. And a tasting menu-centric restaurant can be the quickest way for a chef to establish a level of prestige by guiding diners through a signature experience stamped with his or her own distinct vision. Yes, Onwuachi has an impressive stint at Eleven Madison Park under his belt, but he's never actually worked as an executive chef before. The experience will command more than $150 per person, and require diners to fork over not just serious cash but also two or three hours of their night.
At The Shaw Bijou, he plans to raise the bar even higher with an ambitious 17-course menu at an eight table restaurant, available only through a ticketing system. One of the most highly anticipated new dining destinations comes from 26-year-old Top Chef contestant Kwame Onwuachi.
It isn't only long-established chefs who are betting on tasting menus today in Washington. Some tasting menu-centric restaurants, from Johnny Monis' acclaimed Komi to Minibar, the most expensive check in town, have weathered economic downturns and remain draws (Komi is still a particularly tough reservation to snag, even 13 years after opening). Aaron Silverman's brand new restaurant Pineapple and Pearls offers only 15-course tasting menus for $250, while lauded former CityZen chef Eric Ziebold is doing a similar model ($200 for seven courses) at the just-opened Métier. Nick Stefanelli opened Masseria in the buzzy NoMa neighborhood the slick Italian restaurant offers only three-, four-, and five-course prix fixe menus. There's been a definite resurgence just within the past year alone. Both tasting menus (set courses, often with added serving theatrics) and prix fixe menus (set courses, but with some choices within them) are more popular than ever today in D.C., especially inside new restaurants. in 2011) have since had to close, unable to sustain the concept.īertrand Chemel from 2941 Īnd yet, this hasn't stopped new tasting menu-centric restaurants from continuing to debut in Washington. restaurant to experience such a drop, and some never recovered - over the past few years, such restaurants as Rogue 24 and Eola (two ambitious tasting menu restaurants that had opened in D.C. Then that number dropped to under 10 percent. Before the downturn, 50 percent of 2941's sales were from tasting menus. "Businessmen had two or three hours for lunch before, and now they don't have that," Chemel remembered. It all started during the economic downturn of 2008. One of the first things to go? The emphasis on tasting menus. "We had a slow decline and we needed to react," the chef says. The loss of revenue was so dramatic that chef Bertrand Chemel and his team closed for a few weeks to regroup. The Falls Church restaurant had been a longtime destination for both business lunches and special occasion dinners, and tasting menus were core to its business. Fine dining destination 2941 was suddenly bringing in much less money in 2011 than it had in previous years.
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