Sample Dinner Menu

If/When I finally get to cook for the wife & husband who own and operate my favorite restaurant, this is the menu I “think” I would serve. I could rewrite this every day for a month and would probably get 15 different versions, but this is it today.​

 

Black Bean & Lamb Velouté

For the last eight years, I've been lucky enough to be invited to the best service industry potluck/party that exists in DC. It's not a competition, but everyone knows who brought what. Attendees don't have to bring food – there's always too much food, so wine or whiskey are perfectly acceptable contributions. If you're a chef, however, and you do bring food, that dish really needs to be... let's just say it should reflect your best efforts. I brought this dish a few years ago. A fellow chef/guest tasted it and offered to trade me a pricey bottle of whiskey for the recipe... I would've given it to him for free, but thanks for the whiskey, Tony.

 

Japanese black azuki beans, roasted poblano peppers, leeks, and roasted garlic are all braised in house-made beef stock and puréed. The soup is topped with slices of chorizo sausage that is cooked sous vide, de-cased, and seared. The soup is finished with scallions and a horseradish & yuzu crème fraîche.

 

Cannellini Bean & Taleggio Cheese Soup

Cannellini beans are soaked in chicken stock, drained, rinsed, and soaked again in chicken stock, rinsed one more time, and then cooked in chicken stock. The beans are puréed with the chicken stock, onions, shallots, leeks, and garlic. Taleggio cheese is melted with a little cream and cream cheese and blended into the soup. Finished with Calabrian chilis and spring onions.
 

Scottish Steelhead Trout Crudo

Cubes of sashimi grade Scottish Steelhead are tossed with a house-made poke sauce and blended with brunoise of radish, jalapeño, poblano, shallot, and red onion, diced avocado, lardons of slow roasted black pepper bacon from Epic Curing, finely diced shallots, red onions, and poblano peppers, topped with micro-arugula salad, served with smoked paprika fried wonton crisps.

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Beef Cheek Mezzaluna

USDA Prime beef cheeks are marinated for three days in a red wine, soy, honey solution with garlic and spices. The beef cheeks are dried, liberally dusted with “beef” seasoning, seared and then cooked for eight hours, confit style, in butter and tallow. The cheeks are shredded, blended with roasted root vegetables, and grated tallegio cheese before being tucked into house-made pasta and cut to half moon shapes (mezzaluna). The mezzaluna are served with a portobello mushroom cream sauce and finished with pepperoncini oil.

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Wagyu Châteaubriand

A center-cut of Snake River Farms Wagyu beef tenderloin is marinated for 3 days in a red wine solution before being “reverse-seared” to medium-rare. The beef is sliced and topped with roquefort butter, served atop pomme de grace (fancy mashed potatoes with mascarpone and gruyere), and finished with a 2-bottles-to-2-ounces cabernet sauvignon reduction.

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Süßigkeiten für Kimberly (Sweets for Kimberly)

A scoop of sea salt/caramel gelato is served atop a center cut and warm square of our signature Brown Shugga Brownie (Belgian callebaut dark chocolate, brown sugar, brown butter, bourbon, espresso, peanuts, topped with sweet peanut butter kisses, and bourbon smoked sea salt). It all sits atop a hot sea salt, bourbon, peanut butter-caramel sauce.