SURVEY OF MARTINIS: JOE'S
The ‘Lettuce Entertain You’ hospitality group joins the survey with Joe’s - one of several restaurants occupying former downtown banks, just blocks from the White House. With no shortage of marble columns, a soaring 3 story volume, and Federal style millwork here, Joe’s DC comes off far more opulent than its Chicago, Vegas, and Miami locations that can quite shed the shopping mall restaurant look.
The happy hour starts early (2:30-6pm), fills up and stays packed with everyone from K street lizards and staffers, and a full spectrum of bridge and tunnel folks - often stuffier Lexus drivers in the dining room, and more lively Mercedes drivers in the lounge, and as the night proceeds, divorced business travelers and cougars (sometimes escorts) would not be out of place. You might catch a glimpse of heavy hitters from the world of sports and politics descending from the private dining rooms upstairs, but more often they enter & exit discreetly through a passageway from the next door corporate office lobby.
The Martini.
Served in what appear to be Bormioli ‘Atelier’ series 10 oz martini glasses. The upturned lip on the glass splits the difference between coupe and martini glass; it gets high marks for a coupe, but in a higher-end/steakhouse setting, accept no substitutes for a v-shaped martini glass. The glasses are room temp at best and not chilled down with ice. There is no Tanqueray, so I default to Plymouth or Botanist, but the modest premium for Monkey 47 is the pro move. It’s a measured gin pour, no less than 3 oz (or pushing 4oz if you simply order ‘dry’), with Jack Rudy olive brine, typically shaken, and served with top tier house-stuffed blue cheese Spanish queen olives. It may seem vulgar to have Monkey 47 shaken, but its one of the select few ultra premium gins that’s as stout as the old school London Dry’s, and the assertive Jack Rudy brine marries well, bringing salinity and contrast, without overpowering.
What holds back this martini from its full potential is temperature and refinement: Joe’s is generally well staffed for their volume of service, with all servers in full tuxedos and bartenders in vests & bow ties; chilling down the glass with an ice bath is expected. Their ice machines produce standard, smallish cubes, standard for a high-volume commercial setting, but chintzy for refined cocktails. They don’t typically double strain here, but it would solve the issue for having a thoroughly chilled (shaken) martini here, without the crushed ice bits passing through the hawthorn strainer, into your drink. For say a bottom dollar happy hour martini at the brawnier Palm steakhouse, that would be a feature, but at fault at Joe’s.
For to snack:
I’m not one to inquire the “market price” for the stone crabs etc, but I’m keen on their array of low brow but well executed bar snacks. Devilled eggs here get zhuzhed up with scraps of lobster and I’m not mad at it. The chicken tenders are dredged in house, and fry up closer to elegant Japanese tempura than the frozen bowling alley renditions we typically find. Should you score a bread basket, Lettuce Entertain You goes hard - you’ve got lil ciabatta rolls, an onion bialy, fresh corn & jalapeno cornbread, and ET bagel spiced lavash crackers; A+. I had high hopes for their fish & chips, but unlike the chicken tenders, the mushy white fish is caked in Chinese takeout sweet & sour chicken batter, served with less than mid tier fries, and like most places, their tartar sauce pales in comparison to Popeyes’. However, big trust on the Steakhouse Salad - a heaping pile of chopped romaine, cherry tomatoes and red onions, chunky blue cheese dressing, and with a generous portion of beef tenderloin, grilled to order at your desired doneness (I smart use of the tail ends of the tenderloin).
What could have been…
On the stereo you get a correct blend of jazz singers & standards, not with enough projection for atmosphere when it's full. And really once you see what Steven Starr's team has done at The Occidental up the street, you have to consider the unfulfilled theatric potential of this space. The cheap black quartz bar counters does it no favors, and much of the light fixtures are the wrong temperature. With some investment, Joe’s downtown could capture the none-Floridian’s fever dream of posh old-school south Florida… Palladium Era jazz bands, Meyer Lansky type shit, warm spot lights washing over columns, areca palms and fountains everywhere. Something far less extravagant than the Breakers in Palm Beach, and less of a Lynchian bordello than Bern’s in Tampa, leads me to the former Clyde’s of Tysons as point of reference.
At its entrance was deeply canopied porch with teak Adirondack chairs, where I spent summer evenings in the early 2010s with Manhattans & cigars, then once inside the dimly lit bar with art-nouveau wrought iron flourishes everywhere, serving $7 cheeseburgers after 10pm, while some A-tier Bar Mitsvah’s were held in the PDR upstairs. Then the dining room, encircled with the bacchanalian ‘Arcadia’ murals of artist William Woodward, with a sunken lower tier where you could better experience the gurgling and chlorine aroma from the fountains, with palm trees under the sky lights, despite being in northern Virginia, all washed in warm halogen light; all very Florida coded, it was lovely… The Clyde’s group sold the land under it, with just about everything inside sold at auction, and demoed the site by 2018. Much of the master plan was built before the pandemic, but the former Clyde’s parcel has so far only served as a construction staging ground.
Worth a stop when downtown, preferably at happy hour, to enjoy a glass of top shelf Far Niente Napa chardonnay and happy hour snacks, or for a dirty martini with blue cheese olives and steak salad whenever else.