It’s always nice to hear something good about our area. The New York Times, in a recent article on the DC restaurant scene, singles out Petworth Citizen and Crane and Turtle for praise. The article starts like this:
WASHINGTON — On a scrubby block in a working-class neighborhood east of Rock Creek Park, plopped down among cheap hair salons, a dry cleaner and a sad-looking liquor store, the future of dining in Washington, D.C., has arrived.
On one side of the street is Petworth Citizen & Reading Room, a warm little haunt with schoolhouse-style light fixtures and Art Deco wallpaper, where old-fashioneds, complete with a ground sugar cube, are mixed for $4 at happy hour
On the other is Crane & Turtle, a sewing-box-size Asian-influenced spot where an adventurous bouillabaisse with pan-roasted cobia and a delicate maitake-mushroom tempura dish are cooked by a former sous-chef from the soon-to-close CityZen, one of the city’s most upscale restaurants.
The article’s argument is that DC restaurants are getting good and are moving into residential neighborhoods, but that’s not exactly accurate: Upshur Street, where those two spots are located, has long been a commercial strip, albeit small. And that’s not much different from New York, where restaurants pop up on side streets. A much better example of this would be the new restaurants on 12th Street NE in Brookland like Brookland’s Finest, but even that is still a commercial strip.
The article continues with the rest of the New York Times dining bingo — expense account steakhouses and the like, and mentions places like Rose’s Luxury and Little Serow that are definitely not in residential areas — Barracks Row and the 17th Street strip, respectively. Kapnos, Mike Isabella’s Greek spot at 14th and V (again, not residential) is also mentioned in the accompanying photo gallery.
In fact, I was going to make a joke that the article sounds like it belongs on the @NYTOnIt Twitter, but they beat me to it:
GUYS, apparently there are restaurants in that little town we all know as Washington DC. The Times is ON IT. http://t.co/xXsgoqAmb3
— The Times Is On It (@NYTOnIt) October 22, 2014
That said, it’s nice to get a shout out for our area (and the restauranteurs behind Crane & Turtle, Petworth Citizen and Room 11) and of course, the Times did call 11th Street the “Hip Strip” back in 2011 when they wrote about Room 11, Wonderland and BloomBars. I do like Petworth Citizen, and Crane &Turtle sounds awesome, though I haven’t had a chance to visit yet.
Photo by Michael K. Wilkinson
