D.C.’s latest French-grounded vacation spot with a c’est la vie mentality and knack for nightlife opens its swanky doorways on Tuesday, July 29. Barbouzard – which suggests “undercover agent” in French – unites a lauded chef’s longstanding recipes, bespoke music, and late-night aspirations on the outstanding downtown nook of seventeenth and Okay Road NW.
Briefly, the restaurant is “rooted within the magnificence of the Riviera” and rounded out by the remainder of the huge Mediterranean coast, says co-owner Nasr El Hage. Additionally informing the menu: celebrated French American chef and associate Cedric Maupillier, who shuttered his award-winning Shaw staple Convivial final December. Hage, a neighborhood actual property exec with Lebanese roots, teamed up with fellow investor Nellie Elana Gebrail and Dany Abi-Najm (whose household is of Lebanese Taverna fame) on the anticipated venture (1700 Okay Road NW).
As luck would have it, El Hage and Maupillier met precisely one yr previous to Barbouzard’s friends-and-family preview social gathering on Bastille Day 2025 this month. Hitting it off instantly, El Hage realized that Maupillier was the Gallic lacking piece to his restaurant-in-planning.
“Nasr got here to see me at Convivial whereas I used to be on the lookout for new alternatives,” Maupillier recollects. “I used to be about to go on trip again dwelling to France when he began speaking in regards to the Riviera, the place I used to be born.”
As El Hage described his imaginative and prescient, Maupillier was entranced, and signed on quickly after. Barbouzard options not solely tremendous French eating, which D.C. now has in droves, but additionally strives to beat the challenges of uniting meals, ambiance, and socialization multi function house.
“I needed a spot that closes late on weekends, in order that the nice time continues after dinner, to decorate up and exit, however not fairly nightlife,” says El Hage. “You may have a good time at 8 p.m. or 12 a.m.”
Maupillier showcases his South of France training and upbringing throughout Barbouzard’s plates. The menu “attracts from the Riviera but additionally each good place within the Mediterranean that has solar, olive timber, thyme, rosemary, and lavender,” he added, even “the place you possibly can hear the cicadas chirp.”
The menu options grilled fish and seafood, loads of vegetable dishes, and regional specialties, together with a brief listing of meats, steak-frites, and pasta. Highlights embrace the heady broth-based Bouillabaisse Marseillaise, a dover sole served Riviera type, a vegan Bolognese, and Maupillier’s personal must-have favourite: escargot.
“I attempted frogs; that didn’t work effectively – however People love escargot,” he says.
Drawing from different Mediterranean landscapes, the moules gratinee will get warmth from ‘nduja spice and Calabrian sausage from Italy; a roasted cauliflower receives a bathe of Center Jap za’atar on a tahini sauce bathtub.
El Nasr ensured that the menu additionally included some gadgets for a contact of luxe. See: foie gras “opera”; caviar service; and a pair of baller shellfish towers. Le Petit is $110 and Le Grand goes for $240, with oysters, littleneck clams, mussels, lobster, shrimp, Tahitian tuna, and hamachi crudo.
The bar highlights French spirits, aperitifs, and home infusions, with fancy drinks like, sure, the Caviar Martini, plus a Provence Negroni for a lighter tackle the traditional. The bottled listing features a prolonged depend of Champagnes and (400-plus) wines centered on French coastal areas that “inform the story of the ocean and French nation,” says El Hage. Cocktails and wines may be ordered within the restaurant or the semi-private bubbly lounge.
Barbouzard utterly reimagines the 6,493-square-foot house that previously housed Kellari Taverna, D.C.’s Greek restaurant that rose to recognition within the early aughts (and closed final yr). The look is supposed to seize France’s posh seaside spirit, with mild oak, marble, hand-blown glass chandeliers, and gilded accents. The varied cubicles, alcoves, bar areas, and leafy veranda seats provide areas for vigorous postprandial dialog.
The restaurant is supplied with a Funktion-One sound system, a professional-grade audio setup that’s a uncommon get for even a hot-ticketed membership. Within the very middle of the restaurant sits a DJ sales space and stage, as Barbouzard will host leisure all through the week, together with reside piano, sax, guitar, and violin performances for “horny, elevated” sounds, says El Hage. DJs are available in on Thursdays to Saturdays.
“We wish company to really feel issues,” says El Hage. The objective of the restaurant, provides Maupillier, is “l’artwork de vivre [the art of living], served each day.”
