Willowsong Is the Newest Excessive-Stakes Restaurant at an Iconic Wharf Tackle

Tenured chef Jeffrey Williams is able to put his personal stamp on a storied Southwest Waterfront house that’s lengthy awaited the return of star expertise within the kitchen. The Los Angeles transplant is effectively conscious of the massive footwear he has to fill within the illustrious InterContinental Washington, D.C. eating room that famously misplaced two top-rated cooks in simply six years (801 Wharf Road SW). Prime Chef alum Kwame Onwuachi christened the luxury, 278-room resort with the opening of his Afro-Caribbean hit Kith/Kin in 2017, adopted up by chef Kevin Tien’s Vietnamese fine-dining sensation Moon Rabbit in 2020.

And now, almost two years after Moon Rabbit jumped ship, the resort’s newest lobby-level flagship is able to shine. Newly named Willowsong debuts on Wednesday, February 12 with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch out of the gate. Reservations simply went stay on Resy.

“It’s at all times totally different coming to a brand new market however I’ve achieved it a number of occasions,” Williams tells Eater. “I’m it with a recent set of eyes. To me, I’m a newcomer to D.C., so it’s taking the stress off.”

For the high-profile house’s third act as a contemporary American restaurant, Williams flexes his cross-country cooking muscle tissue to develop a hyper-seasonal menu that begins with wagyu steak and eggs within the morning and ends with duck tinga tagliatelle at night time. The resort poached Williams from the West Coast, the place he most not too long ago led the kitchen at Omni’s NOÉ Restaurant & Bar in downtown LA earlier than accepting the brand new function final fall.

“The very first thing I began doing was reaching out to farms right here on FaceTime,” he says.

The meats, seafood, and greens touchdown on Willowsong’s plates hail inside a 150-mile radius. Opening purveyors embody Household Cow (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania), Ovoka Farm (Paris, Virginia), and Miller Farms (Clinton, Maryland). Willowsong’s barely delayed gave Williams the present of time to develop these relationships, he says. He walked the native discuss in LA, too, the place he helped supply salmon from an Indian reservation.

“One of many largest factors of transferring again right here is the seasonality of all of it. California, you will get every little thing year-round,” he says.

Anna Kariel/Willowsong

Anna Kariel/Willowsong

The restaurant’s identify pays homage to the willow timber scattered across the nation’s capital, from the banks of the Potomac to the pond at Structure Gardens.

Hamachi tartare, crispy prawns and calamari, and Maryland littleneck clams communicate to the Chesapeake Bay, whereas dry-aged striploin and braised pork shank have a good time farms of Virginia and Maryland. Pastas made in-house embody cresto di gallo with crispy oxtail and squid-ink orecchiette topped with crab.

“I’ve been blessed to have labored throughout America, and this menu is all little nods to the locations I’ve lived,” he says.

The self-described “journeyman chef” from Philadelphia returns to the world with 15 years of culinary expertise, beginning at InterContinental’s sibling D.C. resort the Willard. Along with main a number of LA kitchens (together with Lillie’s Beverly Hills, Jane Q, and Tin Roof Bistro, to call a couple of), his background contains stints at Surfcomber Resort in Miami and Nios in NYC.

His new 152-seat waterfront workspace is the place Onwuachi earned the 2019 James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the 12 months; he instantly resigned in 2020 in hopes of looking for an possession stake in his subsequent enterprise. (Onwuachi made a large Southwest Waterfront comeback final fall at Salamander resort’s Dōgon.) Moon Rabbit moved in that fall, with Meals & Wine readers shortly naming it one of many 10 greatest eating places within the nation. Tien introduced plans to half methods with IHG in early 2023, and the restaurant abruptly closed that Could.

After allegations that resort administration misled Moon Rabbit employees about correct compensation practices, D.C. ordered IHG to pay Moon Rabbit staff $126,650 final 12 months. (Tien’s critically acclaimed, now-independently run Moon Rabbit reopened in Penn Quarter final 12 months, and was not concerned within the case.)

Resort staffers on the Wharf in the end gained the fitting to unionize. The momentary placeholder to Moon Rabbit was the generic surf-and-turf spot Dockside Restaurant and Bar, and lots of staff caught round for its new life as Willowsong. With a (now-settled) dispute over how the resort allegedly underpaid its hospitality employees, the brand new flagship restaurant marks a recent begin for many who are nonetheless round.

“They’ve seen the highs and lows and earned their stripes. It’s not typically you get employees that has labored for 2 extremely promoted cooks who know methods which are straightforward to translate,” says Williams.

Willowsong’s modest makeover options hovering stone partitions, stay greenery, leather-based banquettes, and brass finishes. An enormous mural from Maryland-based artist Irene Pantelis anchors the sprawling eating room.

The 20-seat central bar with prized views of boats bobbing exterior hopes to draw an enormous crowd once more with each day glad hour from 4 to six:30 p.m. (and beginning at 3 p.m. on weekends). Willowsong exhibits love for native breweries DC Brau and Proper Correct alongside old-world labels like Barons de Rothschild and E. Guigal by the bottle.

A waterfront-facing patio will come to life within the spring, as will a brand new dinner sequence that spotlights partnerships with its purveyors.

“I would like all these farms to shine so folks can go purchase [from them] and help the group,” he says.

Anna Kariel/Willowsong

The Meals Community champ on Beat Bobby Flay says he bought the bug to cook dinner from his grandfather, who opened a fish market in Philadelphia and ran a neighborhood gardening program.

He was again in LA final month to tie up unfastened ends when the ravaging wildfires hit onerous. His dwelling in San Fernando Valley was secure, however he witnessed firsthand the injury it did to the culinary group at giant. When the Palisades flames fully destroyed Malibu’s iconic waterfront restaurant Moonshadows, he jumped into motion to assist his buddies there discover work.

Williams’ cousin and spouse occur to be actors within the leisure business, having appeared on a latest Lebron James industrial and Netflix’s Uglies sequence, respectively. Numerous filming shifted to Atlanta throughout COVID, he provides, so an East Coast transfer made sense for him and his younger household.

Their new home in Waldorf, Maryland is a 10-minute drive from the Clinton farm the place Willowsong buys its ice cream, produce, and eggs — a product that continues to soar in value. “I can choose them up on the way in which to work,” he says.

He’s trying ahead to immersing himself on the Wharf, similar to he did in LA when he cooked dishes in tandem with a close-by live performance sequence to learn Angelenos. A gumbo is within the works for Mardi Gras on March 1, which will probably be Willowsong’s first large occasion proper out entrance. The resort is owned by the builders of the glitzy, $3.6-billion Wharf mission (Hoffman & Associates, Madison Marquette) and Carr Firms. The Wharf’s different luxe resort is the Pendry, which options rooftop sushi at Moonraker however misplaced its Latin-leaning poolside restaurant Flora Flora a 12 months in the past.

“I don’t need to be that commonplace restaurant that is available in in search of glitz and glamour and 6 months later they don’t bear in mind who you’re. I would like you to return right here twice every week and [we] know your identify,” he says.

Anna Kariel/Willowsong

Anna Kariel/Willowsong