Blowing Hot and Cold

At Fahrenheit, the setting sizzles, but the kitchen's performance is just lukewarm

Fahrenheit
In the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown, 3100 South St. NW (near Wisconsin Avenue). 202-912-4110
Open: for breakfast Monday through Friday 6:30 to 10:30 a.m., Saturday and Sunday 7 to 10:30 a.m.; for lunch Monday through Saturday noon to 2:30 p.m.; for dinner Monday through Thursday 6 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 6 to 11 p.m.; for brunch Sunday 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. All major credit cards. No smoking. Metro: Foggy Bottom-GWU. Valet parking. Prices: lunch appetizers $6.50 to $13.50, entrees $12 to $24.50; dinner appetizers $6.50 to $14.50, entrees $18 to $34. Full dinner with wine, tax and tip about $90 per person.

Say the name Coke, and what comes to mind is probably a red-and-white can with cursive script. Think of the Redskins and your mental image is likely to be tinted with burgundy and gold. Among jet-setters, the Ritz-Carlton chain has long meant plush carpet, dark wood, solicitous service and, perhaps more than any other detail, cobalt blue stemware. Until now.

Taxi drivers are still learning that there is an even younger Ritz-Carlton in Washington than the hotel that rose 21/2 years ago in the city's West End. Even some longtime residents in Georgetown are unaware of their new-as-of-April neighbor on South Street, which does its unintentional Greta Garbo act between Wisconsin Avenue and 31st Street. A mix of residences and hotel rooms, this Ritz-Carlton looks as if it has gone on vacation, and that's a compliment. The formal reception desks have been replaced here by sleeker furnishings, and Norah Jones romances listeners on the soundtrack. Glancing around the airy, forward-looking lobby, visitors could be forgiven for thinking they'd wandered into a different hotel by accident.

The past isn't completely overlooked, however. Occupying a building that once housed a municipal incinerator, the hotel christened its bar Degrees and its dining room Fahrenheit. Catch that? Degrees plus Fahrenheit adds up to plenty of sizzle, at least as far as looks go. In the dining room, buffed wood floors are brightened with striped Tibetan rugs, and brick walls rise to meet a pewter-glazed ceiling. From several tables, you can even see a reminder of what this space used to be, in the form of a slender smokestack rising 130 feet from beyond the tall windows. Fahrenheit's theme continues on the table, where fiery orange handblown glasses alight instead of the traditional blue ones.

Hoping to lure locals as well as transients to Fahrenheit, the Ritz-Carlton company did some polling and came up with an American menu with a slight Italian tilt. That explains the minestrone here and the risotto there, as well as the antipasto that tops the list of appetizers and is designed for sharing. It's a little feast that includes grilled vegetables, bruschetta with artichokes, glistening olives and a mini-picnic of meats and cheeses, from winy prosciutto, to pepper-edged salami, to goat cheese slathered on lettuce leaves. It is the single best food idea in the restaurant.

Too bad there aren't more like it.

Fahrenheit reminds me why most restaurant critics visit a place multiple times before writing about it: It's the sum of the experiences that counts, and a lot can happen to shape an opinion between meal No. 1 and meal No. 3. Had I written about Fahrenheit after my first encounter, I would have reported that the service needed work, but the crab cakes were terrific, and so was the dining room. My second stop, for dinner, had me thinking meat was a better entree choice than fish, and wondering how to clone my top-shelf waiter.

After my last meal, I just wished the food was as delicious as the design. For such an exciting venue, the kitchen is turning out too many sleep-inducing recipes, like tomato soup partnered with half-melted cheese toasts, and supposedly dry-aged steak that exhibits none of the complex flavor or firm texture of meat that has been tended to that way. The wine list -- stocked with labels you can find in any market, and overpriced to boot -- tempts me to order beer.

If life were set to music, the arrival of the bread basket here would be accompanied by the theme from "Jaws," that pulse-quickening precursor to something odious. Picking out a breadstick (da-dum, da-dum), I crack it in half (DA-dum, DA-dum) and bite into one length. The stuff is frightening in its mediocrity, as is the wimpy loaf of bread tucked beside it.

Cutting to the highlights: The risotto is pretty good, its creamy grains threaded with wilted arugula and sweet corn, and topped with shell-on shrimp and tender scallops. And those crab cakes get a sunny lift from lemon zest in their seasoning.

Side dishes tend to be weak. Chicken, pressed flat in a small black skillet (the kitchen is fond of serving things this way), is well seasoned with oregano, lemon and garlic. But its mashed potatoes, pearl onions and artfully trimmed carrots are just boring. A veal chop poised over charred mushrooms and tomatoes arrives plump and juicy; too bad a stack of undercooked french fries has to ruin the party. There's nothing appealing about the grouper, though. Set on a vapid celery-root puree, the fish is surrounded by a broth with peas and carrots that could easily pass for chicken pot pie filling, minus the poultry. As is often the case here, the disappointment is compounded by the price tag: $27.50. At lunch, although prices are a bit lower, a Cobb salad looks like takeout from an ordinary supermarket, and a "lasagna" of eggplant layers thin slices of the vegetable, nicely crunchy with bread crumbs, with tepid blobs of mozzarella atop a pink sauce that has virtually no flavor.

Chances are, the dessert trolley won't contain anything you haven't seen before. Beneath the cart's glass cover await the requisite raspberry tart (dull) and chocolate truffle cake (ordinary). Except for the light and lemony cheesecake, you won't miss much by asking for the check after your entree. The sorbets are standard-issue, the fruit cobbler tastes like a scorched Pop-Tart, and creme brulee shows up without a properly torched top. There's not an original thought in the bunch.

The Ritz-Carlton took a gamble with its design here, and it paid off, handsomely. But the hotel seems to have forgotten that people might want more than window dressing for dinner.

Ask Tom

In upscale restaurants, when customers momentarily excuse themselves from their seats, a staff member frequently swoops in to refold their cloth napkins and return them to the table. Not all diners see this as the courtesy it is meant to be, though. Consider Deborah Orgel of Falls Church, who wondered about how hygienic that practice is. She recently found herself "thinking about how many dirty linen napkins [a] waiter was refolding and how often he washes his hands," she wrote. "If it is important to these classy . . . restaurants to put on a show about having a nice napkin," why not bring a clean one and remove the used cloth? Aesthetics aside, Orgel shouldn't worry, says Abigail Salyers, a professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois. Because napkins are relatively dry, she explains, the risk of their transmitting harmful levels of microorganisms is extremely low.

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