2011 Fall Dining Guide
By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, October 16, 2011

If you don't believe bananas and olives belong in the same bowl, you haven't tried the Oval Room's butternut squash soup, a brilliant orange puree that's poured over a gathering of soft sweet fruit and saline green olives at the table. Sea urchin and jalapeno, another unlikely combination, pair up successfully in a riff on spaghetti carbonara that's so rich and soothing, you find yourself finishing every slippery strand (the heat is woven into the house-made pasta). Plenty of downtown restaurants put a steak sandwich on their lunch menus. Only this one, near the White House, bundles rosy slices of Asian-spiced beef with kimchi and pickled carrots in crisp ciabatta. The kitchen is incapable of doing anything ordinary, evinced in part by a veneer of coconut panna cotta and a sunny scoop of mango lassi (you read that right) that looks like a fried egg by way of the Taj Mahal. I never eat at the arty Oval Room without seeing a famous face or learning something new. My most recent lesson: Chef Tony Conte is cooking better than ever.

2010 Fall Dining Guide

By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010

If there's one lesson Tony Conte took away from his time at the four-star Jean Georges in New York, it's this: "I try to keep things exciting," says the chef of the Oval Room. Every dish, he notes, should have "a little pop and a little zing." Thus, a late-summer cucumber soup is dolloped with a cloud of foam that smacks of lime and jalapeno, and duck breast is spackled with a paste of honey, thyme, soy sauce and kazu, the yeasty byproduct of sake that might be the next "it" ingredient. Sliced into rosy bars, that duck is divine, but it's not the only draw on its plate. Conte adds to the entree's allure with glazed turnips, golden "tots" shaped from confit and potato, and pickled sour cherries to foil the richness. Vegetarians are welcomed with house-made whole-wheat pici (picture fat spaghetti) tricked out with sliced matsutakes, a warm web of Parmesan and hazelnuts shaved tableside. Walls the color of sage and chairs in burnt orange make for a tony place to eat raw slices of gingery hiramasa, the king of yellowtail fish and a refreshing first course; regulars such as White House press secretary Robert Gibbs underscore how close you are to the other oval room.