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Take a tour of Cleveland Park Since 2010, inventive new restaurants have opened in Cleveland Park and enlivened the historic neighborhood. Browse through these and more attractions to the Connecticut Avenue strip.
The National Zoo and the Uptown Theater have been drawing people to Cleveland Park for decades, but in the past two years, unique restaurants have added more reasons to visit this self-contained small town in the city. Newcomers include a place that serves only steak frites, the expansion of an elegant dining room run by a former White House chef, and a tiny bar of gourmet ice cream sandwiches.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
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Visitors will quickly discover Cleveland Park’s many other charms: leafy hiking trails, quirky dive bars, cozy date-night hangouts and homegrown shops that offer last-minute gifts for birthday boys and girls of any age. We picked these favorites for their one-of-a-kind qualities.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Vace
Before the chichi Palena Market opened down the street,
Vace
was the place to fortify your cupboards. At the spartan Italian market (and its sister location in Bethesda), every inch of shelf space is teeming with hard-to-find gems, including mozzarella made in-house every day, fresh ricotta salata, Italian truffle butter and dressings and spreads, Illy coffees and even fresh biscotti.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Vace
Few customers leave without something from the deli, which cranks out a mean sub, slicing mortadella, Genoa salami and provolone cheese to order, then piling each an inch thick on crunchy bread with hot peppers, lettuce, onions and dressing.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Vace
Vace's simple, thin-crust pizzas may be among the area’s best pies. The white pizza with spinach and the plain cheese are big sellers ($1.70 a slice; medium pizzas start at $8). Wait until evening to grab one, and you may find yourself out of luck.
Alex Baldinger
/
The Washington Post
Cleveland Park Bar & Grill
There are plenty of sports fans who live along the Red Line between Dupont Circle and Tenleytown, but that stretch doesn't have many places to watch your team’s big game. That’s why
Cleveland Park Bar & Grill
is such a popular neighborhood destination. The rooftop bar makes it especially enjoyable in warm weather, when the best seats in the house let you take in the sun and provide a view of the neighborhood and flat-screen televisions.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Cleveland Park Bar & Grill
But the place is jumping year round, especially during March Madness, when hundreds of young professionals who live nearby descend on the bar to root for their alma maters, and on fall Sundays, when the 40 TVs are tuned to the NFL. Sit at the far end of the bar, and you can keep your eye on multiple games.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Wake Up Little Suzie
The sign above the door of
this gift shop
looks like a bit like an anomaly among its neighbors. Written in a funky font featuring squiggly ’80s-reminiscent designs, it reads, “Fun things for fun people.” The little shop of wacky, clever and beautiful gifts, named for owner Susan Lihn, manages the difficult feat of being eclectic without feeling junky.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Wake Up Little Suzie
The standout offerings include a vast selection of unique jewelry, from beaded bracelets to colorful resin rosebud earrings, and baby gifts galore, including clever books (“Goodnight iPad”), brightly patterned sippy cups, mobiles with dancing ladies and onesies that elicit involuntary “awwws.” Along with a small selection of women’s clothing — mostly T-shirts and other jersey knits — there’s an impressive collection of home goods.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Atomic Billiards
Open since 1992,
Atomic Billiards
serves as Cleveland Park’s scruffy basement rec room. It’s dark and loud, and the decor features retro-corny murals of rocketships and Martians, glittering acrylic table tops and plastic ’60s-style lamps. The one-room bar is always lively: Groups of 20- and 30-somethings crowd around the five blue-felt pool tables and the two shuffleboard tables, and couples find seats to play Connect Four or Uno. This is one of the few spots in town where a menu at the bar lists board games that customers can play.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Atomic Billiards
Atomic’s neverending parade of specials attracts the neighborhood crowd. Women can play pool free on Sunday nights with a drink purchase, and everyone plays for half-price on Wednesdays. Guinness costs $5 every Thursday night. During weekday happy hours, which run until 8 p.m., Bud Light, Fat Tire and other draft beers are $3.25 and mixed drinks $4.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Atomic Billiards
The bar stands out for its jukebox, lovingly stocked by the staff with actual CDs. The eclectic mix includes the Smiths, Guns N’ Roses, the Beastie Boys, James Brown and the Clash -- everything you’d want for a night of hanging out and playing darts and pool.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Dino
Chef and owner Dean Gold’s
rustic Tuscan restaurant and Italian wine destination
is more than a neighborhood gathering spot. The wines are incredibly affordable, the menu changes every few days and always reflects what’s seasonal, the happy-hour specials are a steal and servers treat everyone like regulars. Gold is a gracious host and an active Twitter user who seems more than happy to engage with his customers.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Dino
If your tastes don’t run to wild boar salami, bistecca Fiorentina or house-cured duck on gramignia pasta, you needn’t worry. In addition to a $15 burger and a beer deal available at the bar every night, much of the regular menu is devoted to such simple classics as lasagna, pork spareribs and eggplant parmigiana.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Dino
Vegetarian or gluten-free? The menu makes it easy by marking such selections, including dishes that the chef can quickly modify to be meat- or gluten-free. Those touches turn what might otherwise be a small, noisy space into a comfortable neighborhood treasure.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Roma Garden at Firehook Bakery
This secret garden behind
Firehook
is the most charming alfresco dining space of any Cleveland Park restaurant — and one of the finest in the city. Framing the walled patio are about a dozen cabana-like nooks for table seating, shaded by a grape arbor growing through its wire support. Five more tables open to the sun surround the large, elevated fountain at the center, ringed with flowers. On the wall of the two-story building north of the garden, a mural pays tribute to the garden’s former caretaker, the Roma restaurant, which the Abbo family operated here from 1932 to 1997.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Roma Garden at Firehook Bakery
The courtyard has the rare quality of being both quiet and kid-friendly; parents can truly relax in this enclosed space after a long walk spent trying to prevent toddlers from darting into Connecticut Avenue traffic. Ideal for casual dining on the way to or from the National Zoo, the counter-service cafe inside serves baked goods, drinks and packaged salads and sandwiches, such as tarragon chicken.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Ripple/Sugar Magnolia
When chef Logan Cox moved from New Heights in 2010 to take over the kitchen at
Ripple
, he added an adventurous modern American menu to the warm little wine bar with a great cocktail program. The new home for his busy, novel plates finds him accessorizing with foams, purees or swipes of thick sauces even more. This summer, a grilled cheese bar emerged in the front of Ripple that serves happy-hour crowds from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and night owls from 10:30 p.m. to midnight.
Scott Suchman for The Washington Post
Ripple/Sugar Magnolia
Earlier this year, the restaurant expanded into the space next door, and the part facing the street became
Sugar Magnolia
, a tiny market of two small freezer and refrigerator cases stocked with prepackaged sandwiches and imaginative ice cream sandwiches, plus hand-scooped ice cream. Apart from the frozen yogurt shop up the street, it’s the only place on the Cleveland Park strip where you can get the cold summertime treat.
Linda Davidson
/
The Washington Post
Ripple/Sugar Magnolia
But pastry chef Alison Reed’s made-from-scratch desserts are in a gourmet league of their own: Think lemon-star anise ice cream between oat cookies, maple-bacon ice cream between waffles; or, for purists, chocolate ice cream between decadent peanut butter cookies.
Lavanya Ramanathan
/
The Washington Post
Ardeo + Bardeo
Until a renovation united them in late 2010, Ardeo and Bardeo were separate: one an American restaurant, the other a wine bar. You would never know it these days. The wine list at the
slick art-deco restaurant
will leave oenophiles agog with its breadth (Spanish cavas, California chardonnays, French Sancerre blancs), and the diverse dishes show Italian, French and even Asian influences creeping onto an ostensibly American bistro menu.
Scott Suchman for The Washington Post
Ardeo + Bardeo
Diners can slip into quilted booths for more formal dinners of rich, corn-studded pasta carbonara and pan-seared scallops surrounded by a moat of crunchy green papaya, Thai basil and chayote squash. But a more interesting choice might be to settle in at the glossy bar for a flight of wine and a handful of the surprisingly hearty small plates (most priced at less than $10), including the roasted brussels sprouts spiked with apricot. On a recent weeknight, plenty of couples in their 40s and older had made the wine-and-small-plates choice their dinner. Few date-night ideas look more romantic.
Scott Suchman for The Washington Post
Medium Rare
You can always spot the first-timers at
Medium Rare
by the grins they wear when a server appears unannounced with a second helping of steak frites. It’s satisfying when it’s unexpected (spoiler alert?), but if the meat doesn’t live up to the big reveal, well, there’s that saying about selling the sizzle vs. the steak. Opened in 2011, Medium Rare has plenty of both. Each meal begins the same way: A server deposits a basket of crusty bread on the table and asks how you want your meat cooked (you can substitute a portobello mushroom for the beef). At $19.50 per person, the encore portion brings the set menu’s value up a healthy notch.
Scott Suchman for The Washington Post
Visit the Going Out Guide for more neighborhood guides, itineraries and D.C. area excursions.
The Washington Post
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