Romantic Perches
From bakeries to wine bars, there are lots of places to woo your loved one
While it would be easy for me to tick off all the restaurants I consider to be romantic in the Hallmark sense, the reality is, you probably already know about them, and they're probably already booked for February 14.
Don't worry -- yet. If you're willing to stretch your idea of a hot date, you can still find plenty of places to keep the home fires burning, or at least let your significant other know that you can think outside the Tiffany box.
  Wine and a sexy atmosphere help to make Iron Bridge Wine Co. a draw for couples. (James M. Thresher - Twp) |
Crunched for time? Consider gazing into your date's eyes over midafternoon tapas in one of the city's dreamiest nooks. Up for a drive? One of the area's best wine bars awaits in (no way!) the Maryland exurbs. Instead of a full meal, you might want to head straight for dessert, and the arrival of a new bakery-cafe in Northern Virginia lets you do just that. For those revelers who absolutely, positively have to have the grand French tour, I'll remind you of a restaurant that might have dropped off your radar but is worth getting reacquainted with.
Finally, there's no rule that says you have to celebrate the holiday on its actual date, when restaurants tend to be filled with amateur diners, and set menus (and high prices) are typical. When it comes to Valentine's Day, after all, one size shouldn't fit all.
The buzz on Buzz bakery (901 Slaters Lane, Alexandria; 703-600-2899) is this: The Belgian waffles at breakfast are high, light and particularly decadent when they're decorated with boozy bananas and chopped nuts. The lattes, made with Illy coffee, are real eye-openers. The best breakfast "sandwich" around may possibly be the one made here, swapping brioche for the usual bagel or biscuit and hiding a center of cheesy, creamy scrambled eggs. The caveat: The price of admission in the a.m. includes the pitter-patter of little feet and the bang! bang! screech! screech! of small customers playing in Buzz's kid-size play kitchen near the entrance.
So, go at night if you want a bit of quiet. That's when the wine corks are popped, the cheese plate comes out and the lights are dimmed in this industrial corner storefront, cheered up with antique kitchen equipment on the walls and a soothing soundtrack.
Desserts, from pastry chef Lisa Scruggs, formerly of Equinox in Washington, are an all-day treat. Make mine a lemon cupcake. And a pear tart. And a coffee-flavored creme brulee. And a . . .
Desserts 85 cents to $7.50
Never mind the awning. There's no longer a Gerard Pangaud at Gerard's Place (915 15th St. NW; 202-737-4445). But you'd never know that by scanning the menu, which is much the same as it was -- delicious and dear -- before the veteran French chef left the kitchen for the classroom at L'Academie de Cuisine last summer.
These days, the man behind your meal is 25-year-old Ben Lefenfeld. While his name is nowhere on the menu, he's been quietly cooking at Gerard's Place for five years, and it shows. The young chef's sweetbreads, nicely crisp outside and creamy in the center, are models of restraint. A tasting of beets shows the earthy vegetable to best advantage four ways on a big white plate; my favorite tosses diced yellow beets with orange confit. A couple of entrees call to mind Michelin-starred retreats in Paris. Slices of roseate duck with vanilla-scented poached pears and a sauce tickled with lemon verbena stay in your mind long after you've enjoyed the dish. Lustier still is carefully sauteed venison, dressed up with apricots and huckleberries, and lapped with a red wine sauce rounded out with sweet spices and a hint of bitter chocolate. Best to visit as a couple rather than a soloist: Come dessert, it would be a pity to have to choose between the kitchen's velvety mango tart Tatin and its billowing citrus souffle served with an exquisite tangerine sorbet.
The wine prices make you wish someone else would pick up the check. And the room has seen prettier days, though I'm still charmed by the tented ceiling and such props as the old-fashioned stove parked near the entrance. (Where to woo? Corner tables 10 and 40 get my votes.) The good news is that Lefenfeld has no plans to leave, and the space is scheduled for a modest makeover later this year.
Entrees $36 to $60
The view out the windows captures telephone poles and rolling hills. Ahhhh. Inside, happy-looking couples chat against a background of bouncy jazz, muted lighting and racks of wine. Sexy! The scene is right out of Napa Valley, except that it unfolds only 50 minutes from downtown Washington, at the family-run Iron Bridge Wine Company (10435 State Route 108, Columbia; 410-997-3456) in Howard County.
"Why can't we have something like this in the city?" a friend wonders aloud as he sips from three half-glasses of verdicchio, albariño and sauvignon blanc, amusingly billed as "Anything but Chardonnay" and one of four "flights" of wine to choose from. The list of nearly 40 wines by the glass offers something for every taste and budget, be it a malbec from Argentina for $7 or a sprightly Schramsberg blanc de blancs brut for double that.
The menu follows suit. Iron Bridge allows one of you to be in the mood for chili and cornbread, the other to indulge a hankering for mushroom-Gruyere pizza -- then sit together under one roof to eat them. That chili, by the way, is hearty with venison; the pizza uses pita bread as a platform. Both are satisfying. Even better are "small plate entrees": precisely cooked wild rockfish with bright-colored carrots and a delicate lemon-butter sauce, and Cornish game hen glazed with pomegranate and bulked up with sausage-apple stuffing. Lemon tiramisu sounds like heresy and tastes like heaven.
Warning, long-distance drivers: The two-room hot spot doesn't take reservations, and it fills up fast (doors open for dinner at 4 p.m. Sunday, 5 p.m. the rest of the week). And the tables are set so close, you'll have to beg multiple pardons to get in and out of your seat. So don't feel bad if you have to sit at the bar, where you get a few inches more room and the chance to get up close and personal with the friendly faces behind the counter. "Wine should be fun," says co-owner Steve Wecker, whose shop is just that.
Entrees $13 to $17
The trick to getting one of too few seats in the bar at Taberna del Alabardero (1776 I St. NW; 202-429-2200), among the city's most elegant restaurants, is to show up early: before noon at lunch or right at 3 p.m., when everything on the tapas menu is half-price.
Vigilance has its rewards. One of them is the chance to chat up the man behind the bar. "Would you like to try a taste?" he asks when he sees me pondering which of several sherries to order. "Some Serrano and Manchego," he announces later, proffering a small taste of Spain's fine cured ham and mildly nutty cheese while I wait for my order.
There's a printed menu of 20 or so tapas, but I first look at what's on display behind glass before committing to anything. The portions remind me I'm in the United States (they're big), but the flavors whisk me to Barcelona and Madrid. An abundant salad of marinated mussels, shrimp, octopus and sweet peppers is a seafood lover's dream. Piquillo peppers fattened with braised ox tail ward off the cold; alone, they could also fuel me to dinner. Ham-studded croquettes show up piping hot, and the potato-and-egg tortilla proves a homey comfort.
It's not just the food that removes diners from downtown Washington. "Como esta!"I hear patrons greet one another, a scene that typically involves a buss-buss on their cheeks. The bar's three brass stools are augmented by a lace-trimmed, pillow-strewn banquette that just might be the nicest nest for lovebirds for blocks. And the cozy corner is decorated as if every day were Valentine's Day: Its red walls stretch skyward, ending with clusters of cavorting cherubs on the border.
Tapas $6 to $16.50
To chat with Tom Sietsema online, go to washingtonpost.com on Wednesdays at 11 a.m.
