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405 8th St. NW
(202) 393-0812
Hours of Operation and Prices
Lunch: Mon-F 11:30-2:30; Entrees: $6-$9
Dinner: M-Th 5:30-11, F-Sat 5:30-midnight, Sun 5:30-10; Entrees: $12-$16
Light Fare: M-F 2:30-5:30, $4.50-$7.50
Other Information
• All major credit cards
• Dress: casual
• Reservations accepted until 7:30 pm
• Valet parking (fee) at dinner
• Nearest Metro: Archives-Navy Memorial
• Handicapped accessible
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Cafe Atlantico has refined the dishes of the Caribbean and Latin America and serves them in three dining rooms stacked vertically. Mosaic tiles, long, painted panels and striped banquettes transmit hot colors from one floor to the other, and tall loft windows turn the city into framed art. The instinct for design doesn't stop there. The kitchen produces visual arts on a plate. As waiters pass by with trays for other diners, you're tempted to order the seviche for your living room, the passion fruit mousse for your entry hall. They'd certainly brighten your living space.
Oddly, the most beautiful dishes here are also the most luscious. The seviche is a whirlwind of juicy, briny bits of chopped fish and shellfish, tart balancing sweet, soft against crisp. Salt-cod puree - bachalau - has a moat of sunny, yellow, passion fruit oil. Empanadas are equally pretty, the crisply browned, sausage-stuffed half moons surrounded by concentric circles of golden and cilantro-green sauces. Only quipes - beef and bulgur fritters like the lightest Middle Eastern kibbeh - taste more beautiful than they look.
Among entrees, salmon tamal is wonderful, as is the dark, rich mole, thinner than the Mexican original, spooned over stewed baby chicken. Jerk chicken is skinless and boneless, neither as crusty nor as fiery as the Jamaican original. It's a bit effete. So is the feijoada reinvented as a mixed grill (the feijoada salad is far more interesting). The best entree, Puerto Rico's asopao, is close to its tradition, a pale yellow and nearly creamy shrimp and crab stew, hauntingly aromatic. The color show carries through to desserts, particularly the airy, passion fruit charlotte striped with chocolate and caramel, and the chewy, gooey, chocolate bread pudding with a cap of glazed sliced bananas. You're safe with something pale, too: the coconut tart, white on white, is sumptuous.
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