TOM SIETSEMA
DINING
Eola’s goat’s milk panna cotta includes fiery brittle.
intriguing (pork heart!) and inevitably triggers expectations: How will the chef surpass a lush spoonful of rockfish with lemon and fennel, or a golden pork fritter dabbed with orange- flavored yogurt? With an appetizer of goat’s
milk panna cotta, for starters. An edible fashion show, it’s a cool and silken custard whose slight tang is cut, literally, by a pane of brittle, hot with cayenne, embedded in its surface. Surrounding the centerpiece are curry-spiked nuts, tangerine segments and glassy shards of more brittle. The accents joust in the mouth. The creation suggests a chef who knows what he’s doing. Daniel Singhofen, the guy
An undetected find
in Dupont Circle
Eola entices from drinks to dessert
P
art of why I always look forward to having dinner at Eola has nothing to do with the cooking and everything to do with how much consideration the restaurant puts into making the dining room an excuse to linger.
Unlike in so many new places, the music in this sunny Dupont
Circle townhouse doesn’t force you to raise your voice. Unlike too much of the competition, the gleaming mission oak tables at Eola are so big and broad, they can handle the decoration, everything you order and your elbows, if you’re so inclined. Table 1, in the front window, is a choice spot if you like to people-watch with your meal. Order a pisco sour or a Sazerac, and its glass holds something
that tastes like a classic rather than a trend du jour. When the bread comes, it’s warm. As for the butter, it’s room-temperature and laced with herbs. The amuse-bouche always involves something
behind the slit of a kitchen window, is someone to watch. Not every dish sings the way that jazzy panna cotta does, but there’s enough on his concise menu, just a dozen appetizers and entrees long, to prompt a diner to make a habit of the place. And I wish more people would. The 26-seat main dining room has been underpopulated on every visit I’ve made since Eola opened in September. If you haven’t been in yet,
here’s what else you’ve been missing: a veloute of celery root, hot and creamy and pure, poured into a soup bowl decorated with marbles of apple stained purple with port. The combination of the rich soup and the zingy fruit is at once simple and compelling. I also happily recall a block of pork belly, delicious in its piggyness and mounted on tiny red peas and crisp fried kale. The appetizers have also included a perfect soft egg surrounded by mellow beans and crumbled pork sausage; the dish gets richer when the yolk is pierced and becomes a golden sauce
(Continued on Page 48)
★ ★
(Good)
Eola
2020 P St. NW. 202-466-4441. www.eoladc. com.
OpEn: Dinner
Tuesday through Saturday 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Major credit cards accepted.
MEtrO: Dupont
Circle.
pricEs:
Appetizers $9 to $12, entrees $24 to $32.
sOund chEck:
69 decibels
(Conversation is easy).
A BrEEZY titLE
Eola, which Singhofen owns with
his parents, derives
from Eolian, meaning
“carried by the wind.”
April 11, 2010 | ThE WashingTon PosT MagazinE
47
PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT SUCHMAN
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