Tom Sietsema Dining
★ ★ (Good)
Lyon Hall 3100 N. Wash- ington Blvd., Ar- lington. 703- 741-7636. www. lyonhall
arlington.com
Open: Dinner 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Major credit cards.
MeTrO: Clarendon.
Arlington’s Lyon Hall offers Alsatian flavors.
Less is more
on the scene with street cred and the lure of something different: a menu that spoke to Alsace with tartes flambees, sausage platters and not one but three flavors of sauerkraut. “I’m guilty of trying to come up with restaurant ideas that offer
I
cuisine that I’m personally passionate about,” explains Stephen Fedorchak, a principal in both restaurants. Lyon Hall also provided engaging servers to describe the food,
cocktails that didn’t taste like everyone else’s and giggles all around whenever anyone returned from the restroom. (Hint: That “mirror” above the sinks isn’t what you think it is.) Several roadblocks stood in the way of my lapping up the place. One deterrent, oddly enough, was the physical menu. The size
of a car mat, it used scratchy type that made reading it a chore. Moreover, the format was so busy that the eyes didn’t know where to settle. Mine gravitated to the “sides” in the lower left-hand corner of the broad sheet, certainly not the designer’s intention. Another problem was noise. Lyon Hall was a blast — literally.
Even if a customer could read lips, he would be uncomfortable dining amid sound levels (100 decibels one Friday night in August)
at Lyon Hall Pared down menu lets food shine
always suspected there was a good restaurant hiding in Lyon Hall. It just took the place a little time to make its charms visible. Launched in April by the owners of the neighborly Liberty Tavern, also in Clarendon, Lyon Hall arrived
that approximated those of jackhammers and jets taking off. Then there was the cooking,
a mixed bag of the good (pork schnitzel), the bad (dry fruit clafloutis) and the inconsistent. Chef Liam LaCivita
introduced a revised menu last month, and all I can say is, what a difference a font makes. No more straining the eyes to decipher the dishes, and no more wondering where to start ordering. Me? These days, I’m heading
first for oysters, maybe the tiny Kumamotos from Washington state’s clear, cold waters, and plump snails cloaked in parsley butter and crackling with bacon. Charcuterie is now flagged on a sheet of its own. Beet- cured Arctic char, poised on a soft potato cake, and chicken liver-foie gras mousse, capped with port-sweetened aspic, are particularly easy to like. I’m pleased that the potato
dumplings with their cores of Armagnac-spiked prunes (Continued on Page 44)
priceS: Appetizers $7 to $15, entrees $14 to $24.
SOund cHeck: To be determined.
Tom Sietsema chats live at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays. Join him and find videos, blog posts and more at washingtonpost. com/
tomsietsema. September 12, 2010 | THe WAsHingTon PosT MAgAzine 43
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL TEMCHINE
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