Georgetown’s already sizzling dining scene gets hotter with the arrivals of a high-end American grill (the Oak Room) and plush upstairs supper club (Bernadette’s), starting on Friday, June 26.
The two-story venture, sliding into the old home of El Centro
at the Georgetown nucleus of M and Wisconsin Streets NW, is the brainchild of Ten Five Hospitality. The national powerhouse behind places like Italian darling Mother Wolf and country bar Desert 5 Spot tapped a top culinary name to lead the D.C. kitchen: James Beard Award-winning chef Tim Hollingsworth, a Thomas Keller protege who helped open Per Se and went on to become the youngest chef de cuisine in French Laundry’s nearly 50-year history.
Ten Five’s managing partner, Dan Daley, a Georgetown grad who moved back to the D.C. area three years ago, is on a roll to reinvent historic institutions in his old neighborhood. In a somewhat unconventional approach, his company picks the building first and then figures out what the restaurant should be.
That was the case for the Oak Room, nestled in a 150-year-old historic building that once housed Third Edition, the collegiate dive featured in ’80s cult classic Saint Elmo’s Fire (1218 Wisconsin Avenue NW). Conceiving the Oak Room as a nod to the Gilded Age of New York and London felt right for the 60-seat space that exudes old-school elegance, but, at the same time, is a welcoming affair for neighborhood regulars.
At the raw bar, seafood platters spotlight East and West Coast oysters, jumbo Mexican shrimp, Maine diver scallops, and caviar. Other dishes include crabcakes with Old Bay aioli; beef tartare with piquillo and Basque chiles; roasted bone marrow with endive marmalade; and heritage Berkshire pork chop finished with rosemary, honey, and garlic.
“The inspiration really comes from how I eat at home with my family: steak and potatoes. When you cook something you like to eat, the food resonates a little more,” says Hollingsworth. Roasted chicken with vin jaune is sourced from Pennsylvania’s LaBelle Patrimoine. “It’s something I cook for my family, typically on holidays in winter,” he says. Produce comes from Lancaster Farms Cooperative.
That seemingly simple approach includes deep techniques that tune into his classical French training for sauces (béarnaise, bordelaise, au poivre) and beyond.
Under Keller, he helped open Per Se in 2004, going on to work at his three-Michelin-starred French Laundry for nearly a decade; during that time, he won the James Beard Award for Rising Chef in 2010. More recent accolades include winning Netflix’s global cooking competition The Final Table in 2019 and creating the viral pop-up Chain with The Office actor B.J. Novak.
A year ago, Hollingsworth opened his first-ever New York restaurant, Hundredfold, on Long Island. Daley convinced him over a three-hour meeting in LA that Oak Room was also the right East Coast job for him. It’s a whole new world when it comes to mid-Atlantic delicacies like ramps and rockfish, ingredients he had red-eye access to that are now in his backyard.
Still, family-owned Brandt Beef in Southern California supplies koji- and pepper-rubbed prime rib in various cuts, with côte de boeuf and Japanese A5 wagyu rounding out the meat front.
And then there is Oak Room’s upstairs lounge, Bernadette’s, which sports its own entrance (and menu) and takes tips from European haute spots like the Fashion Week-friendly Hotel Costes in Paris and members-only club Annabel’s in London. Adorned in red velvet drapery, plush seating, gilded sconces, and a grand piano, the lounge “is dinner with a little bit of theater,” says Daley, likening the spot to Bemelmans Bar, the Upper East Side’s jazzy staple in the Carlyle Hotel. “[Think] post-World War II Parisian supper club or back alley of Rome or Paris.”
Look for chicken liver mousse with seasonal jam; prime rib French dip; a wagyu cheeseburger; steak frites; and fish sticks made of pan-fried halibut, with caviar butter — a meaningful dish for Hollingsworth that nods to his landlocked upbringing in northern California, where he recalls not eating fish (other than sticks with tartar) until 18.
“A mix of high and low — it’s fun to be at a table with a nice wine or cocktail, and you have something that makes you chuckle a bit: fish sticks and caviar,” he says.
About 400 wines hop around France, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. At the multiple bars throughout, James Beard-nominated bartender Julian Cox specializes in riffs on classics: a Castelvetrano martini with olive oil and Fino; a tea-centric Old Fashioned with Mizunara whisky and ceremonial matcha; and Yuzu Illusion, a spicy margarita riff with mezcal, yuzu, and cayenne.
In-demand LA and London design firm Fettle put together an entirely new look for both Oak Room and Bernadette’s. The entire space was gutted and “rebuilt from the inside out,” says Daley. At 60 seats, Oak Room is about half the size of Ten Five’s typical restaurant. “I love the idea of making it really intimate,” he says.
Oh, and there’s a third piece, too: the ivy-covered Garden patio bar behind Bernadette’s, which he calls “unexpected” and reminiscent of central London.
At Bernadette’s, look for live music three nights a week (Thursday to Saturday) to start. Its invite-only preview party tonight features D.C.-born singer Caroline Vreeland, the great-granddaughter of a former Vogue editor-in-chief.
Benadette’s is open 5 to 11 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and until 2 a.m. on weekends. Oak Room is open from 5 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday for now, with brunch coming soon.
Recent Georgetown arrivals like Ox & Olive and Brasero Atlantico added a steakhouse edge to the historic neighborhood, not to mention the comeback of nostalgia-inducing Riggsby not too far away.
Next up for Ten Five? Reinventing the long-vacant home of RiRa on M Street NW, in a newly signed lease that Daley confirms to Eater.
