LA GRAND BOUCHERIE MAKES A JAW-DROPPING ENTRANCE INTO D.C.
If its opulent pre-opening party is any indication, La Grand Boucherie just may be the hottest new restaurant downtown has seen in years. Over the course of a glitzy Wednesday evening, complete with a red carpet, jazz band, and absinthe towers dispensed at its two pewter bars, a symphony of servers floated around the white table cloth dining room with a wraparound mezzanine to drop off some $80,000 of plated French fare. Hundreds of attendees dressed to the nines sauntered up the marbled staircase to step back in time and get a first sit-down taste of the stunning revival of the historic Federal-American National Bank Building that’s sat vacant for decades (699 14th Street NW).
The D.C. location, opening for dinner to start on Thursday, April 18, marks the sixth location of NY-based Group Hospitality’s Boucherie family. The 4-year-old Midtown flagship that takes up a city block (and got a lunchtime cameo in the Sex and the City reboot) is joined by subsequent outposts in NY’s Union Square and the West Village and a recent arrival in Chicago. The well-oiled La Grand Boucherie machine will expand to Miami this summer.
Upon entering its newest 500-seat showpiece, situated one block from the White House, it’s hard not to instantly look up to gawk at the extravagant chandelier suspended from an equally gilded ceiling — all while thinking about busy bankers doing the same a century ago. The most recent occupant was Hans Shoes, which closed in the mid-1990s.
Originally designed by Art Nouveau-era French architect Jules Gabriel Henri de Sibour, the multi-million dollar reincarnation as a restaurant strives to encapsulate circa-1920 Paris. Timely soirees surrounding the 2024 Paris summer Olympics are, of course, in the works. The Group Hospitality’s founder Emil Stefkov worked with Legeard Studio to put together the look.
Along with brasserie building blocks like French onion soup, escargots, steak and tuna tartare, mussels, caviar service, and a dedicated raw bar, Boucherie — which means “butchery” — naturally carves out room for lots of meats on the menu. Think: filet mignon au poivre, grass-feed ribeye, and chateaubriand steak for two, plus an in-house program for dry-aged and wagyu options. The surf side of the equation loops in Maryland blue crab and fish from the Chesapeake Bay.
Corporate executive chef Maxime Kien celebrates spring out of the gate with bowls of creamy gazpacho and local heirloom tomatoes dotted with green fava beans, the latter of which gets punched up with a wine vinegar aged in oak barrels. Kien, who’s from the Côte d’Azur region of Southern France, loops in lots of native ingredients like an olive oil-based basil sauce (pistou) that gets slathered around fettuccini and shrimp. A bustling kitchen in view behind window panes that stretch the length of the dining room.
Mahogany wood and glass partitions provide intimate dining nooks across the 14,000-square-foot space. Along with that restored chandelier in the center, illumination comes in the form of colorful Tiffany glass fixtures, back-lit Belle Epoque images overseeing brown leather booths, glowing orb sconces, and flickering votive candles at every table setting. Walls covered in hundreds of vintage French prints offer customers a crash course in the language and culture. A powder room leads the way to a pretty bathroom, where lavatory doors are accented in hand-painted gold.
“We’re bringing the building back to life and giving a great ambiance that transports you somewhere else,” says general manager Mehdi Limami, a 20-year local hospitality vet who came from the Hay-Adams hotel. “Add good food and cocktails into the mix, you will have a beautiful evening.”
A curved bar on each level, topped with a big backsplash of distressed mirrored tiles, was imported from Paris. Cocktails like lavender-infused martinis and Old Fashioneds join a wine list that includes lesser-known grapes like tannat, mondeuse, and picpoul.
Boucherie’s best-selling pink coupe of Absolut, Lillet Blanc, lychee, cranberry, and bubbles is topped with tiny floating roses to match the floral arrangements shooting out of huge vases positioned atop the bar. D.C. mixologist and winner of Netflix’s Drink Masters LP O’Brien contributed a trio of cocktails on the menu.
Boucherie doubles as a greenhouse of sorts, with billowing majestic palms and plants of all kinds benefiting from generous sunlight that streams through curved windows up top.
Incoming lunch starting at 11 a.m. runs right into dinner to accommodate late-afternoon meals. Opening service runs from 4 p.m. to midnight, and weekend brunch kicks off at 11 a.m.
The Group Hospitality will import two more NYC brands to the same limestone building this year: Italian trattoria Olio e Più and its Japanese Omakase Room, plus an underground speakeasy where the vault once stood.