This is the first in a new series of spotlights on restaurants offering special dining for theatre lovers.
Earlier this summer, BLT Prime by David Burke launched a three-course prix-fixe Pre-Theatre dinner menu to provide an exceptionally diverse and delectable dining experience.
The menu seeks to highlight the restaurant group’s popular mainstays, and a little bit more for a discerning audience. The three course selection, with each course a meal on its own, is plenty to keep guests well-fed for a night out in any of the theatres in D.C.’s downtown area.
Their famous pop-overs, available at most of their BLT and BLT Prime properties, are signature starters for which they are happy to share the recipe. The tuna tartare, served over a spicy-zesty bed of avocado is instantly recognizable as a company dish, but prepared with chilled, fresh gusto and care to start off the meal.
Of course, one of their entree selections is their 5 oz steak filet, topped with truffle butter and a creamy béarnaise, to offer a sampling of their cut selection. Their crispy skin “Salt Brick” chicken over a bacon and mushroom succotash, was an exceptional take. The sea salt seasoning, embracing the sweeter flavors of the maple-rubbed bacon, highlight executive chef’s Bill Williamson’s embrace of subtle exceptionalism to this location’s menu.
BLT Prime by David Burke
1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 868-5100
Open 6:30am – 10:30pm
Pre-Theatre menu ($65)
available 4:30pm – 6:30pm
All offerings
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The pre-theatre menu offers a decent selection of vegetarian options: the ricotta ravioli starter, cooked al dente and paired with braised beet greens, (and a walnut pesto that never overpowers the pasta itself).
My dining partner’s eggplant parmesan was a carefully constructed selection of eggplant varietals, a flash-fried graffiti over a tomato – bianca medley.
For a restaurant embracing its steakhouse reputation, their expertise in crafting strong vegetarian dishes, even as part of this select menu, impresses their commitment to a diversifying culinary audience. Just note how many other restaurants in this city failed to offer vegetarian selections during Restaurant Week 2019.
And BLT Prime’s dessert selections do not shy away from volume. The crepe soufflé and the chocolate peanut butter mousse continue to play on the mixing of flavors you can have on one dish. A doughy, but sizable crepe over a passionfruit drizzle wakes up your sour-flavor palate, mostly dormant throughout the previous two courses. The peanut butter mousse, topped with vanilla-bean ice cream and a toasted chip of a brandy touille, accentuates the theme of elevated comfort food brought to a spirited conclusion.
Despite our insistence to each other that we wouldn’t be able to finish the dishes, the plates were somehow left empty.
The nature of BLT Prime’s hospitality is to remain memorable. The service is efficient and unobtrusive, wait staff are dressed in traditional black, and quick to attention. At our neighboring tables, the staff provided table-side smoking of dried bacon slices, mists of burning rosemary livening up the scents of the restaurant’s signature steak cuts. The managers chat up the regulars, engagement so that every guest felt like a welcomed house-guest.
Located in the Old Post Office venue, now the Trump International Hotel, the two-storied location commands one of the best views of the hotel plaza-like lobby, a grandiose and open space excellent for lingering or catching a congressman’s eye. The space is expertly built: embracing the old Post Office’s towering elegance: a view of the clock tower, historic metal truss-work spanning across the lobby. The noise level is superbly well-managed; despite our sitting next to a music speaker and within earshot of neighboring tables, we were able to comfortably have quiet conversations without effort.
The environment is perfect for an early night out, or a meal before seeing a show at nearby theaters: The National, Warner and Ford’s Theatres are a 5-minute walk away; Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre and Woolly Mammoth are less than 10, and a few minutes further to Harman Hall.
This is my 2nd try at a reply to you … since my earlier one this morning seems NOT to have been ‘accepted’ by dctheatrescene ???
“Thank You” Patricia!
Reading your words this AM has made both my & my spouse’s weekend!
But the true credit has to goe to Will S!
All I did was a ‘cut & paste’ from insults available on the internet … altho’ it WAS difficult to keep the # as short as I did!
(Now let’s see if this ‘gets by’ the censors … ‘tho all I’d done before was include a few internet links where you can find ‘insults’ … + one to the very funny tv show “Upstart Crow”! ooops … I might have touched another nerve … but let’s hope not!)
Your comment is nothing short of #genius, rwk! Bravo!/Brava!
Well said Patricia!
A few other thoughts come to mind of that hotel’s owner:
“A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.”
— All’s Well That Ends Well (Act 3, Scene 6)
“Was the Duke (ie., drumpf) a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward?”
— Measure For Measure (Act 5, Scene 1)
“Thou subtle, perjur’d, false, disloyal man!”
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act 4, Scene 2)
“Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!”
— Henry IV Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4 )
“Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.”
— All’s Well That Ends Well (Act 2, Scene 3)
“Thou lump of foul deformity”
— Richard III (Act 1, Scene 2)
“Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish!”
— Henry IV Part I (Act 2, Scene 4)
“That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?”
— Henry IV Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4)
“Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver’d boy.”
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 3)
“Poisonous bunch-backed toad! “
— Richard III (Act 1, Scene 3)
“Thou art as fat as butter.”
— Henry IV Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4)
“His wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard.”
— Henry IV Part 2 (Act 2, Scene 4)
“The rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril”
— The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act 3, Scene 5)
“The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.”
— The Comedy of Erros (Act 5, Scene 4)
“Like the toad; ugly and venomous.”
— As You Like It (Act 2, Scene 1`)
“Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows “
— Troilus and Cressida (Act 2, Scene 1)
“Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile.”
— Cymbeline (Act 3, Scene 4)
“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon”
— Timon of Athens (Act 4, Scene 3)
“You poor, base, rascally, cheating lack-linen mate! “
— Henry IV Part II (Act 2, Scene 4)
“You are as a candle, the better burnt out.”
— Henry IV Part 2 (Act 1, Scene 2)
“Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.”
— As You Like It (Act 2, Scene 7)
I’m not going to a restaurant in that hotel, ever. I have exactly zero interest in what the food is like there, what the atmosphere is like. The people who run that hotel and profit mightily from that business are not supporting theater in this city or this country. They are doing their level best to choke the arts and curtail free expression. They are systematically destroying our democracy.
You’ve GOT to be joking!
$65 for a pre-theatre menu … part of which goes to line “I’m The Chosen One”‘s pockets.
WTF???