I'd put off dining at Aquarelle all last year out of nervousness over what it might have become, and I was unfamiliar with the work of executive chef Christophe Poteaux. Why the trepidation? Aquarelle sits in the same spot as the legendary Jean-Louis, the masterpiece of the late Jean-Louis Palladin which was above and beyond the finest restaurant in D.C. during the Reagan and Bush I Administrations. Palladin was internationally renowned: he not only had earned two Michelin stars for his restaurant in France, he was the youngest chef (at 28) ever to win two stars; he was a frequent book and video colleague of Julia Child; he had world-class restaurants in New York and Las Vegas.
After Palladin's premature death at age 55 from lung cancer in November 2001, the Watergate Hotel recreated the spot as Aquarelle, bringing in the French Poteaux from Hollywood to make his own hopefully-famous restaurant, tasking him to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the hotel's up-scale and mostly international clientele.
Aquarelle is in a beautiful venue. The restaurant sits just above the ground level right alongside the Potomac River, offering splendid vistas of river traffic, the Georgetown Marina, the Memorial Bridge, and the Rosslyn skyline. The menus included a page with the Restaurant Week offerings, and we were pleased to see an interesting variety amongst our choices. While we selected our meal, I sipped on a tall Dubonet and soda with a twist and my usually-alcoholic Tony drank merely tap water.
We both started with the escabeche of sea scallop with a Banyuls reduction, garlic coulis, pickled vegetables, and herbs salad. An escabeche is prepared with a Spanish technique where seafood is "cooked" by marinading it in lime juice and spices. Our single scallop rested on a long, rectangular plate and had a nice flavor and texture for an escabeche. I particularly enjoyed the thinly sliced pickled vegetables, and the salad was a mound of tiny clover, alfalfa sprouts, and baby herb leaves.
Tony selected the New York strip steak for his entree. It was covered with a thick relish of sliced and sauteed shallots in a thick cabernet wine reduction which he didn't like, finding it too sweet for his tastes, and he also felt that the steak was overcooked beyond the medium rare he requested (though it looked medium rare to me in the dark and across the table). It was accompanied by hand-cut pommes frites, which Tony liked, and a small bundle of haricots vertes. I thought the steak looked very good, and I would have enjoyed it.
My entree was the Atlantic monkfish osso bucco, two thick pieces of stewed monkfish on the bone, accompanied by black mussels and served over a bed of risotto with Spanish peppers and dry-cured chorizo. Broth from the fish filled up the hollow of the plate. The mussels were good and I enjoyed the monkfish a lot, though I found the risotto to be rather gummy.
One of the highlights of the meal had to be dessert, with both of us opting for the pineapple upside down cake. They were made as individual cakes topped with a pineapple slice and a maraschino cherry, then a big scoop of pink peppercorn ice cream, garnished with a very thin slice of dried pineapple. I loved the melange of unexpected flavors, and the peppery-spiciness of the ice cream really helped to set off the sweetness of the cake. The dried pineapple slice was also a crispy treat.
Regretfully, I wasn't able to take many photographs of the food because the low light levels would have necessitated a flash that would have distracted nearby diners. I did get two shots of my own food, but without a tripod, they are a bit blurry.
So, how did Aquarelle do? The food was pretty good. While I don't think this will be a place on my regular rotation or a destination restaurant for me, if I were ever to be in the neighborhood or attending events at the Kennedy Center, I would have no objection to eating here.
The biggest problem I found with Aquarelle was the level of service; while nothing was particularly bad, they lost points on a number of standard fine dining points. The most blatant problem was that Tony had to eat his entire main course with no water, and eventually had to ask the waiter for some when he came to check on whether we were ready for dessert. Since Tony was actively seeking a refill, the dining room clearly was not being well-monitored by the staff for guest needs. After the water request, we had frequent refills from the assistants, but they did not pick up the glasses to pour away from the table, merely sloshing the water into the glasses. At one point, a big chunk of cubed ice stuck together landed in the neck of my glass, with water then flowing over the ice and spilling onto the table cloth. While the assistant looked embarrased and apologized, he did not mop up the spill. Our bread basket was never refilled during the meal. It took a long time for the waiter to bring our check after dessert and an even longer time for him to come pick up the portfolio to get the credit cards. All of these things together made the restaurant look amateurish, an interesting juxtaposition given their rather steep normal prices.
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