The best parade in Washington D.C, is without a doubt the two dozen courses José Andrés and his team turn out at minibar. If you can get in, you may just experience the meal of your life.
Minibar as a concept started ten years ago upstairs at Andrés’ Café Atlantico. With just six seats, it was conceived as Andrés’ spot to play and experiment with modern cooking techniques. It quickly became impossible to get in. When Café Atlantico closed, plans were hatched for a new and larger space. But don’t get too excited – the number of seats merely doubled to twelve and it still remains the toughest table in town. In the meantime, Andrés launched many more restaurants, landed on 60 Minutes and even set about fixing Haiti. The guy is nothing if not ambitious.
The minibar experience is a welcome departure from reality, a culinary fantasy camp for diners with the means to enter. Of course, first you need to find the place with its street level doorway in a nondescript office building that’s catty-corner to the FBI headquarters. It serves as fitting metaphor for modern life – it’s a dangerous world these days but a man can still eat well. Step inside and you find yourself in what feels like a decompression lounge, where you transition between reality outside and the world of minibar and José Andrés. Whimsical touches abound with a wall clock whose numbers are all out of order and a high-backed chair that appears to be made of marble but isn’t. Tiny welcome treats are served in a box while you wait to be seated.
Two counters make up the space, one with guests already well into a cavalcade of small bites, the other populated with two other couples brimming with anticipation of what’s to come. No walls separate you from the team in the kitchen performing a culinary ballet. There will be numerous masters of ceremony for the evening, some chefs, some servers, a manager, perhaps even a feisty fellow diner. Fear not, you are not here to worship. Questions are encouraged, photos are welcomed and tweeting and note taking expected.
What follows is a symphony of the unusual, all exciting, delicious, even mind blowing and you will lose all hope of finding the perfect adjective to describe everything. Surprising? Fantastic? Orgasmic? Well, you’ll see. My notes list 27 dishes, many of them playful takes on familiar foods like pizza, churros, chicken schwarma and the rubber ducky. (More on that in a bit).
Here’s what I ate, may your journey be just as rewarding. And one note, if you’re a wine aficionado, the “José Selection,” pricey as it may be at $200, is the only way to go. For celebrations, the sparkling “Celebration” selection ($125) will also work. Especially if you like Krug and, honestly, who doesn’t?
Our menu veered wildly across the globe yet came together as a cohesive whole. Lengthy as the meal seemed, it passed in a blur of small, precise dishes. Some were one biters, others mini-composed plates. Where should I start? With the pizza margarita, of course – impossibly thin, wedge shaped like a slice, bursting with flavor but not really pizza at all. Or was it? What exactly is pizza you wonder, your mind adjusting to the mind of José Andrés. A book is presented in front of us – open to a page and we find an edible sheet of pressed flowers. Another plate, this time with stones holding up an almond tart cupping velvety blue cheese ice cream. Then comes the only rubber ducky you should ever eat, a clever shell for a creamy apple interior. We run through beef tendon churros and Waldorf salad in sandwich form, both very good, to reach a pair of superstars. Late night chicken schwarma seems dear to the chefs’ hearts – chefs gotta eat too and late night options tend to be limited to greasy dishes washed down with beer. The greaseless minibar version looks like a cigar but you don’t puff it, you pick it up and devour it in two bites. Next came my favorite dish of all time, a fried pig ear. Sure, it’s the only fried pig ear I’ve ever tried, but I can’t imagine another being as perfect, this one light and crispy and filled with succulent pork.
The parade continues with seafood, tiny compositions like sea urchin married with Iberico ham and smoked oysters with escabeche, delivered under a smoky glass dome. A dish of cuttlefish is placed in front of you and you bite in – surprise! It’s coconut ribbed to look like cuttlefish. Surf and turf gets reinvented in the next two dishes, a marriage of sea cucumber with bone marrow, salty in a good way, and an amazing roast squab draped with oysters and seaweed. In no way do you expect this to work and of course it does.
And then we are at dessert. It commences at the counter though soon you will decamp to barmini, the new cocktail bar next door. The dessert brigade knows its stuff, nothing too sweet, with lots of savory touches like the bloody beets with yogurt or a tart mango floating island. The mignardises provide the final tantalizing touches of whimsy – a boozy mezcal gummy bear, a Thai pocky stick, and of course the most adorable miniature donuts ever. Why? Because at the end of this particular journey, there simply must be donuts.
Barmini’s drink list surprised us in that the avant-garde approach of minibar was largely missing, but the classics were all well executed. The list spans more than 100 selections by spirit type. We hung around the sherry category and ordered drinks like the Coronation (fino sherry, vermouth, maraschino, orange bitters) and La Sevillana (Pedro Ximenez sherry, apple jack, Drambuie). The latter is mixed with smoke and poured over a large ice cube. Amazing that after all the eating and drinking, I can still vividly remember the smoke in this truly delicious libation. Barmini also serves as a more accessible entrant into Andrés’ culinary wonderland – drinks run from $12 – $16 and there is a menu of small, typically off-beat bites.
All this comes at a cost – $225 just to sit down before wine, tax and gratuity – but the experience is worth the price. Would I go back? Can you get me a reservation?
*Reservations are accepted by email only and are broken down by seasons. As of March 1 they are booking for spring dates from April through June and will accept reservations for the summer season from July through September on June 1st. Good luck!