Those of us who have lived in Washington for a while consider the Tabard Inn to be one of our little secrets, never mind that it’s been around since 1922 and that when certain holidays roll around, everyone who writes listicles mentions the warmth and romance.
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End of carouselI’m Tom, the food critic for The Post since 2000. I review restaurants in the Washington region every week, and every month I round up my current favorites. Twice a year I curate a special dining guide: In the fall I write about dozens of top picks, and in the spring I spotlight new restaurants.
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Every now and then, I check in on my old acquaintance to see how she’s holding up. The last few years have not been kind, meaning the lady could use some help in a kitchen that had grown tired. (My notes from 2019 referenced oysters on the half shell doused in what tasted like a Bloody Mary — and crackling with bits of shell — and a wet duck hash that should have been labeled a stew.) That’s why Ian Boden, the chef-owner behind the sublime Shack in Staunton, was brought aboard as culinary partner, and Boden in turn recruited Matthew Zafrir, previously with the Japanese-Spanish Cranes in Penn Quarter, to serve as chef de cuisine. They came out with their first menu in August, and I gave them a few months to settle in.
I wish I could say I was more excited about the developments.
Caesar salads and oysters on the half shell are the kinds of starters you expect to find in a lodging establishment. I like the twists tucked into the chopped romaine, whose crunch is from threadlike fried potatoes and whose sass is courtesy of miso in the dressing. As for the oysters, they come nicely shucked and benefit from a mignonette sparked with pink peppercorns and sweetened with tiny apple “pearls” made with apple juice and agar, the binder sourced from red algae.
The appetizers land near flickering votives on linen-draped tables, in a clattery main dining room defined by old paintings and black-and-white tile floor. (Multiple dining areas include a second-floor room, dressed with bird art, that overlooks the enclosed brick patio.) This being winter, there’s sweet potato soup, warm with baking spices and sorghum molasses. Little seared gnocchi faintly flavored with goat cheese drift on the surface. It’s a combination I could imagine on the menu of the Woodberry Kitchen (now Woodberry Tavern), the beloved tribute to the Mid-Atlantic where Zafrir once worked as a line cook.
Introduced more than a century ago by South Carolina native Marie Willoughby Rogers, the Tabard Inn was inspired by British country manors and advertised as a teahouse in its early years, says David Roubie, president of the Tabard Corporation. Rogers named the property for the 14th-century inn featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales.”
The Tabard Inn has not only a long history, but a proud one. “The Man Without a Country” was reportedly written here when its author, Edward Everett Hale, lived in the attic. The Navy used it as officer quarters for its women’s reserves during World War II, when hotels were expected to help with the war effort. Mrs. Rogers remained the owner until her death in 1970, after which the inn was threatened with demolition, then in 1975 purchased by Fritzi and Edward Cohen, who reintroduced the restaurant in 1977. One of the Cohens’ first chefs was Nora Pouillon, an Austrian who later went on to open the organic-minded Restaurant Nora, also in Dupont Circle. Unusual for an inn, the Cohens let employees share in the ownership. Three members of the family are still involved in the Tabard as minority owners.
Fast-forward to 2024. Much of the food looks as if it were inspired by Dorothea Lange. The steak (juicy and peppery filet mignon one night) with smashed, skin-on potatoes shares the sepia tones of the pork shoulder shored up with pearl onions and rutabaga. Pops of color are so infrequent, the beet salad, a bright hedge, took me by surprise — picture Dorothy closing the door on Kansas for somewhere over the rainbow — but only because its neighbors on the table were mostly beige, including an entree of scallops arranged on a gently sweet turnip cream. The dish is straightforward and satisfying. Nothing wrong with that, but given the chefs’ backgrounds, I expect more jazz.
Here and there, little Asian accents surface. A whisper of lemongrass sharpens the buttermilk dressing with an appetizer of thinly sliced lamb carpaccio sprinkled with puffed rice for textural contrast. Nice. Not so nice: sunchoke beignets bunched with candied sunflower seeds and what tastes like onion jam. The beignets are (routinely) doughy.
Some dishes excite in print and disappoint in the mouth. Young, juniper-brined chicken, split and stuffed with wild rice, dates and chestnuts, is less for its undercooked wild rice (and chicken that can be dry). Salmon with pickled cauliflower arrives on a pleasantly earthy vadouvan sauce — good so far — that’s tepid to the touch. The kitchen can be slapdash.
It can also encourage another try. (I visited four times over two months.) Tuck into the mushroom tart, a taste of the forest atop fine pastry, or grilled skin-on trout, propped up by a field of creamy and meaty Sea Island red peas.
The one thing the incoming chefs couldn’t erase on the menu was the Tabard’s doughnut, a longtime staple on the brunch menu. The draw, finished with cinnamon sugar, proved a highlight during a recent uneven Saturday morning, when I plucked nice bites of pear from a stack of undercooked pancakes and pushed aside similarly raw potatoes in favor of the tender, herb-speckled omelet on the plate. Washingtonians can choose from a hen house of fried chicken sandwiches; the Tabard’s contribution comes with an audible crunch but not much more to recommend it. I filled up instead on the sandwich’s tangle of crisp, garlicky french fries and an order of deviled eggs. Their whites are beige from a bath in soy sauce, the yolks are intense with hot sauce, and (say it ain’t so!) trout roe added sparkle.
The Tabard Inn sends you off on a sweet note, sometimes delivered by Zafrir: buttery caramels and grape pâte de fruits (fruit paste) spiked with harissa. They produce smiles all around. I only wish there were more delights earlier in the meal. Right now, the venerable inn has more history than attention to detail on its side.
Tabard Inn
1739 N St. NW. 202-785-1277. tabardinn.com. Open for indoor and (in-season) outdoor dining for breakfast 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. daily; lunch 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday; dinner 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; and brunch 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Prices: Dinner appetizers $12 to $50 (for caviar), main courses $22 to $59. Sound check: 77 decibels/Must speak with raised voice. Accessibility: The stairs at the entrance and throughout the historic restaurant, which does not have ADA-compliant restrooms or an elevator, discourage wheelchair use.
