Arts & Entertainment
Best of Gay D.C. 2016: DINING
Blade readers voted for their dining favorites
Best Asian Restaurant
Beau Thai
“Delicious, fresh, authentic Thai food in inviting atmosphere.” Also won this category in 2015.
3162 Mount Pleasant St., N.W.
1550 7th St., N.W., Unit A (Shaw)
Runner-up: Rice
Owners, from left, Ralph Brabham, Aschara Vigsittaboot and Drew Porterfield meet at the Shaw location of Beau Thai. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Boozy Brunch
Level One
Brunch is served a la carte each Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
1639 R St., N.W.
Runner-up: Freddie’s Beach Bar
Level One (Blade photo by Pete Exis)
Best Local Brewery/Distillery
DC Brau
“Popular craft brewery offering free tours and tastings.” Also won this category in 2015.
3178-B Bladensburg Rd. NE
Runner-up: Right Proper Brewing Company
DC Brau (Photo by Steph Harding Photo)
Best Burger
Duke’s Grocery
Runner-up: Tasty Burger
Let there be no mistake, despite the ever-changing menu at Duke’s Grocery, the Proper Burger reigns supreme. Whether you eat it to stop a hangover before it starts or indulge in it when said hangover has taken hold, it’s an artery-clogging melange of Creekstone Farms Angus beef (now that we’re on a Michelin kick in D.C., it’s the same beef you’ll often find in Michelin-starred restaurants) topped with smoky gouda and both a garlicky aioli and a Thai sweet chili sauce. Add a duck egg and housemade chicken liver paté when those two beef patties are just not enough protein, or pile on extra pickles and rocket if you’ve got your mom’s voice in your ear reminding you that you really need to eat more veggies. And some of us can’t resist adding a side of the truffle mac ’n’ cheese. Just sayin.’ (Kristen Hartke)
Duke’s Grocery
1513 17th St. NW
Duke’s Grocery (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Caterer
Old Blue BBQ
“Full-service catering company specializing in regional flavors, southern specialties and homemade favorites.” Also won this category in 2015.
4580 Eisenhower Ave., Alexandria, Va.
Runner-up: Mason Dixie Biscuit Co.
Old Blue BBQ (Photo by Ella M. Photography)
Best Cheap Eats
&pizza
1215 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
1250 U St., N.W.
1400 K St., N.W.
Runner-up: Amsterdam Falafel
Best Chef
Tyonne Johns
Runner-up: Alex Levin, Osteria Morini
The last meal that caterer and chef Tyonne Johns served was salmon and jerk chicken, macaroni and cheese and rice pilaf, at the wedding reception for a close friend on Aug. 6. An openly gay chef, her life was senselessly ended that night when an employee of the Chantilly, Va., park where the wedding was held argued with Johns over some folding chairs and stabbed her to death. It’s a tragic footnote on the life of a woman whose brother was murdered 10 years earlier; she is particularly remembered by her friends for her commitment to supporting LGBT events, programs and entrepreneurs, and using her business as a way to provide new opportunities for aspiring chefs. (Kristen Hartke)
Tyonne Johns (Image courtesy Vimeo)
Best Coffee Shop
Compass Coffee
Runner-up: Tryst
OK, so, yeah, Compass makes good coffee. The nitro cold brew, a process by which the grounds are steeped in cold water and then infused with nitrogen, results in a creamy, rich brew that almost mimics the texture of a protein shake, so we can fool ourselves into thinking that it makes a good liquid breakfast after spin class. But we’re kind of into the tea, too, which Compass co-owners Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez decided to custom blend in-house when they couldn’t find a tea that complemented their coffee program. Look for the Raspberry Rose Petal, a floral caffeine-free blend, or the bergamot-tinged Lavender Earl Grey. For chai lovers, don’t miss out on the housemade masala chai, a spicy blend of black tea with ginger, black pepper, cardamom, allspice, anise and licorice. (Kristen Hartke)
Compass Coffee
1335 7th St., N.W.
Best Date Restaurant
Floriana
“Intimate, white-tableclothed bistro offering lasagna and other Italian classics with weekly specials.”
1602 17th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Busboys and Poets
Floriana (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Dessert
Baked & Wired
“Family-owned coffee shop and bakery in Georgetown with baked goods made in small batches with the finest ingredients.”
1052 Thomas Jefferson St., N.W.
Runner-up: Grassroots Gourmet
Baked and Wired (Photo courtesy Baked and Wired)
Best Ethiopian Restaurant
Dukem Ethiopian Restaurant
Runner-up: Ethiopic
Whenever people ask me for a restaurant recommendation in D.C., I invariably send them to Dukem, and here’s why: it’s authentic, it’s cheap and it tells a real story about our city. With the largest Ethiopian community outside of Ethiopia, eating Ethiopian food in D.C. is akin to eating pizza in New York. It’s also a communal meal, where everyone at the table shares in the dishes, eating literally off the same plate, and omnivores and vegetarians can all walk away perfectly satisfied. For meat eaters, the signature doro wat, a dish of slow-cooked chicken and hard-boiled eggs spiced with berbere, a blend of several spices including chili pepper, ginger, basil, nigella and fenugreek, is tender and saucy, while the vegetarian combination platters are piled with spicy lentils, savory braised cabbage and collards, and shiro, a peppery stew of powdered legumes like chick peas or broad beans. Utensils won’t be on hand, so order extra injera, the spongy sour bread used to scoop up the food. Dukem also won this category in 2015. (Kristen Hartke)
Dukem
1114-1118 U St., N.W.
Dukem (Photo by trotnort; courtesy Flickr)
Best Farmer’s Market
Eastern Market
Runner-up: Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market
Oh, Eastern Market. Sometimes it’s exciting to visit other farmer’s markets in search of new freshly baked gluten-free cookies or odd varieties of winter squash, but Eastern Market, which also won this category last year, never disappoints — solid, reliable, always there when you need it. While it’s true that the same vendors have been there for decades, it’s also true that Eastern Market serves a real function to the community, because people actually shop there for their groceries, not just for novelty items. Inside the market, which is open every day except Monday, you’ll find most of the items on your list, from freshly butchered meats to loaves of cinnamon raisin bread to vegan kimchi. If there is a cheese you’re looking for, Bowers Dairy has nearly everything on hand, no special ordering required, and D.C.’s very own condiment, mumbo sauce, is available in both regular and spicy flavors at Market Poultry. If you’ve always wanted to eat at Market Lunch, take a tip from the locals and head over there for breakfast or lunch during the week so you don’t have to wait in line. (Kristen Hartke)
Eastern Market
225 7th St., S.E.
Eastern Market (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Food Truck
Red Hook Lobster Pound
Brings freshest Maine lobsters to D.C. Also won this category in 2015.
Find out where the truck is on Twitter: @LobstertruckDC
Runner-up: Captain Cookie & the Milk Man
Red Hook Lobster Pound (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best French Restaurant
Le Diplomate
“Bustling brasserie serves classic French fare and drinks.” Also won this category in 2015.
1601 14th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Bistrot Du Coin
Le Diplomate (Photo by Jason Varney; courtesy ThreeLockharts PR)
Best Indian Restaurant
Rasika
Modern Indian food; famous for its crispy spinach. Also won this category in 2015.
633 D St., N.W.
1190 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.
Runner-up: Indigo
Rasika (Photo by David Liu; courtesy Flickr)
Best Italian Restaurant
Red Hen
“Italian-influenced American restaurant located in historic Bloomingdale with wood-fired fare set in an airy, rustic-industrial space with open kitchen and bar.”
1822 1st St., N.W.
Runner-up: Floriana
The Red Hen (Photo courtesy of The Red Hen)
Best Pizza
Matchbox
“Brick-oven pizza and contemporary dining.”
713 H St., N.W.
521 8th St., S.E.
1901 14th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Pizzeria Paradiso
Matchbox (Photo courtesy of Matchbox)
Restaurant You’d Wait in Line For
Rose’s Luxury
“Eclectic New American tapas with menu crafted in cozy, converted townhouse with an upstairs lounge.”
717 8th St., S.E.
Runner-up: Little Serow
Rose’s Luxury (Photo by T. Tseng; courtesy Flickr)
Best Rehoboth Restaurant
Dos Locos
“Spacious Mexican restaurant with vast menu including seafood, stone grills and margaritas.” Also won this category in 2015.
208 Rehoboth Ave.
Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Runner-up: Blue Moon
Dos Locos (Photo courtesy Dos Locos)
Best Sandwich
Carving Room
“Hip joint with a patio serving cured and carved meat sandwiches, craft beers and innovative cocktails.”
300 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Runner-up: Taylor Gourmet
Carving Room (Photo courtesy Carving Room)
Best Seafood Restaurant
Hank’s Oyster Bar
Perennial lesbian-owned favorite. Also won this category in 2015.
1624 Q St., N.W.
1026 King St., Alexandria, Va.
633 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.
Runner-up: Black Salt
Hank’s Oyster Bar (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Best Steak Restaurant
Claudia’s Steakhouse
“Chic, high-gloss steakhouse supplements its beef offerings with Latin-style dishes and sides.”
1501 K St., N.W.
Runner-up: Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse
Claudia’s Steakhouse (Photo courtesy Claudia’s)
Best Sushi
Sushi Taro
“High-end sushi spot with chef’s choice dinners, bento-box lunch specials, sake and sho-chu.”
1503 17th St., N.W.
Runner-up: The Hamilton
Sushi Taro (Image courtesy Sushi Taro on YouTube)
Best Wine Bar
Barcelona
Shareable tapas and inspired wine and cocktail list. Also won this category in 2015.
1622 14th St., N.W.
3310 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.
Runner-up: Dito’s Bar at Floriana
Barcelona (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Virginia Winery
Breaux Vineyards
Runner-up: Fox Meadow Winery
With an impressive array of awards, Breaux Vineyards is typically at the top of the list of Virginia wineries worth checking out, and it’s just 45 minutes from D.C. in Loudoun County, making it a great destination for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Of course, you’ll also find it well-represented in stores and restaurants across the city, from Glen’s Garden Market to Jack Rose Dining Saloon. Look for the Cabernet Franc, a peppery palate-pleaser with long notes of blackberry on the finish. (Kristen Hartke)
Breaux Vineyards
36888 Breaux Vineyards Lane, Purcellville, Va.
Breaux Vineyards (Photo courtesy Breaux)
To see winners in other categories in the Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. 2016 Awards, click here.
Theater
Round House explores serious issues related to privilege
‘A Jumping-Off Point’ is absorbing, timely, and funny
‘A Jumping-Off Point’
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org
In Inda Craig-Galván’s new play “A Jumping-Off Point,” protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-Galván, a real-life successful Black playwright and television writer, adheres to the same maxim. Whether further details from the play are drawn from her life, is up for speculation.
Absorbing, timely, and often funny, the current Round House Theatre offering explores some serious issues surrounding privilege and who gets to write about what. Nimbly staged and acted by a pitch perfect cast, the play moves swiftly across what feels like familiar territory without being the least bit predictable.
After a tense wait, Leslie (Nikkole Salter) learns she’s been hired to be showrunner and head writer for a new HBO MAX prestige series. What ought to be a heady time for the ambitious young woman quickly goes sour when a white man bearing accusations shows up at her door.
The uninvited visitor is Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a fellow student from Leslie’s graduate playwriting program. The pair were never friends. In fact, he pressed all of her buttons without even trying. She views him as a lazy, advantaged guy destined to fail up, and finds his choosing to dramatize the African American Mississippi Delta experience especially annoying.
Since grad school, Leslie has had a play successfully produced in New York and now she’s on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralph’s. (In fact, we’ll discover that he’s a held a series of wide-ranging temporary jobs, picking up a lot of information from each, a habit that will serve him later on, but I digress.)
Their conversation is awkward as Andrew’s demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslie’s current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script.
This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslie’s wisecracking best friend and roommate Miriam who has a knack for making things worse before making them better. Deliciously played by Cristina Pitter (whose program bio describes them as “a queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemist”), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-Galván’s deftly balanced three-hander.
Cast members’ performances are layered. Salter’s Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gavigan’s Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. He’s terrific.
The 90-minute dramedy isn’t without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. It’s all discussion-worthy topics, here pleasingly tempered with humor.
New York-based director Jade King Carroll skillfully helms the production. Scenes transition smoothly in large part due to a top-notch design team. Scenic designer Meghan Raham’s revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslie’s attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writers’ room with the requisite long table and essential white board. Adding to the graceful storytelling are sound and lighting design by Michael Keck and Amith Chandrashaker, respectively.
The passage of time and circumstances are perceptively reflected in costume designer Moyenda Kulemeka’s sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.
“A Jumping-Off Point” is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the country’s leading playwrights and newer voices.
Nightlife
Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival
An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend
When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.
This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.
While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.
“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”
Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”
Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.
This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”
Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.
Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.
Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.
Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.
With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.
Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).
Out & About
Washington Improv Theatre hosts ‘The Queeries’
Event to celebrate queer DMV talent and pop culture camp
The Washington Improv Theatre, along with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC, will team up to host “The Queeries!” on Friday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Studio Theatre.
The event will celebrate Queer DMV talent and pop culture camp. With a mixture of audience-submitted nominations and blatantly undemocratically declared winners, “The Queeries!” mimics LGBTQ life itself: unfair, but far more fun than the alternative.
The event will be co-hosted by Birdie and Butchie, who have invited some of their favorite bent winos, D.C. “D-listers,” former Senate staffers, and other stars to sashay down the lavender carpet for the selfie-strewn party of the year.
Tickets are just $15 and can be purchased on WITV’s website.
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Round House explores serious issues related to privilege
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Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival
Washington Improv Theatre hosts ‘The Queeries’
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