Ashok Bajaj has another hit with Rosedale in upper Northwest’s Forest Hills neighborhood. 
The elegantly understated dining room at the new Rosedale.
Do we still gather in restaurants? Or do we pop into a dining venue for the culinary or social media show and check it off our bucket lists?
Restaurateur Ashok Bajaj, the hit-making legend of Washington’s fine-dining scene for three decades (Oval Room, Modena, Rasika, among others), still believes in neighborhood gathering spaces where conviviality reigns. He’s betting on it.
Pennsylvania trout
Ashok’s new 100-seat restaurant, Rosedale (rosedaledc.com), on Connecticut Avenue in upper Northwest’s Forest Hills neighborhood, feels like the type of third-place that should be a blueprint for anyone launching a restaurant: warm, open, detail-oriented and offering a simple American farm-to-table menu that delivers unforgettable tastes that win awards without trying too hard.
It helps that Rosedale has James Beard award-winning chef Frank Ruta leading the kitchen while still overseeing meals at Bajaj’s Annabelle (annabelledc.com) near Dupont Circle. Ruta, a former White House chef, created an easy-to-navigate dinner menu (the restaurant also has Saturday and Sunday brunch). Openers arrive with sharable dishes like grilled Rhode Island squid with ginger sabayon and fritto of fluke with shrimp, onion rings and aleppo aioli. Standout main dishes include grilled pork chop, grilled Pennsylvania trout, rotisserie chicken and 45-day-aged rib steak.
One of the many perfect side dishes at Rosedale.
Each dish appears at the table with understated fanfare but remarkable detail. Look at the sides to see the care taken in preparing the menu, including charred Yaya carrots (a rainbow of oranges, reds and purples from Maidstone Harvest in Annapolis), farrow (with almonds and reggiano cheese) and hand-cut Rosedale fries, whose lightly browned skin gently snaps revealing a soft, white potato. The mini-delicacies won’t last long at the table.
As I sit with Bajaj on a rainy, chilly Thursday evening in mid-November, his new restaurant has been open for two weeks. Patrons pack every table and the beige and blue booths. The U-shaped bar, famed by white brick walls and golden arches—with lightly stained wood slats on the ceiling—is downright buzzy but without the decibel levels (sound-deadening design helps).
A cozy booth showcases the design of Martin Vahtra of Projects Design Associates.
You won’t find a white tablecloth in this modern tavern, a departure from most of Bajaj’s restaurant empire. It’s farmhouse chic.
I float this phrase to the restaurateur, and he laughs. “We never skimp on design,” says Bajaj, who tapped New York restaurant designer and James Beard nominee Martin Vahtra of Projects Design Associates (projectsda.com) for the interior architecture and aesthetic.
“I recently told someone that there are plenty of pizza places on Connecticut Avenue, but you can come in here and eat great pizza and sit on a beautiful chair,” says Bajaj, laughing.
James Beard Award-winning chef Frank Ruta crafted an American farm-to-table menu.
He’s serious, and so is Ruta’s pizza, which isn’t an afterthought. The pies, including the Tidal Basin (clams, fennel, oregano and smoked ricotta) and the Van Ness (spinach, pistachio and reggiano crema), now rank among the city’s best.
Bajaj, forever restless as he tries to predict Washingtonians’ appetites, has succeeded again. Above all, he remembers that gathering feeds the hungry soul.
Photography by: GREG POWERS
