PILAR BAR

Hemingway-Themed Standby Bar Pilar Resurfaces With a New Menu | Eater DC

"Named after Hemingway’s treasured boat and located at 1833 14th Street NW, this Logan Circle gastropub sailed into 2023 with a redesigned menu and drinks program that lean into the writer’s Mediterranean and Cuban travels. Opened more than a decade ago (its longtime chef-partner Jesse Miller helped put it on the map before leaving in 2019), the current owners, RNJS Hospitality Group, tapped talent from the Eaton hotel and enlisted Allegory’s Deke Dunne and chef Adam Shata to re-energize a nautical destination for comfort foods and strong rum cocktails. The reboot shifts focus from earlier Asia-forward plates to Europe and Cuba, offering a meaty Cubano plus a vegetarian jackfruit-and-Swiss version (with the option to add turkey ham), beef tartare dressed with truffle oil, Caribbean-style shrimp skewers, mango shrimp or octopus ceviche, grilled rib-eye with chimichurri, koji-cured patatas bravas, and fried rockfish atop wild rice. Cocktails celebrate spirits from Hemingway’s haunts: the Italian-leaning “The Good Lion” (an Americano-meets-Negroni with Hapusa Himalayan gin, Martini & Rossi Blend, Solerno blood orange, cardamom and soda), the boozy “American in Paris” (rye, ODVI Armagnac, grapefruit, herbes de Provence, and absinthe), daiquiris and Cuba Libres built on Pilar’s Rum Blend distilled by Hemingway Rum Co., and nitro espresso martinis spiked with aged rum (or vodka), Mr. Black Coffee and Faretti Biscotti liqueurs. A selection of French and Spanish bubbles is offered by the glass ($12–$22) and bottle ($48–$88), and brunch with bottomless sparkling cocktails runs noon to 4 p.m." - Tierney Plumb