All-Day Harvey’s Brings Falls Church Homey Comfort Foods With Local Flair - Eater DC
"Fall Church’s new Harvey’s is so into sourcing local, the names of homegrown breweries, wineries, farmers, meat purveyors, and even construction partners are artfully etched in colorful letters on a chalkboard wall upon entry. The all-day American eatery and market comes from first-time restaurant owner and Virginia native Thomas Harvey, the former executive chef at charcuterie standard bearers Partisan and Red Apron Butcher in D.C., and most recently, Tuskie’s Restaurant Group in Virginia. Harvey’s breakout namesake project augments a growing downtown dining strip that counts Thompson Italian and Dogwood Tavern as neighbors. Family-friendly, 48-seat Harvey’s opens with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, with a small market selling beer, wine, and provisions like takeaway salads, sandwiches, and heat-and-eat entrees. A subscription-based monthly wine club debuts in May. Harvey’s, which also houses a 12-person bar facing its open kitchen and 60-seat patio, accepts walk-ins only (no reservations). Opening hours range from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with Sunday service coming soon. Harvey’s starts the day with La Colombe coffee and four types of breakfast sandwiches, including a “Sweet Fire” variety with scrambled eggs, fried chicken, pimiento cheese, and hot honey. Customers can also build their own with an assortment of meats, veggies, cheese, and sauces like smoked tomato chutney and IPA-ioli. A combined lunch and dinner menu leans into comforting pub fare. Fried calamari, fire-roasted onion dip, Bavarian pretzels with beer cheese, Caesar salad, burgers, and pastrami sandwiches join mains like spaghetti carbonara, porter-braised Seven Hills beef short ribs, a chicken Cobb salad, and steak frites, all served on decorative vintage plates. A veggie-friendly main features Portobello mushroom “steak” and royal trumpet “scallops.” The same local ingredients that help build the menu can also be taken home. The market sells cuts of Lynchburg, Virginia’s Seven Hills beef, bacon and charcuterie from D.C.’s Epicuring, and produce from Virginia’s Sylvanaqua Farms. Wines sold at the market can be enjoyed in the dining room for a small corkage fee. Harvey started cooking in 2004 in Purcellville, Virginia, before working as a personal chef and later graduating from the now-shuttered Academie de Cuisine culinary school in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He went on to work under two top chefs in D.C.: Frank Ruta and Fabio Trabbochi at now-closed Palena in Cleveland Park and Casa Luca, respectively. Harvey’s sprinkles in a number of personal family touches. A black-and-white floor tile is modeled after the one in his grandmother’s kitchen, and a honey-sweetened cake relies on his mother-in-law’s recipe. “We want the feeling to be like you’re at friends and family’s house,” says Harvey. “Those are the best experiences.”" - Lisa Ruland
