All Set Restaurant & Bar
Seafood restaurant · Silver Spring
8630 Fenton Street, Plaza, 5, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Highlights
Nautical seafooder with lobster rolls, crab cakes, and oysters
Nautical seafooder with lobster rolls, crab cakes, and oysters
"On the third Saturday of each month, the Silver Spring seafood restaurant’s resident queens from the Haus of Stone grace diners with performances filled with glitz, glamour, and greatest hits from gay icons. Doors open at noon and the party starts at 12:30 p.m. Take in the show while enjoying comforting brunch favorites like a smoked brisket hash, brioche French toast, and crab cake benedict smothered in hollandaise sauce. Unlimited brunch cocktails ($35) are available, spanning classic mimosas and espresso martinis to specialty drinks like the Green Monster, a gin and cava-based cocktail made with matcha. Reservations for shows can be made through Tock, with a $10 fee covering the price of admission." - Tierney Plumb
"This seafood-centric restaurant serves tasty lobster rolls, Maryland-style crab cakes, and an array of freshly shucked oysters. The top dish of the moment is the trout crab meuniere, a dish with a pan-seared filet topped with lemon butter crab and served on a bed of fingerling potatoes, cauliflower, and roasted cherry tomatoes. The restaurant also recently added a Sundays pop-up series in collaboration with Suya Factory, a West African DMV-based street food concept led by Samuel “DJ Chick” Mobit (4-9 p.m.)." - Tim Ebner
"A nautical-themed, 120-seat Silver Spring restaurant is undergoing a facelift ahead of its tenth anniversary (official date April 15) with an anniversary celebration on April 11 from 5 p.m. to close featuring $10 food and drink specials the entire weekend; the owners recently signed a lease for another 10 years and will close the dining room on April 7 to add booths. Co-owners Ed Reavis and Jen Meltzer have used the reboot to upgrade the menu: Reavis makes a seafood pizza using a 24-hour pre-fermented biga yeast starter (the dough uses two kinds of flour) topped with Maine lobster, crab, shrimp, caramelized leeks, seafood mornay, and Old Bay; a Mediterranean branzino entree is kept simple and fresh, prepared with citrus gremolata, olive oil, and garlic; and long-standing crab cakes were enlarged and finished with jumbo lump crab meat on top, moves that helped quadruple the item’s sales. The team also added a generous happy hour that runs Mondays through Saturdays from 3 p.m. until closing to better compete with area restaurants. Pastry consultant Kareem “Mr. Bake” Queeman — a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist for outstanding pastry chef who has appeared on NBC’s Today show, the Cooking Channel’s Bake It ’Til You Make It, and Cooking with Como on FOX5, and whose 2018 sweet potato spice cake helped him win Bake It Like Buddy on the Discovery Family Channel — is consulting on a revamped pastry menu that ties into the restaurant’s New England–influenced cuisine; desserts already on the menu include Boston cream pie (a vanilla sponge cake with vanilla pastry cream and chocolate ganache), and the whoopie pie (two cake-like cookies with a creamy filling) which was unveiled on Pi Day before being added to the menu. “It fits right into line to the baking style that I do already, so it wasn’t hard for me to insert myself into the thread of the restaurant and what Ed and Jen and the rest of the team have already cultivated over the years,” says Queeman. On competitive pricing and happy hour Reavis notes, “My regulars would tell me, ‘Look, I love you, but I can get the same drink half price. Around the corner. So, what are you going to do about that?’ I just finally gave in,” Reavis says. Looking ahead he adds, “I kind of sense like a renaissance happening with us as far as we’re evolving to make sure we survive and not only survive, but thrive,” says Reavis." - Lenore Adkins
"For a long-awaited sit-down to discuss ongoing conflicts from last season, Gizelle Bryant and Wendy Osefo met at All Set for lunch in episode two. Bryant opted for oysters and crab cakes while Osefo dined on the branzino, which comes with citrus gremolata, lemon caper butter, wild rice, mushrooms, tomatoes, and string beans." - Vinciane Ngomsi
"For a long-awaited sit-down to discuss ongoing conflicts from last season, Gizelle Bryant and Wendy Osefo met at All Set for lunch in episode two. Bryant opted for oysters and crab cakes while Osefo dined on the branzino, which comes with citrus gremolata, lemon caper butter, wild rice, mushrooms, tomatoes, and string beans." - Vinciane Ngomsi
