Café Riggs
New American restaurant · Downtown ·
Elegant hotel brasserie serving oysters, martinis & New American cuisine
Elegant hotel brasserie serving oysters, martinis & New American cuisine
"Café Riggs is closing out 2025 with a luxe New Year’s Eve menu that starts with a champagne-paired caviar service featuring Osetra, Kaluga, and classic accompaniments like pave potato, steak tartare, and West Coast oysters. The three-course dinner includes seared diver scallops with truffle brown butter, pumpkin-ricotta agnolotti with maitake, and braised short rib with root vegetable pave. Dessert offers a choice between warm chocolate souffle or passionfruit pavlova to end the night on a sweet note." - Vinciane Ngomsi
"A classy Baked Alaska arrives to be set ablaze in the dining room, a flickering, old‑school flourish that suits the Penn Quarter setting." - Adele Chapin
"An 'opulent, hotel brasserie' in Penn Quarter described as a stylish all-day option offering fresh oysters, a 'stellar nitro espresso martini,' and a commitment to local ingredients near the National Portrait Gallery." - Eater Staff
"This downtown destination serves all-day menus from the bar, café, and dining room of the Riggs hotel, and that’s where we go to town on lobster royale until our heart’s content, with some steak and eggs and vanilla crepés thrown in for good measure. Cap off all that opulence with the bottomless champagne cart priced at $55 per person. If you need to put in some work on the weekend, the hotel lobby makes for a great Zoom background—the building, built in 1891, is a historic landmark, with intricate Richardsonian Romanesque architecture, marble columns here, and floor-to-ceiling red velvet drapery there." - mekita rivas, omnia saed, tristiana hinton
"Inspired by the bustling brasseries of Europe, Cafe Riggs offers grace and modernity in a very polished setting. The historic dining room and bar, kitted out with gleaming brass and marble and velvet-covered Art deco booths, are not short on ambience. The sharp waitstaff makes this a prime business lunch or dinner destination, as well as an ideal post-work watering hole.Classic dishes with quality products shine, as in the delicate Wagyu beef tartare with creamy mustard sauce, tart capers and cornichons. Prawn risotto with saffron, peas and pickled ramps is a vibrant yet delicate, sea-forward course with a surprising refinement. Finally, nothing says goodbye quite like a chocolate soufflé, served here with Grand Marnier caramel sauce." - Michelin Inspector
