La Grande Boucherie DC
Restaurant · Downtown ·
French brasserie with Art Nouveau decor, steak frites & seafood
French brasserie with Art Nouveau decor, steak frites & seafood
"This pair of Italian and French restaurants out of NYC debuted in the Federal-American National Bank Building near the White House in 2024. Ground-level Italian osteria Olio e Più evokes a grand villa nestled in the Italian countryside, with Italian executive chef Danilo Galati serving up traditional dishes like a bowl of pesto pasta that gets a textural twist from potatoes and green beans. Pastas are all handmade on-site from its shiny open kitchen in the back. Charcuterie and cheese arrives with homemade focaccia, followed by a crudo bar, salads, soups, and antipasti. Up top at its gilded Parisian sibling La Grande Boucherie, find brasserie staples like seafood towers, croque-madame, a bubbly bar, and superb steak selection." - Tierney Plumb
"Upstairs in the same Federal-American National Bank Building I noticed the group's fancy French sibling, La Grande Boucherie, which made a grand entrance this spring and shares the landmark space with Olio e Più." - Tierney Plumb
"The Group Hospitality’s beloved Southern Italian trattoria out of New York City heads down to D.C. to showcase its homemade pastas, wood-fired pizzas, fritto misto, and tiramisu at the foot of downtown’s opulent French brasserie La Grande Boucherie." - Tierney Plumb
"Following three years of exponential growth — including hosting over 10,000 guests a week in NYC and a recent expansion to Chicago — founder Emil Stefkov’s Boucherie brand brought its sixth and most jaw-dropping edition yet to downtown D.C. in April. Blending the sophisticated ambiance of an indulgent steakhouse with a refined Parisian brasserie/raw bar, La Grande Boucherie infuses the historic Bank Building with an elaborate Belle Epoque-era interior filled with mahogany wood, glass partitions, and a curved metal bar top imported from Paris. Built in the 1920s, the former home to three national banks one block from the White House is included in the National Register of Historic Places." - Tierney Plumb
"At its opulent pre-opening party I saw why this may be the hottest new restaurant downtown: a red carpet, jazz band, absinthe towers dispensed at two pewter bars, and servers circulating through a white-tablecloth dining room and wraparound mezzanine as some $80,000 of plated French fare was served up the marbled staircase of the restored Federal-American National Bank Building. Housed in a 14,000-square-foot, 500-seat showpiece one block from the White House and designed to evoke circa-1920 Paris by Jules Gabriel Henri de Sibour, the space dazzles with an extravagant central chandelier and gilded ceiling, mahogany partitions creating intimate nooks, Tiffany glass fixtures, back-lit Belle Époque images, leather booths, walls covered in hundreds of vintage French prints, and billowing palms that make the restaurant feel like a greenhouse. Part of NY-based Group Hospitality’s Boucherie family (the sixth U.S. outpost), the menu leans on classic brasserie fare—French onion soup, escargots, mussels, tuna tartare, caviar service and a dedicated raw bar—while spotlighting meats (filet mignon au poivre, grass-fed ribeye, chateaubriand for two, plus dry-aged and wagyu programs) and seasonal seafood like Maryland blue crab and Chesapeake Bay fish. Corporate executive chef Maxime Kien celebrates spring with creamy gazpacho and local heirloom tomatoes dotted with green fava beans (brightened by a wine vinegar aged in oak), and uses native ingredients such as a pistou (olive oil–based basil sauce) with fettuccini and shrimp; the bustling kitchen is fully on display. Bars on each level (with Paris-imported curved bars and distressed mirrored tiles) pour cocktails like lavender-infused martinis and Old Fashioneds, while the best-selling pink coupe—Absolut, Lillet Blanc, lychee, cranberry and bubbles—arrives topped with tiny floating roses; D.C. mixologist LP O’Brien contributed three signature cocktails. Service will begin with dinner on Thursday, April 18, lunch starts at 11 a.m. and runs into dinner, opening service is 4 p.m. to midnight, and weekend brunch begins at 11 a.m." - Tierney Plumb