Palena Cafe

3529 Connecticut Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20008
  • $$
  • Rating Distribution
    5 stars
    9
    4 stars
    21
    3 stars
    7
    2 stars
    3
    1 star
    1

Chef Frank Ruta Puts His Heart into Soulful Food

Profile by: David Hagedorn
Photos shot on location by: Elizabeth Parker

Highlights

  • The cocktails are amongt the best in Washington, especially the Maker’s Mark Manhattan with preserved amarena cherries.
  • The Tavola di Perpetua e Felicita is a $65 per person, six person minimum head-to tail family-style feast that showcasees locally raised beef. It’s a showstopper meal and requires 24-hour advance reservation.
  • The Saturday and Sunday brunch (11am to 2:30pm) is known amongst the cogniscenti as one of DC’s best, offering just the right mix of breakfast and lunch items.
  • On Sunday nights, Ruta widens the pizza offerings from the wood-burning oven.

Good to Know

  • There is a small pay parking lot next door to Palena (not associated with the restaurant; no validating); otherwise, you’re left to find street parking. Showing up right at 6:30 pm Mon-Fri is your best bet.
  • Table 50 in the Café, a semi-circular banquette that seats two-to-four, affords the best view of the room and a glimpse at the kitchen action.
  • Facing the bar in the Dining Room side of Palena, tables 20 and 21 are cozy, semi-circular, upholstered banquettes perfect for side-by-side seating.
  • Palena Market, in the front of the Café, features artisinal items and carefully-chosen imported foods (local honey, Fee Brothers bitters, pasta, olive oil, coffee) as well as irresistable baked goods. Gift baskets are available with 48 hours notice.
  • The noise level is the kind of huzzle-buzzle you’d expect in a popular café, but well-spaced tables allow conversations to remain audible and private.

Recommended Dishes

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    Fritto misto of spring onion, vegetables, lemon slices, panisse, fish and seafood
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    Vitello tonnato with poached egg and pert mixed greens
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    Lobster roe tagliatelle with lump crab, Calabrian chilis and lrmon toasted breadcrumbs
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    Gnocchi with fava beas, pancetta and goat cheese
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    Roast chicken with lemon braised greens
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    Palena cheeseburger (get an order of frites with harissa mayonnaise)

Best Bottles (wine list changes often)

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    Granbazan Albarino "L'Etiqueta Verde" 2011
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    Domaine Baudry-Dutour Chinon Rosé 2011
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    Colosi Nero d'Avola 2010

Full Overview

If you don't see reservation availability, please call the restaurant directly.   When chef Frank Ruta opened Palena in 2000, the food cognoscenti embraced him, especially the residents of Cleveland Park, which until then had been a fine-dining desert.  In 2003, Ruta transformed half the space into a Café, offering his blend of Italian (his family background) and French (his culinary training, most notably at the White House) style to the more general public. The Palena cheeseburger, roast chicken, and seafood, vegetable and lemon fritto misto quickly became the stuffs of legend, with patrons willing to endure the long wait of the Café’s no-reservations policy, whiling away time over smartly-crafted cocktails. Fast forward to 2010, when the notoriously diffident Ruta took over the space next door to create a country-chic trattoria, complete with a cedar slat ceiling, oyster-marble bar and harlequin patterned terrazzo flooring. He installed a wood burning grill and oven in his new, (somewhat) open kitchen (the old downstairs kitchen became bread production central), tripled the Café’s seating capacity while making the fancier Dining Room’s space smaller and more elegant.  Result: understated vibe with neighborhood feel plus breathing space. The best upgrade came in 2012: the acceptance of reservations in the Café! (The Dining Room always took them.) Ruta broadened the scope of his menu to coincide with the Café’s expansion, taking full advantage of his  wood-fired cooking capabilitiy. The ultra-thick, Pipe Dream’s Farm Berkshire pork chop topped with brown butter and pastry chef Aggie Chin’s kimchi now rivals the much-lauded roast chicken. A mixed grill of beef heart and housemade lamb sausage (all of the charcuterie is made in-house) evokes the Italian countryside. Other must-haves include: vitello tonnato (ethereal slices of Bard Parker veal on creamy tuna sauce with a poached egg, fried capers and lemony dressed greens); provolone piccante baked to gooey delight on a cedar plank; and any of Ruta’s pastas or risottos. Airy gnocchi with fava beans, pancetta and goat cheese are life-altering. Weekend brunch and Sunday dinner afford opportunities for Ruta to show off his made pizza skills; availing yourself of them is advisable. Chin’s desserts are recherché and whimsical at the same time. The Uptowner (frozen dark chocolate torte with cocoa nib marshmallow, popcorn parfait, milk chocolate Bavarian and caramelized crispy rice) is a chocoholic Valhalla.
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Frank Ruta

Executive Chef

Don’t expect to see Frank Ruta swanning around the dining room or the country, as other chefs seem to do these days. He’s a nose-to-the-grindstone type of guy who concentrates all his effort on producing remarkable, thoughtful food prepared with uncompromising integrity and skill.

 

Starting as a dishwasher and working his way up, Ruta, 54, entered the food business in the late Seventies. He landed a spot in the American Culinary Federation’s apprenticeship program and then came up through the ranks of the Pittsburgh area’s restaurant scene, eventually becoming the chef at a country club.

 

Then the White House came calling. He worked there as an assistant chef and personal chef for the Carter, Reagan and Bush families from 1979 to 1987, when he left to do an 18-month stint at Andrea restaurant in Merano, Italy. He then returned to the White House as sous-chef, leaving in 1991 to work for Yannick Cam at Le Pavillon on Washington, DC. By 1993, landed his first chef job, making a name for himself as a talent to be reckoned with at the River Club.

 

In 2000, Ruta opened Palena in Cleveland Park. The food world embraced the fluidity with which he blended high-style, technique-focused French and Italian cooking. When, in 2003, Ruta turned half the restaurant into a café, the public quickly availed itself of his more accessible rustic-but-refined cooking.

 

In 2010, Ruta took over the space next door, expanded Palena’s Café and menu and added a retail Market in which a wide range of bakery items are sold, along with products used on Palena’s menus.

 

Ruta’s well-deserved accolades include Best New Chef Food and Wine 2001, Washingtonian Restaurateur of the Year 2002 and Best Chef Mid-Atlantic James Beard 2007. His plans for the future do not involve reality television.

Affiliated Restaurants
Palena Fine Dining
Palena Fine Dining
Restaurant Details

A reservation will now earn you: 200 Reward pts.

CityEats Rewards

For every reservation that you make and honor (you actually show up at the restaurant and have a meal) on CityEats.com, you will earn 200 CityEats Rewards points. If you then write a review of your dining experience, you will earn an additional 200 points. Once you have collected 2,500 points, you can redeem them for either a $25 gift certificate or a charitable donation in the amount of $25.