Reopening Week Special Launch

Event Date: 
Sunday, August 2, 2015 - 5:30pm to 11:59pm
RSVP Required
Food & Drink Special
Cost:
$26.10
Included Items: 
choice of an appetizer, entrée, and dessert

L’ENFANT CAFÉ: NEW CHEF, NEW MENUS, NEW HAPPY HOUR 
Local restaurateurs announce updates and plans for a new concept this fall

A staple of the Adams Morgan neighborhood, L’Enfant Café is proud to announce the launch of a fresh menu and happy hour specials at the 12-year-old restaurant. Owners Christopher Lynch and Jim Ball have tapped Chef Travis Hearne to oversee the kitchen and assist with the opening of a second restaurant this fall, just around the corner from their beloved L’Enfant. In the meantime, Chef Hearne has added a robust selection of main plates, starters, salads and cheese & charcuterie to the French menu.

For anyone who has not revisited 18th St in a while, L’Enfant lures diners with a re-opening week celebration, a golden opportunity to enjoy the choice of an appetizer, entrée and dessert for $26.10 in his honor of, and beginning on, Pierre L’Enfant’s 261st birthday, Monday, August 2, and continuing through Sunday, August 8. Reservations are required and can be made through the website or by phone (202-319-1800). Monsieur L’Enfant’s birthday also marks the beginning of a weekday happy hour, a first for the restaurant, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Specials include Belgian draft beers, Sauvignon Blanc, French bubbles, Montepulciano, and highball cocktails for $5 coupled with food specials available at the bar.

From Chef Hearne’s kitchen come main plates like the tempura fried soft shell crab BLT and salmon served over a fresh cucumber salad. New aperitifs include a seared, bone-in lamb lollipops served over arugula and cheese salad garnished with a balsamic reduction. The lollipops are joined by the mini bánh mi baguette bites, which may seem like a departure from theme, except for the fact that modern Vietnamese cuisine was heavily influenced by French colonialism. More provincial staples appear throughout the menu, including skirt steak paired with herbed, slender pomme frites and hollandaise, the classic bistro burger topped with a slice of smoked gouda, peppered bacon and sautéed onions, mussels with Serrano ham in a tomato and lemon garlic broth and a fresh, bright tuna niçoise.

As so many chefs do, Travis Hearne grew up cooking with his grandmother. His story is unique in that he was running the kitchen of his grandmother’s boarding house by the time he was ten years old. As a teenager, he bounced around restaurants and across borders until he settled down at the Cajun Queen, a famed restaurant in Charlotte where he learned to cook a mixture of Creole and Southern-influenced French cuisine. Chef Hearne joins L’Enfant after moving back to DC and working as a chef for the Inn at Little Washington and Passion Food Group.  

L’Enfant Café is open Monday through Thursday 5:30pm to midnight, Friday 5:30pm to 1am, and Saturday and Sunday 11am to 11pm.

For more information, visit L’Enfant online at http://www.lenfantcafe.com, follow the team on social media @LEnfantCafeBar, or email Kelsey Duke at Kelsey@KelseyDuke.com.

LEnfant Café is a French-style restaurant located at 18th and U, at the base of Adams Morgan and a short distance from the 14th St Corridor and Dupont Circle. True to a Parisian café style, L’Enfant offers a small, intimate dining space and a flower-lined sidewalk patio from which guests can relax and enjoy the view of the surrounding crowd.  LEnfant is home to La Boum Brunch, a popular Saturday and Sunday fête.