Dining Out in Washington, D.C.
Estuary in the Conrad hotel is a contemporary version of an early American Village.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Restaurant: Estuary, estuarydc.com
Hotel: Conrad Washington D.C., conradhotels.com
Architecture: Herzog & de Meuron, herzogdemeuron.com
Design: Rottet Studio, rottetstudio.com
Square feet: 5,207
Number of seats: 130
Chefs: Bryan and Michael Voltaggio
A powerhouse design team convened for the second phase of CityCenterDC, a mixed-use development by the great starchitects Herzog & de Meuron that occupies an entire city block. Its anchor, Hilton’s Conrad Washington D.C., features the Estuary restaurant and wine room by designer Lauren Rottet. “Conceptually I looked at it as a contemporary version of an early American village,” says Rottet. “The armories, which were round and held the guns and the gold, were focal points. I envisioned the bar as the arsenal and the gold as the spirits and cigars.” In the adjacent wine room, Windsor-like chairs and a wall of tiles featuring fragments of Williamsburg china further evoke colonial times. The palette is neutral, “the color of materials as they come out of the earth, the way they once were,” says Rottet, “because the focus is on the view and the experience.” The one exception? A fire-engine-red Molteni stove.
