Jackson Mississippi's Source for News and Jazz
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
To support WJSU text WJSU to 71777 or click the Donate button

A famed Capitol Hill restaurant is closing its doors

ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:

For many years, if you were a power player in the nation's capital, steakhouses were where you went to talk shop and cut deals, often over a martini. Charlie Palmer Steak was one of the best. But today, the pricey steakhouse closes its doors. In 2007, NPR reporter Ben Bergman brought us inside the Capitol Hill destination.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

BEN BERGMAN: In the dining room of Charlie Palmer Steak, a rock pool decorated with flowers chills the massive wine cellar perched above. You can take your pick of thousands of wines, including ones from every state. Once you've ordered drinks, time to consider the main course.

BRYAN VOLTAGGIO: Right now we have hickory-smoked salmon over ragu of leeks and fingerling potatoes or cured tomatoes.

SCHMITZ: That sounds wonderful. That was former executive chef Bryan Voltaggio. When the restaurant's D.C. location opened in 2003, it made a splash, explains Jessica Sidman, food editor for Washingtonian magazine.

JESSICA SIDMAN: Charlie Palmer Steak is really a fixture of Capitol Hill.

SCHMITZ: Sidman says the location of Charlie Palmer Steak in the shadow of the Capitol made it a go-to for lobbyists and legislators.

SIDMAN: It's going to end up being a cafeteria of Congress in a lot of ways - right? - at least if you're willing to spend a certain amount of money.

SCHMITZ: Sidman says Charlie Palmer is, in many ways, a backroom to history.

SIDMAN: People who work in places like that, they hear the news before it's on the news, right?

SCHMITZ: And perhaps so did Palmer himself.

CHARLIE PALMER: So my name is Charlie Palmer. I'm a chef and restaurateur and hotelier at this point.

SCHMITZ: Palmer says when the restaurant first opened in D.C., the goal was to present a new kind of steakhouse.

DANIEL PERRON: Charlie's mantra was always genuine American hospitality.

SCHMITZ: That's Daniel Perron, another former executive chef at Charlie Palmer. He says what set the restaurant apart was how it treated diners. Palmer says that's the most important ingredient for any restaurant.

PALMER: What is a restaurant to most diners, you know, especially regular diners? Yes, the food has to be good, and the service has to be good. But really, what they're wanting or what they are looking for is someone to take care of them.

SCHMITZ: He says the D.C. restaurant couldn't make a deal with its landlord to stay open. But Palmer says he has not ruled out opening another one in the nation's capital.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOOSE DAWA'S "DUSTY BUTTERFLY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.