Eating Around: Fishing for Christmas Cheer

Map It:  Archives-Navy Mem'l   Cleveland Park   King Street 

A FEAST FEATURING seven types of seafood may seem excessive. Yet in the final days before Christmas, the Feast of the Seven Fishes is exactly what's featured at several area restaurants in celebration of the holiday, Italian-style.

All across the Old Country, eschewing meat before Christmas Day means savoring dishes such as anchovy lasagna in Piedmont, cod ravioli in Parma and fried eel in Naples.

Though eel and anchovy may not be centerpieces on local holiday menus, D.C. chefs offer opportunities to embrace tradition for the faithful and the excuse for non-Catholics to indulge in the day's catch.

All month long, chef Enzo Fabbraro at D'Acqua is preparing dishes from his Italian childhood, an eight-course tasting menu — seven fish dishes and a dessert — for $75, including ostrica al tartufo (pan- fried oysters and black truffles with a prosecco-flavored sauvignon), strozzapreti (seafood ragout in a lobster-cream reduction) and black-fin tuna salad with cannallini bean and red onion.

At Hook, Barton Seaver offers a stylish feast on Christmas Eve, a seven-course tasting menu for $65 a person, $125 with wine pairings. The first course features a trout roe with creme fraiche, cava and brioche. Later courses showcase escabeche and house-cured sardines, and tuna with nutmeg and mint.
From Dec. 20 through 24, Dino chef Stephan Boillon will serve a feast including zuppa de pesce with fin and shellfish, giant ravioli of scallop and artichokes drizzled with truffle butter in his five-course tasting menu for $59, with wine pairings at $27 and $55.

The Grille at Morrison House's Dennis Marron offers a decadent Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve for $90, which includes Kumamoto oysters with juniper "air" and apple caviar, lobster and salt code brandade, and braised monkfish with white bean ragout. We're excited about the Port wine snow-cone intermezzo, too.

» D'Acqua, 801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW;202-783-7717 (Archives-Navy Mem'l)
» Hook, 3241 M St. NW; 202-625-4488.
» Dino, 3435 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202-686-2966. (Cleveland Park)
» The Grille at Morrison House, 116S. Alfred St., Alexandria; 703-838-8000. (King Street)

Photo by Dusty Lockhart