My Little Chamomile. Alley behind 3210 Grace St., NW.
Green Almond Pantry is a small but mighty lunch counter and market in Georgetown serving simple seasonal plates—and DC’s best focaccia. Come late summer or early fall, chef/owner Cagla Onal will open a neighboring sit-down restaurant called My Little Chamomile, where she’ll feature her homestyle Turkish-Mediterranean cooking for dinner. The intimate, 42-seat restaurant will be tucked away in the same hidden alleyway as fine-dining restaurant Reverie.
The name is a condensed version of the nickname that Onal’s mother gave her 13-year-old daughter: “my little yellow chamomile.” The restaurant is also an homage to the kind of cooking Onal learned from her mom, using quality ingredients prepared simply. “I want to create a place where people feel comfortable, like they’re coming to their grandmother’s house,” she says.
The restaurant will display fresh daily salads and serve seasonal mezze and larger mains like stews and roasted meats. While My Little Chamomile probably won’t have focaccia, Onal will be baking various other breads, including Turkish flatbread pide, and will make her own butter from scratch. The place will also serve Turkish coffee and some beers and wines. Eventually, it will open for brunch with dishes like hand-pulled borek stuffed with vegetables or meat and menemen, Turkish-style scrambled eggs with tomatoes.
“I want to do things that will make me happy,” Onal says.
Meanwhile, Green Almond Pantry, which temporarily closed in March while the kitchen underwent an expansion and Onal underwent back surgery, reopens today. While the offerings remain largely the same for now, the additional kitchen space means Onal will be able to offer more catering.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
