About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Kathmandu Tapas & Cocktails. 1342 U St., NW
If DC is entering its Nepali food era, it has largely been ushered in by Dipesh Acharya.
The Kathmandu-born former IT specialist once ran a momo business at a Dallas farmers market. Since moving to Virginia and opening a small Nepali grocery, he’s become the area’s main supplier of water buffalo, Himalayan seasonings, and Nepali beers. Tempo Shack, his superb street food stand, is introducing H Street revelers to chili momo and goat sekuwa.
Acharya has made it his mission to make his cuisine better known on its own terms in DC.
“All the places you get Nepali food are always Indian restaurants also,” he says. “I want to stick with just Nepali cuisine. Every business that I am involved in somehow tends to be very Nepali-inclined.”
He now has a new flagship for that project: Kathmandu Tapas & Cocktails, which opens on Wednesday, May 6 just off 14th and U, in a long-empty space that formerly housed Desperados Burgers & Bar.
Kathmandu’s loungey interior is inspired by Thamel, the nightlife and tourist hub of its namesake city, with exposed brick walls, a copper bar top, Nepali art, and bamboo stools.
The place is primarily a cocktail bar focused on Nepali ingredients and spirits, with concoctions like the spiced Himalayan Old Fashioned with Nepali Khukri rum, and the Timur Collins, based on mezcal and a Nepali varietal of the Sichuan pepper. You can also find Nepali Barasinghe beer, and the millet-based spirit kodhoko rakhsi, which Acharya helps source and distribute.
The food offerings, developed by Acharya with his chef and family friend Shiva Nepal, incorporate some fusion— think masala crab cakes with chutney, Timur-spiced calamari, and grilled duck choila tacos. There are also classic Nepali street foods like Chinese-inspired keema noodles and variously stuffed momos, the Nepalese dumplings Acharya expects his guests to recognize already.
“Momos are really like what tikka masala was 10 years ago right now,” he says.
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
