About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Hank’s Pasta Bar. 600 Montgomery St., Alexandria
Chef Darren Norris has spent most of his career in DC focused on Japanese food, from his pioneering izakaya Kushi to his new fast-casual spot Shibuya in Chevy Chase, MD. So at first glance, it might seem surprising that he’s now the chef of Hank’s Pasta Bar, an offshoot of Hank’s Oyster Bar, in Old Town Alexandria.
In reality, Norris has a long history with Italian cuisine, dating back to the ’80s. Before he moved to DC in 2005, he was the chef de cuisine for Scalini Fedeli, an upscale Italian restaurant in New York, and he also worked at a long-gone Italian spot in DC called Red Tomato. “It’s always been part of my career, and so it was a lot of muscle memory involved for me with the Italian food. It was just like coming home,” Norris says.
Norris also has a longtime friendship with Hank’s owner Jamie Leeds, and they frequently go to each other when they’re looking for staff or advice. With Shibuya up and running in the hands of a longtime manager, Norris called her. “I just said, ‘I’m looking for something to do. Do you have anything you need help with?'”
It turned out the answer was yes. Leeds had originally opened Hank’s Pasta Bar in 2016, but turned it into another location of Hank’s Oyster Bar during the pandemic. She’d revived it again for carryout and delivery only last fall, but wanted to bring back the dining room on the second floor, which has its own kitchen. (The first floor remains the oyster bar.)
Norris has introduced a new menu with antipasti such as braised artichokes, meatballs in pomodoro sauce, and burrata with slow-fermented tomatoes (“a little bit more interesting version of a caprese”). But the main focus is on the pastas: bucatini amatriciana, malfade with fennel sausage and broccoli rabe, and fusilli with pistachio pesto and garlic butter shrimp, to name a few. Norris also makes a lasagna with “ruffled ribbon” noodles, “so it’s super tall but it’s not dense, it’s very light.”
Like his Japanese restaurant Shibuya, there’s also a build-your-own option, where you can choose your pasta shape, sauce, proteins, vegetables, and toppings. Norris says he sources “single estate pastas” from a producer in Italy that grows its grain and makes its own noodles. Pasta prices range from $16 to $19, while the build-your-own option starts at $13.
The 50-seat restaurant also offers Italian wines ($10 to $15 per glass), plus cocktails, like a berry negroni.
“We’re not trying to go fancy. We’re trying to just be a place that you would come every week,” Norris says. “Nobody wearing a suit.”
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’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.
