Oribu, 1000 H St., NW.
Chef Joevel Magpantay knows his fancy hotels. His first job in America was as a chef on a J-1 visa at the Grand Hyatt Dallas. Then he spent years working at the Park Hyatt Dubai, the Jumeirah Group, and most recently, at Andaz Abu Dhabi.
Magpantay’s first DC restaurant, Oribu at the Grand Hyatt downtown, is both another hotel restaurant and an encapsulation of his own life and career. The luxurious 4,600-square-foot space—formerly Cure Bar & Bistro—serves a blend of Mediterranean and Japanese cuisines inspired by the historical routes of the maritime silk road.
“I’m a Filipino, and Filipinos have always lived in a crossroads of cultures,” Magpantay says. “I grew up admiring Japanese discipline, and I have spent 12 years cooking in the Middle East. I would say that Oribu is basically an intersection of my life experiences.”
Oribu (the name means “olive” in Japanese) opens on Wednesday, July 1 and will be open almost all day every day, in typical hotel restaurant fashion. From the kitchen, Magpantay will dispense fusion dishes such as smoked burrata with tomato ponzu, wagyu dumplings with miso labne, and a compressed melon salad with Greek feta and yuzu. You’ll also find kebab plates and an array of sushi rolls.
Larger dishes include a lemongrass-and-ginger prawn risotto crisped in a clay pot, and a charcoal-grilled salmon glazed with kalamata olive miso.
“It’s fusion not for the sake of fusion,” Magpantay says. “If you really think about it, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisines share the same philosophies, which are simplicity, respect for ingredients, and purity.”
There are some of the trappings of a high-end hotel restaurant here, too: fried rice is upgraded with wagyu, and there’s the option of a private omakase dinner for a table for 10. A curving rattan chandelier hangs over the bar, where cocktails feature sake and other Japanese spirits.
The idea, Magpantay says, is to cater to the same kind of sophisticated international clientele he’s always served in other parts of the world.
“DC I believe is a city of diplomats, thinkers, and travelers,” he says. “Global palates, basically.”
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.
