About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
DC Al Toque. 3910 14th St., NW
We’re no strangers to Venezuelan snacks like arepas and cachapas in the DC area, mainly thanks to the family behind Arepa Zone and Antojitos de tu País.
But with DC Al Toque, a new team is hoping to expose the city to a wider variety of Venezuelan dishes.
Adriana Rodriguez, her boyfriend Misael Amaya, her sister Alexandra Rodriguez, and their cousin Jonathan Avendaño have been quietly humming along for weeks in the roomy, faux-Spanish-style 14th Street storefront north of Columbia Heights that housed Sabor Latino for years. They plan to throw a grand opening party this week.
“We are simply a family looking to start a business and do Venezuela proud by doing things right,” Adriana Rodriguez says in Spanish. “We’ve received a pretty nice welcome from the city as entrepreneurs.”
The Rodriguez family is from Valencia, Venezuela’s industrial second city, where Adriana and her ex-husband ran a butcher shop. After moving to DC, she met Amaya, who is originally from El Salvador. He recognized her talent at baking and food service and encouraged her to start her own business. The team have all worked various food world jobs—Amaya ran La Caverna sports bar in Hyattsville—but this is their first restaurant from scratch.
The long menu they developed for DC Al Toque includes dishes like a sizzling parrillada (grill platter) of chicken, beef, chorizo, chistorra and blood sausages, and yuca; pabellón criollo, the “flag dish” of Venezuela made up of shredded beef, black beans, rice, sweet plantains, avocado, cheese, and an egg; and a “pepito de un metro,” a meter-long show-stopper of a shareable steak sandwich topped with egg, ham, cheese, sweet corn, and avocado.
Other dishes, such as the shawarma “arabezolano,” the arroz chino (Venezuelan fried rice), and the lasagna-like pasticho, reflect the long history of immigration to Venezuela’s cities from the Levant, China, and Italy.
DC Al Toque is a bakery too. At the entrance to the restaurant is a case of cookies, cakes, sweet piñitas, ham-filled cachitos, pan de coco, and empanadas, all freshly baked by Rodriguez.
The new restaurant’s name comes from the Spanish phrase “al toque,” which means “right now” or “immediately.” But the owners also point out it has a second connotation: something perfect and ideal.
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.
