A Gilded Age-inspired steakhouse and a red-velvet supper club opened June 26 at 1218 Wisconsin Ave. NW in Georgetown, filling the two-story building that once housed El Centro at the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue.
The Oak Room, a 60-seat American grill on the ground floor, and Bernadette's, an upstairs piano bar and supper club with a separate entrance, are the work of Ten Five Hospitality, the group behind Mother Wolf and Desert 5 Spot at Union Market. Managing partner Dan Daley, a Georgetown University graduate who moved back to the D.C. area about three years ago, told The Georgetowner the project is a bet on the neighborhood's post-pandemic dining corridor.
"A lot of M Street is commoditized retail. That's fine during the day, but neighborhoods need a real mix of businesses to have energy, culture, character," Daley said. "We wanted to bring some of those qualities back."
Leading the kitchen is chef Tim Hollingsworth, who won the James Beard Foundation's Rising Chef of the Year Award in 2010 and spent 13 years at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, including four as its youngest chef de cuisine in the restaurant's nearly 50-year history. He helped open Per Se in New York in 2004. According to Eater DC, Hollingsworth said the menu draws from how he cooks at home with his family: steak and potatoes.
The Oak Room's menu centers on prime rib, seafood towers, Dover sole, crab cakes with Old Bay aioli, beef tartare and heritage Berkshire pork chop. Beef comes from family-owned Brandt Beef in Southern California; produce is sourced from Lancaster Farms Cooperative. Upstairs, Bernadette's offers a raw bar, wagyu cheeseburger, steak frites and pan-fried halibut fish sticks with caviar butter.
The bar program features roughly 400 wines and is led by James Beard-nominated bartender Julian Cox, whose cocktail list includes a Castelvetrano martini and a yuzu-mezcal margarita.
LA and London design firm Fettle gutted and rebuilt the interior. Chief marketing officer Kim Walker personally sourced every art piece from antique shops and dealers. The space has history. The 150-year-old building previously housed Third Edition, the collegiate bar featured in the 1985 film St. Elmo's Fire.
Bernadette's offers live music Thursday through Saturday. Behind the supper club, an ivy-covered Garden patio bar rounds out the venue.
The Oak Room is open 5–10:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with brunch coming soon. Bernadette's is open 5–11 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Ten Five has already signed a lease to take over the long-vacant former home of RiRa on M Street NW, though no concept or timeline has been announced for that space.
