Logo courtesy of Restaurants-America

"We know that Adams Mill had a certain reputation," says Anthony Lupo, co-owner of the forthcoming restaurant Southern Hospitality. "It's a hard situation because we don't want to lose those neighborhood people at all. We're obviously going to be a much different place but we also don't ostracize those people that wanted to come there and that we believe will come to our place, too. It's different. But we still want to be a staple neighborhood bar."

By the numbers: the new restaurant will have around 160 seats, including both high and low tops; around 30 wines by the glass and between 10 to 12 beers on tap. Small plates will cost around $10; bigger entrees will run "into the 20's," says Lupo. The restaurant will be open for lunch, he assures Y&H, which is somewhat rare in the nightlife-centric neighborhood.

As previously reported, the D.C. eatery will have no affiliation with the New York barbecue chain of the same name—nor any creative connection to pop singer Justin Timberlake. "No J.T. over here," Lupo laughs.

He describes the menu as "American fare with a Southern flair," but declined to get into specifics. "We're just kind of putting the menu together now," he says. The restaurant has enlisted a chef but Lupo is keeping the name under wraps for the moment.

Similarly, there is no set opening date, though Lupo says he's aiming for "right around the end of the year," provided everything falls into place with permits, construction, and the usual rigmarole of opening a restaurant in D.C. "Definitely running on all cylinders post-New Year," he predicts.

"It's a great space," Lupo says of the location at the intersection of 18th Street, Columbia and Adams Mill roads. "I look it at as one of the better corners in D.C....Given the future, with Marriott and some of these other restaurants coming in, it's going to be great."

Adams Morgan has long been a rather dubious dining destination and a magnet for the city's less experienced operators. (City Paper's original Young & Hungry columnist, Brett Anderson, now the food critic at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, wrote about this all the way back in 1998.)

Lupo looks at some of the most recent additions to the 18th Street retail strip, particularly the arrival of Atlanta-based pizza chain Mellow Mushroom, as evidence that the food part of the neighborhood's eating and drinking scene might finally be coming into its own. "We did a pretty intense demographic study in the area," he says, "and there's a reason those people are coming in. It's a great, great neighborhood with tons of potential."

Logo courtesy of Southern Hospitality

Popovsky strongly denied that suggestion and went so far as to say: "That restaurant will be there longer than Obama is in office, whether he gets elected for another four years or not."

Despite the president's habit of restaurant hopping, Obama has yet to visit Lincoln. But Popovsky namedrops a slew of other officials from the Obama administration who have paid a visit. "Pretty much everyone but [Obama] and his wife," says Popovsky. "We've had his speechwriter, Jon Favreau. We've had the chairman of the [Federal Communications Commission]. We've had the director of the Department of Agriculture. We've had several high-ranking officials. But we have not have the president. No. If it happens, it happens."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

A self-described Civil War buff, Popovsky says he conducted his own historical research prior to opening the place. Despite selling cocktails named "Lincoln Sour" and "Honest Abe's Moonshine," he concedes that Lincoln wasn't much of a drinker. Popovsky describes the moonshine moniker, for one, as more of a fun, tongue-in-cheek sort of title. "Drinking is not so honest, or for a while it wasn't, so the antithesis is 'Honest Abe's Moonshine' as opposed to just moonshine," he laughs. "It's just a name."

However, Popovsky takes exception to the notion that the nation's 16th president was a complete teetotaler.  "He did like to drink champagne," Popovsky asserts, "so we made sure we had a champagne cocktail." Hence, the "Lady Lincoln," a blend of Hendrick's gin, St. Germain, and prosecco with a sprig of lavender. "Now, he didn't drink it every night," the restaurateur says, "but according to historians, there were several occasions a year when that's what he would drink." (Holzer, the Lincoln scholar, disputes this: "In his dreams.")

Lincoln is, of course, a restaurant. Not a museum. Still, Popovsky maintains that some diners might nonetheless come away with something resembling a learning experience in addition to their meal.

"At least it gives people the idea to think about history when you go in there," he says. "The quotes on the wall going down the hallway, those are all part of trying to engage the customer into thinking, 'Hey, maybe I'll go back and Google this president and see what he was all about.'"

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

As an historian, Harold Holzer knows the Emancipation Proclamation about as well as anyone. He’s just never seen it all lit up in bright red neon before. “That’s a first,” Holzer says.

We are seated on opposing plush settees in a loungey back dining room at Lincoln, the seasonal American restaurant that opened in April, its name a tribute to the nation’s 16th president. The famous 19th century executive order, illuminated by light emitting diodes, serves as an oddly modish backdrop. It’s as if 20th century minimalist Dan Flavin had freed the slaves through his fluorescent-light installations.

Of course, that’s not how it happened. And that’s why I’ve invited Holzer, a senior vice president of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and a guy who’s written or edited 41 books on Honest Abe and the Civil War, to share a meal and help me critique this bizarre anachronism of a restaurant.

Proprietor Alan Popovksy’s PR materials describe the concept as a “contemporary chic log cabin with a modern pop tone.” The bronzy floor is tiled with thousands of pennies. The lighting fixtures are fashioned from mason jars. And the menu features an odd mix of contemporary ethics—locally sourced seafood, artisanal meats—alongside traditional standards that feature “many nods to Abraham Lincoln’s favorite foods.”

The restaurant’s motto, naturally, is “[f]ood for the people by the people.” Thankfully, it is not food “of the people.” Whatever the Confederates may have said, Abe Lincoln was no cannibal.

You don’t have to be a serious historian like Holzer to find the whole concept a bit jarring—and not just because the kitschy theme of “liberation [from] culinary mediocrity and emancipation from the ordinary” seems to equate competing eateries’ menus with chattel slavery.

Popovsky says the idea is more abstract than that. It’s about “getting back to basics,” he says, harkening back to a simpler era when “farm-to-table” wasn’t just a trendy catch phrase. Albeit one that he employs with impunity.

Our adventure in historical contradiction spotting begins even before we sit down. At the bar, we start with a round of “Honest Abe’s Moonshine,” a deceptively strong combination of white whiskey, lemon juice, and orange bitters. It’s served in a mason jar, for $10 a pop.

What would Lincoln think of the stiff drink? Not much. It turns out he didn’t partake. “Never had wine, never had spirits,” says Holzer. “He said it made him feel ‘flabby.’” Even at diplomatic dinners with their obligatory toasts, the president didn’t imbibe. “His technique with wine was not to draw attention to the fact that he wasn’t a drinker,” Holzer explains. “He would just bring it to his mouth and not sip.”

Alas, Lincoln wasn’t much of an eater, either—making the very notion of naming a restaurant after him somewhat ridiculous. Worldly contemporaries like Secretary of State William Seward might have inspired restaurants, but 19th century politicos considered the great railsplitter something of a hick. The designation, in fact, was part of his electoral appeal. “Lincoln was totally indifferent about food for most of his life,” says Holzer. “He wasn’t a foodie. I mean, this was a guy who grew up on possum stew and squirrel dip. He’s not going to be interested in anything but sustenance.”

It’s a pity that Popovsky’s restaurant didn’t try to stay true to Lincoln’s rough-hewn tastes. At least possum stew and squirrel dip would break some new ground on the D.C. food scene. Despite claims of a new birth of culinary freedom, the restaurant’s menu features many of the same usual suspects as countless other places across town: tater tots, meatballs, macaroni and cheese, to name a few. And these are all small plates—arguably the District's most ubiquitous trend to date.

We begin our meal with a dozen raw oysters, served on an icy tray that our server places upon an elevated wiry platform at a height that average five-foot-something guys like Holzer and I can barely reach from our seated position. Maybe someone six-foot-four-inches or above wouldn’t have so much trouble.

So far, so Lincoln-esque: “Supposedly, [Lincoln] had oysters on re-election night,” Holzer tells me. It’s a scene memorably recreated in Gore Vidal’s 1988 made-for-TV drama Lincoln, starring Sam Waterston, with the president “doling out oysters for Seward and for his wife to celebrate his victory,” Holzer notes. “These are good, by the way,” he adds.

Our server identifies the chilled mollusks as Blue Point oysters from Long Island. Not an uncommon variety, nor the biggest or briniest oyster I’ve ever tasted, but perfectly palatable with a tiny drip of the accompanying mignonette.

Next up, a plate of organic kale salad with hazelnuts, dried cranberries and parmesan shavings. Holzer has no idea how this dish harkens back to the 16th president. But he couldn’t care less. “The kale salad is really fantastic,” he says. “It’s tangy.” (Throughout the evening, the Lincoln scholar repeatedly rebuffs our server’s attempt to clear that particular plate.)

A subsequent salad of sliced watermelon, cheese and olives proves equally refreshing—and turns out to be historically apt, to boot. Holzer notes that the first town in America to be named after Lincoln was christened with a watermelon smashed against a rock.

For the main courses, I order the chicken pot pie, duck breast, strip streak, and pork belly plates because, well, that’s what Lincoln would do. “He always ate some kind of meat because meat was a sign of economic success,” Holzer says. “If you could afford to slaughter your cow, you were in good shape.”

The size of the servings, though, might have shocked the top hat right off Lincoln’s head. The supposed “pot” for the chicken pie is more like a shallow ash tray, with a single biscuit floating atop a thin creamy stew of peas, celery, and carrot bits. The steak plate contains just three slices of medium rare beef and a small puddle of creamed spinach. The coffee-rubbed duck is more flavorful, but the slices are even thinner. Of the four meat dishes, the three modest squares of pork belly, drizzled with a clam vinaigrette, prove to be the most substantial.

“Lincoln would be amazed,” says Holzer. “‘What are these portions? Who are they for? What dainty young lady is coming by here to have a tasting?’” Meals were significantly heavier in the 16th president’s day. Holzer points out that the 2009 inaugural luncheon for President Obama, himself a noted Lincoln buff, featured a hefty Civil War-era menu including seafood stew, pheasant, duck, molasses sweet potatoes, and an apple cinnamon sponge cake. Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd both left the feast on stretchers.

On the other hand, maybe the modern restaurant’s smaller portions would suit Lincoln, a reputedly picky eater no matter what size the serving. “People remember him eating an egg in the morning, an apple at lunch, and sort of picking at dinner,” Holzer says.

Scanning the dessert menu, the historian is immediately disappointed to find no angel food cake. “That was his favorite,” Holzer says. Grilling our server over the remaining options, however, we learn that the blueberry upside-down cake duly incorporates Lincoln’s weakness for the angelic stuff, though he might be taken aback by the pretentious-sounding accompaniment of corn semi-freddo.

But here, too, the servings don’t size up against the weighty baked goods that the president’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, used to make. “You needed two people to pick up the cake plate,” Holzer says. “Really heavy stuff. A lot of eggs.” The restaurant’s version, by comparison, is about the size of a hockey puck and weighs even less.

As we make our exit—Holzer having stopped to buy a restaurant T-shirt—we pause briefly to admire the enormous white chair at the center of the restaurant. It’s an obvious reference to the seat where Honest Abe’s statue sits at the Lincoln Memorial. Of all the Lincoln-themed memorabilia in the restaurant, Holzer seems most impressed with this one. “Very clever!” he says. He thinks Lincoln would appreciate the gesture, too. “In truth, he never fit into a chair,” Holzer says. “If you look at mid-19th century chairs, they were all small. They did not have stuff made to order, which is why he always sat with his feet up.”

Tonight, the big seat is occupied by five svelte young ladies wearing glossy lipstick and short dresses. They glare back at us with disdain. “That was so not what I expected,” Holzer says, stepping out onto the street. “I expected to see old ladies in bonnets. You think anyone in there is thinking about history?”

Lincoln, 1110 Vermont Ave. NW, (202) 386-9200

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Baum + Whiteman has been a restaurant consulting group since the '70s. The dudes know a few things about the hospitality biz, so when the company releases its annual food and dining trends for the coming year, restaurateurs tend to listen. (Or razz B+W for predicting "tongue" meat would become huge.)

Restaurateurs may want to hide under the covers after reading the No. 1 predicted trend for 2010: New priorities for beaten-up consumers.  Check out this strong language:

Too many restaurant and hotel execs are grappling with pre-recession consumer issues, while people today are expressing entirely new – and more complex — sets of concerns. These concerns might tamp down consumer spending for another five years – and are difficult for hotel and restaurant professionals to deal with. Why? Because what worries people today no longer reflects abstract and idealistic pre-recession issues. Now people are focusing inward. Their concerns are personal, emotional and ethical. For example:

NEXT YEAR’S HOT BUTTONS

Economic survival

Reassurance

Intimacy & friendship

Feeding my knowledge

Feeding my emotions

Artisan, hand-made

Neighborhood, local

Authentic, real

Comfort & safety

Hotel and restaurant people who make a big deal about powering  their trucks with used frying fat, or switching to green detergent, or printing menus on recycled paper may be addressing the wrong issues. Millions of people are in danger of losing their homes and unemployment is still rising; people are plain scared … and they’re looking for a “safe harbor.” So hotels and restaurants should be luring these hunkered down consumers from their psychological storm cellars by (and we’re being metaphoric here) replicating the “campfire experience” – building emotional ties and connecting to communities. They need to audit their businesses based on the hot-buttons listed above … because, we believe, these issues will remain on the table for years to come.

Many of Baum + Whiteman's other predicted trends follow on that opening theme of consumer fear and survival, including how restaurants can cater to the emotions that surround those fears. In other words, the prognosticators say, look for more sharable small plates, more upscale comfort foods, more offal meat, and more fried chicken. Y&H can live with that.

You can read the full list here in PDF form.

This is a fun list, and I agree with many of the Tribune's picks (even if I'd argue that "foam" and "molecular gastronomy" are two branches of the same tree and don't deserve separate listings). The top 10 offenders are culled from chef and consultant interviews conducted by the paper.

I think I'd add long, overindulgent tasting menus that cost $100 (or more) as well as small plates (which, technically, may be a '90s trend but which exploded this decade), Restaurant Weeks, and purposely noisy restaurants.

What about you, readers? What trends would you include on the list?

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

From the moment you walk in the door at Evo Bistro, you’re made to feel like, somehow, you’re late to the party—and you better catch up fast. That’s easy to do at this noisy, often overstuffed Mediterranean tapas outlet, where, with a house-issued debit card, you can help yourself to one-, three-, or five-ounce pours from the 50-plus wines available by the glass. But a buzz would just be a buzz if it weren’t for chef Driss Zahidi, whose menu draws from North Africa, Spain, Italy, France, and the Middle East. Despite the menu’s apparent randomness, Zahidi does an amazing job at connecting the dots between cuisines, from Spanish chorizo to grilled North African merguez to Italian risotto with chorizo, shrimp, and pecorino. Even more impressive: Zahidi displays a deft hand with each cuisine, as if his scientific background in chemical engineering has allowed him to break down every last Mediterranean dish and reconstruct it back in McLean.

Evo Bistro, 1313 Old Chain Bridge Road, McLean, (703) 288-4422