It’s been years (and years) since I’ve been to Zaytinya. I was especially curious since it did not make the Washingtonian 100 Best list. It’s a very long list.
Zaytinya is probably better than ever. Also as popular as ever. We had six dishes. Four of them extraordinary, one merely excellent, and one boring. Copious amounts of delicate, hot, and ballooned pocket bread served with oil and vinegar mix for dipping.
We had:
Smoked beet salad
Horta salad (kale over a fava bean spread)
Seared salmon
Lamb kleftiko (in phyllo)
Bantjian bil laban (crispy eggplant)
Mujadara (lentil pilaf) - the one clunker
Each dish has multiple components that add contrast and nuance. Totally awesome. We were so excited that I didn’t get a picture of the early dishes.
The crispy eggplaant, surprisingly tall little circles whose height added to the creaminess inside:
The smoked beets threw us for a loop. Outrageous flavor. The phyllo surrounding the lamb was beautifully toasted, the lamb rich. Could not dream of more heavenly dishes.
We went to the location in Miami in December and also really enjoyed it. We had some of the same dishes as you - and that smoked beet dish was one of our favorites. We had the eggplant too and a lot of their delicious bread and hummus!
We were the foolish tourists who decided to try to walk in after a fun visit to the Postal Museum. They kindly turned us away as we hung our heads in shame. Next trip to DC, we will make reservations, even though that’s not our style. We prefer fashionably unannounced visits (aka the pop-in).
I checked the book out from our local library. It’s gorgeous and the recipes seem really good to me. However, I’m ashamed to say that I have many, many, too many cookbooks from that region and I need more to divest than to buy new ones!
I have at least 30 Greek cookbooks, a few Arabic cookbooks, another dozen Pan Mediterranean cookbooks, plus another couple dozen international cookbooks that would include some of these types of recipes. LOL.
I actually don’t think I own a specifically Turkish cookbook. I have Tess Mallos’ excellent Middle East cookbook that has a good Turkish chapter.
“Better than ever “ is high praise. Zaytinya was the first of three of his then-recently opened operations that we tried in rapid succession when we had intense reason to be in town. It was the one we recommended to a local restaurant maven, and where we returned with him in tow.
Nice to hear that Zaytinya is still good. The last time I ate there the food was great, but the place was so crowded and so loud that it really interfered with enjoying the place. We ended up skipping dessert just because of the din.
The first time I ate there was in December 2002, not long after it had opened. I had my tiny little Christmas lunch there for my tiny little law firm and its current and former employees. There were five of us in total and there was only one other table filled in the entire huge restaurant. The food was spectacular and the place was very very quiet.
Then the Washington Post reviewed Zaytinya shortly thereafter and the crowds started swarming in and have never really let up.
Thankfully we were seated in the back of the ground floor, and that’s a better location. It worked out fine. I can easily understand that being in the middle of things could be tough.
