Chef Michael Schlow Is Bringing The Riggsby Back To Dc

The Riggsby. 2121 P St., NW. 

Boston-based chef Michael Schlow closed his retro American restaurant, the Riggsby, in 2019 when its hotel home in Dupont Circle was sold. Plans to relocate it to Bethesda fell through when the pandemic hit. In the years since, the chef’s once-sizable presence in the DC area dwindled with the closures of Prima, Casolare, Alta Strada, and Nama Ko.

“It wasn’t just DC. We, as a company, really got our feet taken out from under us,” Schlow says of closures that spanned to California. “We were, I think, 19 restaurants going into 2020. And by April or May of 2020, I think we were down to nine, and then a few more closed… We just sort of got in a defensive position, didn’t reinvest really.”

Now, Schlow is ready for his DC comeback. He’s bringing back the Riggsby later this spring—this time with a $6 million buildout inside the under-renovation Royal Sonesta hotel in Dupont Circle.

The original Riggsby was built to have a timeless feel, as if “this would have been my grandparents’ Saturday night place,” Schlow explains. The new place, designed by Edit at Streetsense, similarly aims to feel like a throwback, but a little classier and more plush with an elevated continental menu.  “It feels like you’ve been invited to a great cocktail party,” Schlow says.

Schlow is bringing back some favorite dishes from the Riggsby, including a “Jimmy’s chopped” salad, steak au poivre, and Ned’s Most Favorite Pork Chop. The latter—named after Schlow’s dad, who was from DC—comes with sauce and potatoes spooned tableside.

But about 70 percent of the menu is new or “evolved.” For example, Schlow loved the Schnitzel alla Holstein with fried egg, anchovy, and capers, but he admits “it was the ugliest dish.” Now, he’s prettified the schnitzel by cutting it into a perfect circle and cooking the egg in a ring mold. Instead of anchovies and capers scattered all over the place, Schlow has made an emulsion with the ingredients that is dotted across the dish. 

Schlow has also been drawing inspiration from old James Beard and Betty Crocker cookbooks. That’s where he came up with the idea for Swedish meatballs, which are paired with a flossy mushroom sauce and showered in black truffle.

There will also be a number of snacks, perfect nibbling in the Riggsby’s new parlor, which aims to feel like a “small European hotel lobby” with a fireplace and swanky bar. Think tuna tartare and caviar crisps made of pani puri or toasted sourdough with butter, radish, and Cantabrian anchovies. Schlow is also engineering his own smoky-spicy-salty-sweet snack mix, which will come complimentary at the bar.

The cocktail menu will feature classics like a Manhattan and martini, but also a Martinez and vesper. Many of the drinks will come with a sidecar. A concise wine by the glass list aims to be curated in such a way that “you can close your eyes and just trust anything that’s on there…  Plenty of variety, but it shouldn’t take you an hour to read it.”

The Riggsby is currently on track to open mid-May. Meanwhile, Schlow is interested in rebuilding his business further in the DC area.

“If the right opportunities pop up in DC and the surrounding area, 100 percent, I would do more in DC,” he says. “I just think that the dining scene, between the guests and the chefs, it’s one of the most exciting places in the country.”

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