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Very Best Restaurants: Citronelle

Very Best Listing | Very Best by Cuisine | Very Best by Location

Citronelle **
Washington, $$$

When Michel Richard brought his French-Californian cuisine to the Latham Hotel in 1993, his cooking was as fresh as a live Dungeness crab air-freighted in from the waters of the Pacific Northwest. The addition of the nationally known Richard to such star local chefs as Gerard Pangaud, Bob Kinkead, and Jeffrey Buben helped make this one of the best restaurant cities in the country.

Four yearsand three chefslater, the menu remains largely unchanged from its opening days: fried shrimp prickly with a coating of shredded phyllo, a slab of fish with saffron-sauced pearl pasta, and a tiny cheesecake wrapped in graham-cracker crumbs. Even without Michel Richard, such Richard classics as filets of fish presented over either bouillabaisse sauce or pearl pasta remain delicious, as are chicken-mushroom sausages with mashed potatoes, and a homey braised shank of veal. But given the frequently changing menus of its local competition, Citronelle needs to offer up some invention to justify its high prices.

Even worse, the service is more desultory than ever, and the open kitchenwhich once was a wonder of smooth coordinationnow reveals bickering cooks and dishes languishing under the warming lamps. For this, you shouldn't be asked to pay top dollar on the Washington dining market.

Citronelle , 3000 M St. NW, Washington; 202-625-2150. Open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. MapIt!

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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