About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
The Commodore. 220 N. Lee Street, Alexandria.
The Commodore in DC—opening a second location in Old Town Alexandria today—calls itself a “five-star dive bar.” For owners Rob Van de Graaff and chef Steve Kim, that means it may be brand new, but it aims to have a certain comfortability “where you know the bartenders, you know the staff.” It means fried pickles and Miller High Life, but also a spicy bucatini and espresso martinis.
“Dive bar” here also has a double meaning, because the place is nautically themed—from an old-school diving suit to a kraken mural. A Navy vet was the original owner of the Commodore, which resided in Logan Circle before relocating to Dupont Circle.
Van de Graaff says regulars who lived in Alexandria had been pestering them for years to open a place in their neighborhood. That was enough for the bar owners to search for a location in Old Town, where they ultimately took over the former Mystic BBQ & Grill space…