|
A talented chef, great service and cozy surroundings make Persimmon a
cut above
By Jody Jaffe and John Muncie
In 1998, Damian and Stephanie Salvatore were down to the low three digits
in their savings account, and still a ways away from opening their new restaurant,
Persimmon. Stephanie said we’ve “got to open now,” Damian recalls. And open
they did.
Things got off to a slow start. But then, one night, Washington Post
restaurant critic Phyllis Richman (story below) showed up for dinner. After
a favorable review, business quadrupled. And it’s been going strong ever since.
In the voting for “Best Overall Restaurant in Montgomery County” and “Best
Restaurant in Bethesda,” Bethesda Magazine readers left little doubt
about their feelings: They gave Persimmon twice as many votes as runner-up
Grapeseed.
The critics—and other chefs—are also enthusiastic about Persimmon. For the
last seven years, Washingtonian has named Persimmon one of the “100
Best Restaurants.” And last year, in a Bethesda Magazine survey, Bethesda-area
chefs voted Salvatore the second best chef (behind Grapeseed’s Jeff Heineman).
Even with the restaurant’s “shotgun” start, Salvatore
says he was confident Persimmon would be successful.
“The thought of failure didn’t even occur to me,” he
recalls. “You have to be a certain degree naïve to open
a restaurant, especially the first one.”
The Décor
The staff wears black; the tables wear white. But there are a lot of warm,
persimmony tones everywhere else—on the walls, in the butternut squash soup,
even in the track lighting. Persimmon has a 29-page wine list and a 2005 Wine
Spectator award of excellence hanging on the foyer wall, so you see lots
of red, as well. A party of four trying the restaurant’s signature “wine flights”
might have 12 glasses of red and white wine on its table. But conviviality
is as much a theme as color at Persimmon. The L-shaped 50-seat dining room
is cozy and conducive to conversation. At 7 on a Saturday night, every table
was full. Diners leaned toward each other intimately as chatter caromed off
the turquoise ceiling while a wall of windows facing Wisconsin Avenue allowed
passing pedestrians to look in and wonder what they were missing.
The Food
Salvatore knows his clientele and want they want to eat. He calls his menu
contemporary, but not cutting edge. “That would limit a lot of our clients,”
he says.
Persimmon offers two kinds of soup ($8), the regular butternut squash and
a daily special; eight appetizers range from boneless braised short ribs with
parsnip puree and black truffle demi-glace ($12), to wasabi-crusted
oysters with cucumber relish and Asian dipping sauce ($11). There are five
salads including Salvatore’s favorite, the fennel and arugula with shaved
ricotta and lemon-oil vinaigrette ($8); and eight entrees, divided between
meat and fish. A vegetarian dish changes daily. Fish entrees include bouillabaisse
with saffron and red pepper aioli ($22) and horseradish-crusted rockfish with
crispy porcini potatoes ($25). Pan-seared veal tenderloin with Parisienne
gnocchi ($26) and roasted magret of duck with sweet potato and confit
hash ($25) are among the meat entrees.
Signature Dishes
Though Salvatore couldn’t decide which were Persimmon’s signature dishes,
he could say which he liked to eat the most, starting with the fennel and
arugula salad. From there it would be on to the roasted portobello mushroom
and blue cheese ravioli ($9), the short ribs and the pan-seared veal with
gnocchi.
“And for old-time’s sake, I’d say the cheesecake,” Salvatore says. “But if
I ate all that, then I’d be really full, because that’s a ton of food.”
One Bite
If you could have only one bite from your menu,
what would it be?
Salvatore: “The short ribs, which are braised, then lightly sautéed. With
something this good, simple is better.”
The Critics
“One of a handful of Bethesda’s spots with fine-dining ambitions, Persimmon
has a loyal following and is one of the area’s most likeable date spots…Chef/owner
Damian Salvatore’s cooking has its moments.” “100 Very Best Restaurants,”
Washingtonian, January 2006.
“Night after night, Persimmon dishes up comfort and romance. A cozy dining
room with walls of persimmon and saffron make this the perfect spot for a
tête-à-tête; deft service and plates of luxurious Modern American fare take
care of the rest.” “Blue Ribbon Award Winner,” Washingtonian, January
2005.
“Bethesda’s best, this high-end New American brings
Cal-French creativity to a charming but small storefront.”
Zagat Survey.
Phyllis Richman returns to Persimmon
By Jody Jaffe
It seemed fitting to bring Phyllis Richman, the former restaurant critic
for the Washington Post, back to Persimmon. “She was the one who put
us on the map,” says Persimmon owner/chef Damian Salvatore. “She changed the
whole dynamic of the restaurant. She was at the peak of her ‘Phyllisness’
and she gave us a real, fair review. It wasn’t all great. She kind of left
a little spot for some promise, but she saw our potential. We went from doing
30 covers a night to 120. It was literally overnight.”
That was Aug. 23, 1998, when Richman wrote this about Persimmon: “…[A]ll
the dishes were abundant with colorful ingredients and flavorful accents.”
Almost eight years later, the dishes are still abundant with colorful ingredients
and flavorful accents. And Richman still finds much to like.
“Most people, if they ordered the tenderloin and salmon, would walk away
happy,” says Richman, who retired in 2000 from her 23-year career as one of
the nation’s most respected restaurant critics. She’s also the author of three
culinary mysteries and continues to write for magazines, including Gourmet.
Richman, and her husband, Bob Burton, joined us at Persimmon on a bitter,
winter evening when the warm, golden colors inside looked especially inviting.
Right off, Richman was impressed.
“They took charge of us right away and were friendly,” she said. “Starting
from the hostess, it was intelligent service. They knew what they were doing,
they understood their food, and they were aware of what their customers needed.”
In her 1998 Post review, Richman noted Persimmon’s opening salvo—a
crock of pâté and crusty bread—“It would be easy to fill up on it.” It was
still easy to fill up on. We blasted through the crock in no time and were
quickly asking for more.
Richman perused the menu. It had expanded both in range—and price—since her
last visit. “There are a lot of things I’d want to order,” she said.
Given that we’d almost filled up on bread and pâté, we stuck to appetizers
and entrees and left the salads (Persimmon offers four, including fennel and
arugula with persimmon-quince vinaigrette for $9 and duck confit with Maytag
blue cheese for $10) for another time.
New to the Persimmon menu since Richman’s last visit and much to her delight
are the wine flights—essentially wine tapas. For $14, you get three
kinds of wine in the same genre. For instance, the Beyond the Border Red Wine
sampler includes a French Côtes du Rhône, an Australian shiraz and a South
African cabernet.
“This is a lovely way of tasting wines without investing in them,” Richman
said.
We ordered a range of entrees—duck, rockfish, crab cakes and salmon. Richman
liked the flavor and crusts of both fish dishes and especially liked the crab
cakes’ roasted corn hash. The duck was tender and the fish, she said, was
well cooked. But the hit of the evening came from the appetizer menu: the
boneless braised short ribs with parsnip puree ($12) that almost didn’t make
it on the menu.
“My meat supplier gave me some prime short ribs and said, ‘You gotta try
these,’” Salvatore said a few days after our dinner at Persimmon. Salvatore
braised them first, then sautéed them, giving them their signature crunch.
“It was like biting into foie gras. I kept ordering them, and I kept eating
them.” Finally, one of his employees told him he had to get the short ribs
on the menu because they were too good for him to continue eating them all.
We can understand Salvatore’s reluctance to share. When it came time to pass
around the short rib appetizer for all to taste, no one wanted to give it
up.
“I loved it,” Richman said. “It was cooked until it was very soft and juicy,
then crisped so that you break through the crunch to get to the soft meat
inside. It’s a delicious contrast. And I love the parsnip puree it’s served
on. Not many restaurants serve that because people don’t like parsnips or
they think they won’t like parsnips.”
Our waitress told us the most popular dishes at Persimmon are the shiitake-
and hoisin-crusted salmon ($23) and the seared beef tenderloin ($26). We wished
we’d tried the tenderloin when we saw it served to the table next to us.
“Two thumbs up,” said Deb Posner, the diner who’d ordered it. Posner and
her husband, Jeff, are Persimmon regulars. “There isn’t any other place in
Bethesda we’d rather go,” she said.
As for the desserts, Richman liked Persimmon’s signature pumpkin cheesecake—and
she doesn’t even like cheesecake. She also liked the chocolate sauce on the
profiteroles, though not the profiteroles. Not to worry because Persimmon
has a new pastry chef and Salvatore says he’s giving her free rein to do anything,
except take the cheesecake off the menu.
All in all, Richman enjoyed her meal at Persimmon and was pleased that her
original observations about the restaurant had remained. “It’s not an ‘Oh
my gosh’ kind of
place like…, but it’s serious about preparing good food.” Her advice: “I
would order the short ribs and salads.”
Salvatore, who’s always been loquacious with this reporter, went all shy-boy
when he saw Richman in the restaurant. (“She may be small in stature,” he
explained the next day about his tied tongue, “but she’s 20-feet tall to me.”)
He could barely string together two coherent sentences and finally mumbled,
“Thank you so much, it was life altering…”
Richman smiled and said, “I didn’t do anything; you did.”
Persimmon, 7003 Wisconsin Ave., Chevy Chase, 301-654-9860.
Jody Jaffe and John Muncie co-wrote the novels Thief of Words and
Shenandoah Summer under the pen name John Jaffe. They teach journalism
at Georgetown University.
|
