By Sophia Cooper | scooper@alextimes.com
With winter fast approaching, many Alexandria residents will soon turn to comfort food, like soup and spaghetti. Luckily for Alexandrians, there are local restaurants they can turn to for hearty meals through the holiday season.
Northside 10
The staff of Northside 10, which opened in 2017, quickly discovered that Del Ray was vastly different from Old Town, where their partner restaurant Southside 815 is located. Kevin Keefer, the owner of Northside 10, said he has changed his menus to be what the local residents want.
Keefer said he believes the restaurant’s menu is geared towards “cozy comfort food” and winter is his busier season. He listed bacon-wrapped meatloaf, topped with a tomato gravy and served over mashed potatoes and garlic green beans, as one of the many cozy dishes that the restaurant has to offer in addition to braised short ribs that are slow cooked over a wild mushroom risotto and jambalaya pasta.
Northside 10 offers $10 burger Mondays and a raw bar on Wednesday nights.
“We have oysters, shrimp, clams, mussels [and] cioppino. I think our Del Ray clams or our Del Ray mussels and our Portuguese clams are very very homey and cozy,” Keefer said. “And we also have the Sweetside Cafe on the other side, so we do coffee drinks all day.”
Keefer said that Northside 10 has fire pits on the restaurant’s patio, which add to a cozy atmosphere.
“It’s just got a very neighborhood cozy vibe,” he said. “It’s an old building. It just feels old and cozy, like it was built in the ’50s.”
Bastille Brasserie & Bar
In 2006, Michelle and Christophe Poteaux left their jobs as chefs at the Watergate Hotel and opened Bastille Brasserie & Bar on North Royal Street. After moving in 2015, the restaurant is now located on North Fayette Street.
The epitome of cozy to Michelle Poteaux is French onion soup, which she added is “almost iconically” the epitome of cozy at any French restaurant.
Poteaux said Bastille differs from many others in that they use an onion stock base rather than beef broth, making it a great option for vegetarians. She said that it has heavily caramelized onions with a roasted onion broth and fino sherry to give it smokiness.
“That imparts a flavor profile that is very rich and cozy,” she said, “… just because of the melty cheese and the sweet caramelization of the onion, I think everybody has a cozy spot for that.”
She added that there is something special about crispy, gooey cheese on hot soup – everybody loves the cheese pull and there is something interactive about eating a bowl of French onion soup.
Poteaux added that another standout is their signature shrimp beignets, which have been on the menu since the restaurant opened. While they have been on the menu since 2006, Bastille staff often change the sauce that goes with the beignets. Currently, the sauce is a green harissa aioli which Poteaux described as having a “nice herbal richness to it.”
With Thanksgiving approaching, the restaurant will be doing its own version of a classic Thanksgiving plate which includes their own brine turkey breast, sweet potato sausage stuffing and a caramel apple cheesecake among other menu items. She said that there will be holiday-themed items added to the menu for Christmas and New Year’s as well.
Il Porto
Il Porto, which has been in Old Town since 1973, focuses on Northern Italian food, a cuisine that Edrees Amarkhel, the restaurant’s operations manager, said is best in the winter time.
“People love Italian food when it’s cold, the pasta and the sauces, and it’s because it’s heavy, too,” he said.
Amarkhel said Il Porto’s classic Italian dishes – spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine alfredo, chicken parmesan and more – are comfort foods that have been on the menu since 1973. He added that consistency and the original recipe is what makes them comfort foods.
Amarkhel said the spaghetti is homemade with tomato sauce with a blend of spices and meatballs that are made in-house.
“We make our meat sauce in-house,” he said. “It’s just a touch of spices, and the way we blend them all together just really makes us different from other places.”
This month’s specials include tenderloin strips over gnocchi in a creamy gorgonzola sauce with broccoli and stuffed ravioli with beef tenderloin and eggplant.
The atmosphere, according to Amarkhel, is welcoming, warm and family-oriented.
“You feel like you’re at home or at your mom’s house or your grandparent’s house,” he said.
Royal Restaurant
Royal Restaurant, located in Old Town, was established as a family-run Greek diner in 1904, and Alexandria Restaurant Partners took ownership in 2023.
Mackenzie Hampson, the general manager, said when Alexandria Restaurant Partners took over, they knew that it had a “rich history” and wanted to keep a certain level of tradition. She said that the restaurant is an integral part of the community and is still a meeting spot for the neighborhood for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
She added that the restaurant has pivoted toward new American cuisine with some cozy, comfort foods and some twists on American classics. Hampson said the dinner menu has some comfort foods on it, specifically the smoked beer-braised beef short ribs.
“It’s a roasted corn chipotle grit,” she said. “It’s a really, really delicious tender braised short rib. It has some charred pineapple chutney on there and then we smoke it in a glass dome and bring it to the tableside.”
Hampson added that the char siu pork shank also comes to mind as a comfort food.
“It’s a really delicious bone-in pork shank on a bed of our shrimp fried rice – a lot of really, really great flavors in there,” she said. “… Especially if I’m feeling a little under the weather, the spice in there usually kicks it right out of me.”
Under the previous ownership, the restaurant was more of a brunch all-day restaurant, Hampson said. She said that the dinner menu over the last few years has developed the most, and ARP wanted to make the restaurant a cozy neighborhood meetup.
“[We wanted to make Royal] a place that people can come meet their co-workers for happy hour, a place where people can come celebrate birthdays and anniversaries [and] a regular spot that people can come to,” she said. “… We wanted to have a really great, diverse menu of things that remind them of their favorite comfort foods, but there’s a twist on it that they wouldn’t necessarily find anywhere else.”
Old House Cosmopolitan Grill
Old House Cosmopolitan Grill opened in Old Town in May 2018 and is described on their website as a “homey all-day eatery & bar featuring German dishes made with locally-sourced organic produce.”
The restaurant’s online menu includes goulash soup, described as a hearty paprika- and tomato-based beef stew. Their entrees include cordon bleu and German classics including wiener schnitzel.
Old House Cosmopolitan Grill’s lunch menu, which is served until 4 p.m., lists comfort food classics including chicken sandwiches, steak sandwiches and bratwurst, another German classic. The restaurant also offers baklava and other desserts.
The post Port City Flavor: Feast on cozy season at five local restaurants appeared first on Alexandria Times.
