Restaurant Review: Anchovies & Olives: Italian Sea Specialties on Captitol Hill

I’m fresh off the Anchovies and Olives boat and eager to dish. I loved this place. It helps that I was so excited to try it. It’s pedigree is exceptional, as brother and sister to such favorites of mine as Tavolata and How to Cook a Wolf. This brother is the seafaring kind, focusing on seafood to some degree in every item on their menu. But I beg you, do not be put off by this. Within, you will find such subtlety and nuance of flavor, such pure and simple goodness. The American penchant for fried and overdone fish has destroyed this understanding for many of us. Anchovies and Olives asks you to try fish again, for the first time.

The menu is set up in four parts; crudo – a selection of raw fish served cured or treated in different ways, but raw none the less, appetizers, pastas and finally main courses. All the food is uncomplicated, often with 5-7 ingredients or even less, all with some seafood element, and of such pure and stellar ingredients that nothing more is needed. A piece of pristine pish, a pinch of fine salt, a drizzle of Trampetti olive oil, a crush of good herbs, and all is perfect. We started with Hamachi, sliced thickly, served raw with olive oil, crushed olives and pesto. Spectacular flavor. A mound of prosciutto served with olive oil marinated anchovies, served on a rustic wooden board. Columbia City Bakery’s perfect focaccia is $2 and you get half a loaf, which can be enjoyed underneath or alongside everything you order, or not, whatever you’d like. The grilled octopus is blackened and served with watercress, new potatoes and romescu. This is good but not my favorite. Definitely needs salt. There are a selection of oysters with interesting accompaniments like meyer lemon ice. Not my speed but interesting and lovely for you briny slime lovers out there. Next, we enjoyed the absolutely simple but perfectly toothsome spaghetti with anchovies, red chilies and garlic. I love this dish. The flavor is good but the chew and bite of the fresh pasta is even better. I love the mouth feel. Gnocchi is served stuffed with crab and served with lobster and roasted cauliflower! How interesting a combination and how decadent! Our food, overall, was wonderful. The company, a foursome of seafood loving, soulful ladies, was perfect.

And the service…lovely. Our waiter was attentive, informative and helpfully opinionated. He suggested a couple of different bottles of white wine to pair with our fishy feast and the one we chose from his selection was very good. Darned if I can remember the name, but it was $35 and had a wonderful peachy note to it. Ask them – they’ll know. The wines are all Italian and trusting Ethan Stowell (owner and chef) and his team, any of the waiters will offer you a great recommendation. Anchovies and Olives has a similiar aesthetic to his other two Italian restaurant spots. It is at once rustic and modern, urban and urbane. It is absolutely not a recreation of an Italian restaurant in Italy, but rather a reinterpretation, perfectly suited to todays trends, tastes and times.

It is not, for whatever reason, a Golden Piglet, but its just a few piglet-tail-hairs short, and if you appreciate the fru-ITS of the sea and the inspiration of ITaly, you must not miss it.

(Please forgive the lack of pictures. I took some, but my camera is absolute crap and they really looked awful.)