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Meat Lovers, Mark Your Calendars: Range Opens Dec. 18

Celebrity chef Bryan Voltaggio's new restaurant Range is sure to please meat lovers and vegetarians alike with its extensive menu and open kitchen.

 

Gourmands and meat lovers, rejoice.

Range—celebrity chef Bryan Voltaggio's newest restaurant—is set to open in the newly renovated Chevy Chase Pavilion on Tuesday, Dec. 18.

Range's menu is meat-centric, offering menu items such as potted foie gras, rabbit, scrapple, pork shanks and cheeks, beef marrow bones, veal heart, veal sweetbreads and whole roasted rabbit, "hunter style." Shellfish options include oysters, shrimp, crabs and lobster. Fish dishes include rockfish and black cod with barbecued hazelnuts.

But the less adventurous needn't worry. The menu has some more familiar-sounding options, too, like beef steak, pork loin chop and roasted chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary. Much of the meat is locally sourced and butchered at the restaurant, according to a news statement.

Carb-friendly diners will find the pizza and pasta selections interesting and varied. Pumpernickel pasta with lamb tongue and Gruyere cheese, chestnut ravioli with porcini and ham, kimchi linguine, cannellini bean and lardo pizza, and potato focaccia with meatloaf and rosemary are offered.

More familiar pasta and pizza options include macaroni and cheese, and pizza with preserved tomatoes, mozzarella and basil.

Range's focus is definitely on meat—the open kitchen includes rotisseries for whole chickens—but that's not all the restaurant does. Chefs make their own bread (pizza, foccacia, skillet corn bread, cheddar chive biscuits, ciabatta, etc.), as well as confections: malted sesame and lavender honey truffles, raspberry thyme bonbons and hand-dipped ginger lemongrass candies, to name just a few.

For the vegetarians, in addition to the mac and cheese and meatless pizza, there are several side dishes from which to compose a meal: oven-roasted sunchokes with watercress and lemon, roasted savoy cabbage with smoked carrot, cauliflower with golden raisins and zhatar, wood-roasted carrots and turnips. The list goes on.

Wine aficionados may choose from 500 wines, assembled by Keith Goldston, master sommelier. The wines come from all around the world, Goldston told Patch. Range's list of cocktails is lengthy and diverse, and includes the "vegan sacrifice" with scotch, ginger, cayenne and beef ice. The bar has 10 beers on tap.

The restaurant's 14,000 square feet allow for a variety of dining situations—at the cocktail or raw bar, in a booth, at a table overlooking the newly renovated atrium of the Chevy Chase Pavilion or alongside the open kitchen, where chefs roast chickens, flip pizza dough and prepare the pasta in the view of diners. The restaurant seats 300, and has space for private events.

Not hungry? Don't worry—there's still a place for you at Range. A retail portion of the restaurant will offer kitchenware and tools, "handcrafted provisions like baked goods, artisanal chocolates and hand-dipped candies, as well as a weekly selection of items from Voltaggio's most trusted purveyors from the great Mid-Atlantic," according to a restaurant statement.

Related Topics: Bryan Voltaggio, Business, Chevy Chase Pavilion, Friendship Heights, Friendship Heights Food Files, New Restaurants, Restaurants, Small Business, food and drink, and range

Corbin Dallas Multipass

12:01 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Preview menu: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/gog/images/range004.jpg

http://www.voltrange.com/ is their website, I don't know why their own website doesn't even seem to link to it, I had to find it through opentable.

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Laura L Thornton

12:02 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Thanks! I was working from the menu they handed out at the press preview. I didn't think it would be online already! (I haven't used opentable before.) Looks like a great menu!

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Corbin Dallas Multipass

12:32 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

No prob. Did you try anything at the press preview or was it just a tour of the facilities?

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Laura L Thornton

12:35 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

There was a lot of food and wine to try, but I didn't try any of it. I was a little pressed for time because I had to get to a council meeting after this (and wanted a clear head for the meeting...). But, the food looked really good, and folks seemed to be enjoying it a lot! (Also, as I am a vegan, the finer points of the menu would be mostly lost on me, alas...)

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Corbin Dallas Multipass

2:18 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Fair enough, I date a vegan so I can sympathize. I wish they had tried to throw some tempeh or tofu on the menu somewhere.

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Laura L Thornton

2:44 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Haha - well, there are a lot of vegetable side dishes that look absolutely delicious, so it all looks really good. I don't know if they use butter or oil in the vegetables, but those are the times when I sort of blur the lines of being vegan, anyway. Also, I don't stick to only vegan wines and beers. Got to live it up a little bit...

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