Bethesda To Boast New Restaurants In Coming Months

Several news restaurants will debut in Bethesda in the next few months, bringing a variety of cuisines to the dining scene, from Latin American to Italian.

“Because Bethesda is known as a restaurant place, people will expect great food and great service,” said Stephanie Coppula, a spokeswoman for the “If these restaurants provide those things, they should do fine.”

Patch spoke to the people in charge of some of the new restaurants -- Haven Pizzeria, Panas, Kraze Burger, Nando’s Peri Peri, Puree Juice Bar and Tandoori Nights -- to find out their specialties, get details on the decor and ask how they hope to measure up in the competitive Bethesda market.

A House Is Not a Home, When There’s Not a Pizza There

There’s Mia’s Pizza on Cordell Avenue, Vace Pizza on Miller Avenue, Pizzeria Da Marco on Woodmont Avenue, and the

Bethesda surely is a pizza haven.

Or at least it’ll be home to Haven Pizzeria, a New Haven-style restaurant opening at 7137 Wisconsin Ave. in August which was first announced in Bethesda Magazine’s Table Talk blog. Using custom-made brick ovens, owners Tiger Mullen and Mark Bergami will create traditional pizzas with thin, “crackery” crusts and “airy layers of cooked bread inside.”

In addition to making the dough from scratch each day, New Haven-born head chef Bergami will create the restaurant’s own gelato using a machine imported from Italy, serving simple flavors like chocolate and vanilla.

“It’s a lot more work on our end, but it’s to get the little details to come out,” Bergami said. “It’ll be something you can’t get anywhere else.”

With various-sized dark wood booths, dim lighting and a bar, the partners are creating the restaurant to accommodate both the business lunch crowd and families who want to come in for dinner, Bergami said.

“I see during the day this being a real in-and-out, fast type of place for the business person and at night it being a place to relax,” Bergami said.

Many aspects of the restaurant incorporate reclaimed or locally grown materials. While the owners didn’t begin construction on Haven Pizzeria looking for environmentally friendly materials, the items they found fit the traditional style they’re hoping to create, Bergami said.

Horneado, Sano y Fresco

Located next to the Potbelly at 4731 Elm Street, empanada restaurant Panas will open in early August. The restaurant will serve a variety of baked empanadas, like “samba shrimp” and “chicken melodia,” for $7 to $11.

Owner Federico Garcia-Lopez, who first opened Panas in Dupont Circle in June 2010, named the restaurant using an abbreviation of em-“pana”-da. 

While the menus at both locations will be similar, Garcia-Lopez is planning a few changes he’ll reveal when the counter-service restaurant opens. Unlike the original location, though, Panas in Bethesda will serve beer and wine as well as offer more seating.

Bethesda Magazine first reported the arrival of this restaurant in their Table Talk blog.

Hazy Lazy Kraze Days

Things are about to get a little wild on Woodmont Avenue.

Labor Day weekend Kraze Burger, an international burger chain, will open its first American location in the old National Jean Co. space at 7301 Woodmont Avenue. Kraze (pronounced “crazy”) will serve a variety of burgers, fries, sandwiches, salads and smoothies.

“It’s not a simple cheese American burger,” said Grace Lee, Kraze Burger’s vice president of business development. “Everybody can get a little bit crazy because there are so many varieties that you can always try a different one.”

Beyond the entrées listed on their menu, customers can make their own burgers, choosing from over 30 sauces and an array of toppings which cost 99 cents each. 

In November Kraze will open a bar next door in the old Haagen Daz space. The ice cream store already near the Bethesda Row theater.

Inside, the restaurant features stainless steel furniture with contrasting green and white décor, giving it a modern feel, Lee said.    

The restaurant began when a Korean man wanted to bring hamburgers to his home country by putting a twist on the American classic. Now, 13 years later, there are Kraze Burgers in seven countries around the world.     

From Johannesburg to Bethesda Ave.

Serving the same kind of food as its predecessor while changing its flavor, Nando’s Peri Peri will open at the end of September in the former Chicken Out location at 4893 Bethesda Avenue. The restaurant, which also has locations in Silver Spring, Annapolis and D.C., offers flame-grilled chicken for under $10.

Nando’s chefs flavor the chicken with the spice peri-peri, a combination of chili pepper flavors from South Africa, where the restaurant first opened, and Portugal. At the restaurant, customers will be able to choose from different levels of spiciness: lemon and herb, medium, hot and extra hot.

“We hope the restaurant will lend itself to whatever our guests are looking for,” Nando’s managing director Burton Heiss said. “Nando’s is appropriate for families with children as well as a date night before the movies.”

Heiss said the restaurant is “fast casual dining,” allowing customers to either quickly get their food to-go or sit and eat at one of the leather booths they're building in the Bethesda location.

A Fresh Squeeze

Amy Waldman is a self-described “juicer.” Every day, instead of pouring herself store-bought drinks, Waldman will find fresh fruits and vegetables in her refrigerator to make her own juice -- a routine she’s kept up for the last five years.

“I got really frustrated with the fact that there was no juice bar in the area,” she said. “I’ve always thought it’d be wonderful to make the product for other people.”

Waldman will open the Puree Juice Bar at 4903 Elm Street in October. Besides simple juices like carrot and cucumber, the juice bar will offer other drinks, like shakes and smoothie-like purees, made only with fruits and vegetables.

“You can get a naturally creamy flavor from almond milk or a frozen banana just as you can with yogurt,” Waldman said. “By freezing fruits that we get in fresh, we don’t need to use plain ice in the cup as filler. Instead we’ll use almond milk ice so they’re getting nutrients from that too.”

Eventually, the juice bar will also serve raw foods including salads and wraps. Until then, Waldman said she wants to focus on perfecting the juices.

“I really am trying to make it the kind of place where any person can come and give it a try and either love it or hate it,” Waldman said. “I hope that we get all kinds of people.”

Tandoori Nights is set to open sometime this fall in the now-closed Delhi Dhaba space at 7236 Woodmont Avenue. The Indian restaurant currently has two locations in Gaithersburg and Clarnedon, Va., Bethesda Magazine reported. Tandoori Nights representatives didn't respond to calls for comment on their newest location.