It’s no secret that even five years removed, restaurants still face challenges in a post-pandemic world. And the unfortunate reality is that the economics of running a sustainable business when faced with rising food costs, a decreased appetite for overall consumer spend, and cultural and legislative obstacles has proven to be a difficult landscape to thrive in. And as a result, restauranteurs all around the country are facing tough decisions about the viability of their operations.
One such restaurant, Tail Up Goat—a plucky neighborhood bistro in Adams Morgan—announced in April that it would be shutting its doors for good at the end of the year, closing an admirable decade-long run by its three owners. Without offering too much insight into their decision-making process, the owners of Tail Up Goat simply are deciding not to renew their lease, letting the restaurant close on their own terms.
An admirable decision that also comes with the added benefit that I’m sure any restauranteur would love to have: getting to run a restaurant while unshackled by the constraints of actually running a restaurant. In other words: Tail Up Goat could just be itself in the time it had left. And that is freedom!
I got to visit the restaurant in September. It’s a short walk from the Woodley Park metro station. I’d say ten minutes. Unless you’re wearing the same shoes I was wearing that have a strong distaste to stay tied for more than a block at a time. I hate them so much and that hatred leads to strife. So who’s to say how long the walk actually is. It’s pleasant enough I guess.
The restaurant storefront is unassuming. It looks like any other restaurant you’ve ever been to. Not a whole lot screams Michelin starred restaurant about it. That I’ve come to learn is by design. There’s a lovely covered patio with maybe eight tables but mid-September is not far enough removed from the summery heat for me to ever even consider the patio, so inside we went!
The first thing you would see when you walk into Tail Up Goat is a bar room that is divided from the dining room by a wooden partition. The countertop of the bar wraps around the entire length and extends further down to the end of the partition, such that a handful of bar seats are just facing a wooden wall. Not exactly the most scenic seats in the restaurant.
We’re shuffled along to the dining room where myself and my guest (an old college friend who I guess technically paid for the meal so I was his guest) were given a table in the middle of the room. We had a 6pm reservation so the restaurant was already bustling with the earliest arrivals, and it was at this point that I was able to make a pretty stark comparison to Reverie (another DC Michelin starred restaurant that recently closed down that I reviewed here and had gone to the night before): whereas that experience felt funereal—a somber mourning shrouded in a black palette—Tail Up Goat felt celebratory. It was crowded and buzzing, and the guests seemed happy and relaxed and excited to be there. There was a familiarity to it that one might expect from any beloved local spot; Tail Up Goat had fossilized itself in this community and for nearly a decade these are the people they served. And though the night continued with excited energy and a consuming bliss, I do feel pangs for what it means to lose that rock.
Before sitting down, I excused myself to go on an adventure to find the restroom, dipping and dodging as waiters swung around corners with trays of food lifted above their head. I managed to get to the restroom unscathed, but on the way back I noticed there was more organization to this trek. As I came down the hallway back to the dining room, a staff member forcefully gestured to people unseen around the corner to tell them to make way as I came through. I know in my brain this is because they didn’t want me getting clocked in the head by a tray full of ceramic ware, but in my heart I do think it’s because they saw I was a man of regal importance.
Back at the table I found a mysterious drink in front of me that I did not order. I only have my friend’s account of what it was so you’ll have to forgive me and trust in him implicitly. He’s not typically someone I would choose to trust with so much on the line as he’s a rather flaky individual that shifts with the winds, but this one time we’ll give him slack. He said “I don’t know, they just put them down and said something. I think it was pineapple and black pepper”. I only tasted the pineapple. He swears his was peppery. Regardless, it was a nice aperitif that really awoke the palate.
Our waiter came around to explain the menu to us. Tail Up Goat has a robust à la carte menu but also offers a six-course family-style tasting menu that he promised did not feature any items on the à la carte menu.
For this reason he did encourage us to consider ordering something from the à la carte menu if we wanted to supplement the tasting menu. When in Rome, so we ordered the tasting menu as well as a supplement of the rabbit croquettes. A beautiful crunchy exterior with a rich, creamy center. And they sat nestled atop a thin layer of pear butter that helped introduce a gentle sweetness to punch through the weight of the creaminess. It was a magnificent start to the meal.
Next up was focaccia bread served with sun-dried tomato butter. I’m going to say this straight up and then I’ll immediately hedge because I think it gives an unfair impression: this was my favorite course of the night. But only because it was that good. I swear to God I would happily have paid the price of this meal just to be given a whole loaf of the focaccia and a mountain of that butter. It was crunchy and glistening, the butter spread so smoothly. And the potency of those sun-dried tomatoes. Truly unreal!
A melon topped with onion jam with a goat milk sauce was next. It was a simple presentation but all the flavors melded exquisitely. The tanginess of the sauce. The sharp intensity of the caramelized onions. And of course the fresh, juicy saccharinity of the melon.
So a small aside: by this point we’ve had three courses, but they’re not exactly the biggest portion sizes. A piece of bread, a slice of melon, and a single croquette each. So to me it doesn’t seem shocking that we’d advanced as quickly through this portion of the meal as we did. The waiter on the other hand disagreed. Throughout the rest of the evening, he kept making strange comments every time he’d come pick up a dish. “Oh wow you guys ate that faster than I thought” or “I feel like I just put that down and turned around and you were done”.
My every-course ritual is to try to jot down as many notes as I retained from the course description script they recite and then cross check with the other members of my party to ensure I didn’t miss anything noteworthy. I’m not a particular fast scribbler. And then couple that with remembering to fumble with my phone to take a picture. I try to split anything that isn’t a bite sized amuse bouche into several bites so I can have a few different impressions, and I jot those notes down too. So I don’t ever feel like I’m moving fast through a meal. In fact sometimes I feel I’m the slow one at the table. But the comments really irked me, and I think threw me off a bit. I don’t know that he was saying them in a malicious way. And maybe it’s just part of the jolly fun of the local neighborhood spot, but it seemed beneath a restaurant of Tail Up Goat’s caliber. One ribbing, sure. All in good fun. He went back to that well maybe four times total. It was weird.
Anyway, back to the meal which is really what should take center stage. Next up was a green bean dish with a cacio e pepe sauce on top. Incredibly peppery. I think this is where the pepper in my aperitif ended up. Maybe not suitable for everyone but I tend to be someone who blankets my food in pepper like ash from Pompeii, so I really liked the dish.
Another standout of the meal was ravioli with a corn filling that came out next. It featured a light sauce with habanero peppers bred to be absent of heat. The ravioli was very corn forward but delicious and fresh and airy. Each raviolo was like a little flavor bomb in the mouth, complemented beautifully by the floral accents of the habanero slices.
At this point the sun has gone down, the restaurant has dimmed and the candles have come out, the buzz of the room has intensified, and we’re ready to tuck into the main course! What comes out is I think the most confusing dish I’ve ever received at any Michelin star restaurant. A stark white halibut filet and a fried zucchini cake perched to its side.
This was their grand finale? This is the moment where Ode to Joy plays with fireworks exploding in the background as the two lovers finally realize they were meant for each other after all and fall into each other’s embrace on the Pont des Arts? This felt more like a backwoods hootenanny with Kid Rock blaring too loud and the sketchy uncle who insists on lighting firecrackers with his cigarette. It’s just not the same moment.
The zucchini cake was good. Maybe a touch salty. The halibut was a travesty. I said it was stark white. It looked boiled and sad. It looked like it had been dragged across the counter to pick up some seasoning. But across a counter someone had just wiped clean. I’ve looked up pictures on Yelp of their halibut because I couldn’t believe it. And sure enough the previous iterations were nothing like this. They had color. They had seasoning. They looked inviting. In retrospect, I don’t know how ours got sent out in good conscience.
I do think we should have questioned it. But we were a table of two people-pleasers, and we’d already spent half the night being bullied by our waiter so I don’t even think the thought crossed our mind at the time. It was edible, but it wasn’t good.
Not to mention I’m concerned this is the first Michelin starred restaurant I’ll be leaving with a residual feeling of hunger. It’s not the most expensive so that plays a part in it I guess but up to this point (excluding the croquettes which aren’t part of the tasting menu), I had a piece of bread, a slice of melon, three green beans, four ravioli, and half a rather small filet of halibut.
So now we’re starting to question whether we’ll need to find accommodations elsewhere for a small snack to tide us over. Do we just order another plate off the à la carte menu? That would give us something extra to review and split two ways it wouldn’t overfill us. Or do we just leave it alone, and suck it up? Are the entrees even going to be worth it if that’s what we were served for the halibut?
As all these thoughts raced through my head, a plate of bavette steak and potato pavé arrived at the table. We were fools, all of us deceived! And there was indeed more food to come.
Unfortunately, in my reckless abandon and in either my lingering hunger or the adrenaline I felt from not actually having to make a decision on what to do, we forgot to take a picture before we had consumed most of the plate. Maybe the waiter was on to something.
It was a beautiful plate, and the steak was cooked perfectly. The bavette had a nutty pesto sauce to slide through while the potato pavé was accompanied by a creamy basil sauce.
Potato pavé is one of those dishes that screams luxury not because it’s overly complex—it’s not, it’s just potatoes—but because of the craftsmanship and the time and effort that goes into making it. The potato is sliced thin and then stacked into sheets, pressed down hard, and left to chill. It’s then sliced up into cubes and fried up. So you get a ton of layers of potatoes that are crispy on the outside and a bit creamier towards the middle. Excuse me for saying it, but it’s a huge pain in the ass and a gigantic waste of time. But I’m glad they did because it was delicious and I would have gladly taken more off their hands.
The final dish was exactly what I needed and it really recentered the meal. Yes, there was the halibut misstep. That could easily have been rectified and if the rest of the meal is any indication, that is not their standard. I’m very glad the main part of the meal ended on such a better high note. All that was left was dessert.
A mascarpone semolina crumble. And wouldn’t you know it, the corn made a return. This was a nice way to satiate the sweet tooth while staying true to the roots of the restaurant. Not overly indulgent. Centered and balanced. A wonderful, poignant end to the meal.
I’m sad to see a restaurant like Tail Up Goat go. I can’t speak to their situation prior to that night, but there was a palpable energy in that room that will surely be missed. It’s an approachable environment that does a lot of good for dispelling the notion that fine dining has to be white tablecloths and silver cutlery. Tail Up Goat was offering elevated food in an unpretentious way and I respect them for that.
I hope truly that whatever the owners of Tail Up Goat decide to do next, they approach it with the same kind of grounded passion and conviction they seemed to with this restaurant.
I’m very glad I got to visit before they shut down later this year, and participate in the celebration of a restaurant that truly earned its keep. Cheers to Tail Up Goat!