Photo by Cultivate Hospitality
A cocktail awaits at The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez in Old Town Alexandria.
The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez still feels like itself as you enter the door. The neon pleasantly hums. The booths hold their lines and tables their light. Newly polished. The room embraces the way it always has, as if the evening has begun and you’re just finding your personal nook. Alexandria has been meeting here for a long time, and it shows in the way the space stays true. Nothing rushed. Nothing needs an explanation.
And yet, something has shifted. Chef Santiago Lopez now holds the kitchen, and he cooks with a clear sense of what this room can illuminate. The change is not loud. It is not exclamation, but it is unmistakable once you begin to focus. The room has not been asked to become something else. It has been given a wider way to converse.
Photo by Howie Southworth
A snippet from the new menu at The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez in Old Town Alexandria.
Lopez arrives here with deep roots at Alexandria Restaurant Partners, one notable group influencing the city’s dining rhythm. He came up through their kitchens, including time at the helm of Vola's Dockside Grill, before moving into culinary leadership within the organization. That background shows. There is discipline here, but also a willingness to stretch, to let the familiar expand without losing its footing.
You see it first in the menu. At first blush, it reads like a familiar script. Parker House rolls. A proper board with prosciutto, cheese, olives, mousse. Caesar salad. Steak frites. A burger that knows its role by heart. Lobster pot pie. Half chicken. Mussels. The bones of a classic American dining room are all here, intact.
Photo courtesy of Cultivate Hospitality
Steak Frites at The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez.
But then the language begins to shuffle. Orange-miso. Tahini and garlic. Piquillo peppers. Black garlic. Calabrian chili. Saffron, ’nduja, and za’atar. Chermoula! None of it requires a megaphone. It simply builds, item by item, until you realize Chef Santiago’s pantry dismisses borders. The room has been given itself to a larger map.
Not a single destination, but a declarative coastline. Mediterranean-esque in the best sense. Ingredients that migrate well. Flavors that know how to mingle. For me, a menu like this can be equally alluring and distracting. I need a way in, something to hold onto as it moves. I find my anchor in rice. Not as a revelation, but as a string I can follow from appetizer to entrée. It absorbs. It bears heft. It shifts tone depending on where it comes to rest.
Photo courtesy of Cultivate Hospitality
The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez offers up a Mediterranean-esque twist to the menu in Old Town Alexandria.
The first plate down is braised brisket arancini. Golden, crisp, familiar enough to disarm. Then the center is breached. Succulent slow-cooked beef wrapped in perfect rice that holds just long enough before everything surrenders. Drizzled lime crema cuts the fat. Smoky salsa lingers and hints at piquant. It is comfort, but comfort with a wry edge to it.
Later, scallops arrive over golden saffron rice and in good company. Clams. Mussels. Grains here take on a different role than in the arancini. Not containing but lifting. Rice spreads and soaks in deep essence of the sea. The dish nods toward Valencia, a paella wink perhaps. But it does not stay there. It travels.
Photo courtesy of Cultivate Hospitality
The Majestic by Chef Santiago Lopez offers up a Mediterranean-esque twist to the menu in Old Town Alexandria.
The supporting player of the entrée follows the same tune. Broccolini arrives with more presence than most side dishes are typically allowed. Onion cream, Chili crisp. Shaved blanket of pecorino. It would be easy to overdress a dish like this and eclipse the greens. Instead, it hits with balance. Veggies finally handed the mic. Somewhere between my few plates, the menu resolves itself. Spectacularly.
I sip Cabernet between bites. A creature of habit and that habit says red is fine with seafood. I digress. For those inclined, the refreshed cocktail list moves the same way the menu does. It knows the classics, but doesn’t stop there. Drinks are balanced and studied, the kind that feel both rooted and a step ahead. Like the bar itself learned a few new tricks without forgetting where it resides.
And then, as it always does, the meal turns toward its undeniable capstone. Coconut cake arrives without ceremony. Tall, pale, layered, a timeless emblem of The Majestic. Smooth and sweet in a way that suggests it’s been around long enough to find its true groove. It does not engage with the rest of the menu. It doesn’t have to. It simply is. If Chef Santiago’s reimagined stalwarts hold the present, the cake carries the past. It’s a delicious balance.
Chef Santiago has not assigned a new identity to this room. He’s offered it more bandwidth. The classics are still here, solid as ever, adorned a little different. Stronger. But woven throughout is a kitchen that is more curious, more illustrative of a vision, more open to the globe drifting in without disturbing the foundation.
You still come here for a steak, for a martini, for a long conversation in an elegantly dim room that feels like it belongs to the city. You also come now for something that surprises you just a little. A turn at the table. A note you didn’t expect. Majestic does not feel reopened. It feels re-spoken.
And if you linger long enough, through the wine and the rice, finally the cake and onto a double espresso, the shift settles in. Nothing here has been overwritten. It has propelled forward. The same glimmering room speaking in a slightly different accent. More range, and a quiet sense that it knows exactly what it’s doing.
Photo courtesy of Howie Southworth
Author Howie Southworth
Howie Southworth is a seasoned denizen of Old Town Alexandria and the best-selling author behind "A Taste of Alexandria: Modern Restaurant Recipes That Echo Our City's Past," published by Alexandria Living Magazine.
Southworth is the author of a new book, Hemingway’s Spanish Table (Insight Editions), released March 17.
Past works include "Chinese Street Food," "One Pan to Rule Them All," "Kiss My Casserole!" and "How to Cook Anything in Your Dutch Oven." Howie is also a regular essayist for Salon.com.
