Photo by Howie Southworth
Fried artichokes and a crisp white Basque wine at The Majestic.
“A Table Down The Street” follows Howie Southworth, author of "A Taste of Alexandria," one local barstool at a time. No reviews. Only encounters. The bartender chasing perfection, the chef with a story, the regular who swears this place was better before you found it. Food and drink may be the excuse. People are the point. A corner seat can tell you everything.
Rain rearranges this town. People move faster. Doors matter more. Restaurants that belong to the evening turn into shelter for anyone caught between where they were and where they’re headed. A steady torrent works its way down King Street. The Majestic Café neon holds steady through it, less advertisement than beacon. A place to wait, somewhere refined until the weather decides otherwise.
Photo by Howie Southworth
The Majestic is a landmark in Old Town Alexandria.
By the time I step inside, the bar is already alive. Day hasn’t let go and night is beginning to take its place. The dining room beyond sits untouched. Tables set and drawn tight. Glass and flatware catching the chandelier light. Awaiting the hour it was built for. Right now, the bar in front borrows the air. Even in the rain, the place holds its posture.
From my stool by the window, people pass with damp coats and quickened steps, a few casting a look inside as they go.
Inside, the room settles into small, contained worlds. There, a couple leans in over birthday plans. Two stools down, a workday dissolves mid-sentence. Beside me, mom and dad pause here long enough for prosecco while the kids take in the room with the quiet alertness reserved for places that feel just a little more adult than expected. Maybe even adventurous.
One of them tilts their head back, studying the ceiling. Taking inventory.
Photo by Howie Southworth
A crowd at the bar in The Majestic in Alexandria.
For now, Majestic is not a restaurant. It is a series of private rooms that happen to share a chandelier. This hour belongs to no one. Not to work, not to dinner, not even to the rain outside. It sits in between, and the room understands that. Conversations stay close to the table. Drinks last longer than they should. No one rushes to define it.
And maybe that is why people come in when it rains. Not for steak. Not even for a drink, exactly. But for the permission. A place where nothing is required of you for a little while. Where the day has already taken what it needed and the night has not yet begun to ask. Staying dry is part of it. Not the interesting part.
You can see it in the way people settle. Coats come off slowly. Stools are adjusted. A second look at the menu that turns out to be another gesture. Conversations begin without urgency, as if they had already started somewhere else and simply continued here.
Even the people alone are not alone in the usual way. They are waiting without waiting. Holding onto something. Or letting something hold onto them. The rain gives them the excuse. The room allows it. And for a while, that’s enough.
Majestic opened in the 1930s, an elegant supper club. My mind turns toward how a guy like Hemingway might have handled a rainy afternoon like this in a place like this. Probably without overthinking it. Something simple. Something Spanish and direct. I order a crisp Basque white wine. It arrives cold, light effervescence, bright and lean the way it should be. No argument from me.
Fried artichokes follow. They come piled high and golden. Each heart and each leaf fried just enough to snap. A citrus edge cuts through the richness without softening it. The kind of plate that understands the hour, substantial enough to matter, light enough to leave the evening untouched. The wine meets it easily.
Behind me, someone orders the burger and a beer. More Motz than Hemingway. I turn. I’ve seen him before. Not enough for a name, but enough to recognize those glasses, thick, tinted, deliberate. The kind that suggest a man who has already made some decisions about the world.
We exchange that brief choreography of strangers. A shift. A nod. Nothing more. Until we compare frames. This happens to us, the bespectacled. “Good glasses,” he says. “Same to you,” I reply. That is the whole conversation. For us, that’ll do.
A moment later, his partner arrives. The picture settles into place. I recognize them as a duo now, not from this bar, but from somewhere else. A sidewalk. A morning. Dogs. The loose geography of a neighborhood revealing itself in fragments. They talk about traffic, annoying in the rain. Very Alexandria. I return to the artichokes.
From the kitchen door, plates sail quietly to various parts of the bar. Exemplary burrata in one direction. Exemplary pimento cheese in another. Small things suited to the moment. Word is the kitchen will soon have a new hand guiding it. The kind that keeps what works and sharpens the rest.
To the barkeep, a relatively new face here, I mention the oxtail baklava I had been hoping to try. He smiles. “They took it off the menu the day before I started.” Missed it. By a day, which feels about right. Some things belong to a room at a certain time. Miss the time and you miss the thing. Food is like that. Stories too.
Outside, the rain keeps its steady line down King Street. Inside, nothing pushes forward. The dining room still waits. The bar keeps its quiet din. I finish the last of the wine and look up. The stamped tin ceiling catches the chandelier light and scatters it across itself, hundreds of tiny reflections shifting with every movement below.
I think of the kid staring at it earlier. Trying to make sense of it. The sort of thing that might convince you you have wandered into a spaceship.
I am with you, kid.
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."
Southworth is the author of a new book, Hemingway’s Spanish Table (Insight Editions), set to be released March 17. Celebrate the publication of the book at this upcoming event at Casa Luna.
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.
