A Table Down the Street: Study Optional

Howie Southworth visits The Study at Morrison House in Old Town Alexandria.

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Food & Dining

“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.

I approach the place expecting to behave. The Study has that effect on you before you step inside. The name. The Morrison House address. The suggestion that whatever happens inside will be measured and deliberate. Maybe even a little hushed. A room where people lean in, not out. Where conversations are chosen carefully. Where a drink is less a drink and more a tell.

I had it mapped out. Sit at the bar. Order something disciplined. Martini if the room felt sharp. Manhattan if it relaxed. Read the room. Take stock.

Instead, I’m outside being waved down from above. Monique appears in the portico of the Morrison House wearing a fringed headpiece that's been waiting for this exact moment. Not subtle. Not mysterious. Enthusiastic in a way that immediately dispels any notion this will be a quiet evening of observation. She points me in the direction of the first clue with the confidence of someone who knows the game works better if you play along.

So I follow. Not figurative clues. Literal ones. A small trail of suggestion that leads not through the front door but around it, past a few moments of hesitation, toward a glow that feels more like discovery than arrival. Neon. Floating candles. A librarian of sorts. A few other people pretending they understand what’s happening.

This was not the plan. Inside, the room doesn’t whisper. It vibrates. Then it sings. I went in expecting a room to study. I found a room that refuses to sit still long enough to be studied. It’s a “banned book” speakeasy night, which explains the clues, the detour, the librarian, the quiet suggestion that the right path was indirect.

There are books, yes. Shelves of them. Titles that used to get people in trouble. The Hemingway line is here too, because of course it is. “I drink to make other people more interesting.” It hangs in the air like permission. No one is studying anything. Not for long. Fine. I suppose there is some studying. Just not the kind anyone planned. This is not a room for watching. It’s a room that has already decided I’m part of it.

The piano is the soundtrack. Derek is working through Sinatra when I walk in, and by the time I’ve found my ground, he’s onto Billy Joel. Later, Glenn Miller. I compliment his shirt, “Thanks, man,” he plays some more Frank. My voice joins in briefly. But this is Derek’s hour. The room expands and contracts with the music. You don’t think about it. It either takes you or lets you go.

I look for a spot to land. The place is full in just the right way. The library nook feels lived-in. There’s a dining room that suggests commitment. And then there’s a darker corner that looks like it might still be keeping secrets, if only out of habit. I take a spot next to the bar. It feels like the right kind of surrender.

“Something in the Old Fashioned family,” I say. What arrives has a name I don’t quite catch and a swagger I don’t question. It drinks exactly how it should. Whiskey forward. A little sweet. A little bitter. Dressed for the evening. It knows where it came from and isn’t interested in analysis.

The menu reads like bar food that had a brainstorm. Wagyu burger. Guacamole with cotija and salsa matcha. Yucca fries. Tacos. Mussels. Things you recognize, adjusted just enough to make you pay attention.

I don’t eat a lot of burgers. The one that passes behind me changes that. I follow and it lands in front of a guy at a small table beyond the bar. Faruq. We make eye contact and share a nod the way people do when something remarkable happens. He gives the burger a scan. Then teeth. Then that look. “Get it,” he says. “One bite is all it took. Perfect.” That’s enough. 

The burger arrives without a megaphone, which is its own kind of confidence. Two smashed patties. American cheese. Bacon serrano jam doing something just shy of reckless. A bun that understands its position. The edges of the meat crisped just enough to remind you this is still a bar and not a library.

It’s over the top in the way some things are allowed to be when the room decides to let go. I take a bite and the room comes into focus. This was supposed to be a place where you observe. Where you take notes. Where you decide if society holds together under dim light. Instead, the room has already decided it doesn’t care. 

Faruq is laughing now at his clean plate. Derek moves into another genre. Cocktails slide across the bar with a rhythm that has nothing to do with restraint. People drift between spaces like it’s their house party.

There are still a few corners that accept something quieter. Still moments where two heads get closer and lower their voices. Temporary. The bones of a more intimate room are still here. It just isn’t in charge tonight. Maybe it never is.

The drink goes first. The burger takes its time. There’s depth to it that feels earned rather than seared. The kind of thing you don’t study while devouring. Which, for a place like this, might be the biggest trick of all.

I finish at an expected pace. No rush. No need to linger longer than I should. Around me, people are making their own decisions about that. Some stay. Some move on. Some can’t decide and look like they’ve just found a fresh reason they came.

Satisfied with that brief observation, I walk out the front door. Feeling like I’ve just gotten the better of the place. No sign of Monique. No fringed headpiece. No clues. Feels about right.

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 also 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.

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