Lutèce

Lutèce takes its name from the French name for the ancient Gallo-Roman settlement on the Île de la Cité that became Paris, which was also the name of the New York restaurant that Chef André Soltner operated from 1961 to 1994. The Manhattan Lutèce, which Soltner ran as a one-man culinary institution of extraordinary consistency and seriousness, was the reference point for classical French fine dining in America for three decades, winning four stars from the New York Times and appearing on nearly every list of America’s greatest restaurants during its years of operation. The Georgetown restaurant at 1522 Wisconsin Avenue NW invokes this heritage.

Classical French fine dining, the tradition that Soltner’s Lutèce represented, is organized around the techniques that the French culinary tradition codified in the nineteenth century under Marie-Antoine Carême and Auguste Escoffier: the classical sauces built from carefully prepared stocks, the cooking methods of braising, poaching, and roasting that the French tradition refined for each category of ingredient, and the service standards that the French restaurant industry established as the global benchmark for formal dining.

The Wisconsin Avenue address at 1522 is in the upper Georgetown commercial stretch, above the main boutique cluster and approaching the Glover Park boundary. The French restaurant at this address serves the Georgetown professional and residential community that values the classical French approach, which is a customer base that Washington’s diplomatic and professional culture has consistently provided.

Alsatian French cooking, which Soltner’s original Manhattan Lutèce specialized in, blends the French culinary tradition with the German influences of the Alsace region of eastern France. The choucroute, the baeckeoffe, and the flammekueche are among the Alsatian preparations that distinguish the tradition from the Parisian canon.

Hours run Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30pm. Reservations are recommended. Andre Soltner’s Manhattan Lutece closed in 1994 when Soltner sold the restaurant after thirty-three years, and the closure was treated as the passing of an era in American fine dining. The Georgetown Lutece at 1522 Wisconsin invokes the name in a new context, but the culinary values that the original represented, the seriousness of classical French technique and the commitment to hospitality as a genuine professional discipline, are the values that any restaurant carrying the name implicitly references. The Alsatian dimension of the original Lutece’s cooking, which was Soltner’s regional heritage brought to New York and refined over three decades, adds a layer of cultural specificity to the French fine dining identity. Alsace’s position as the eastern French region bordering Germany means the food tradition incorporates ingredients and preparations from both sides of the Rhine: the white wines of Alsace are made from German grape varieties in the French style, the choucroute is the Alsatian version of the German Sauerkraut-based dish, and the tarte flambée or Flammekueche is the thin-crust flatbread that is the Alsatian equivalent of the pizza. The Georgetown restaurant at 1522 Wisconsin brings this regional complexity to the upper Georgetown commercial block. Hours run Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30pm.