Want to make a restaurant succeed in Washington? Invite the Maga crowd
The perceived wisdom is that Washington is more divided than ever. The city’s social scene, however, tells a different story. Butterworth’s in Capitol Hill is booming. Even at 17.00 on a sweltering weekday when Congress is on its break, there’s a good-sized crowd. People in suits with sharp haircuts mingle with the city’s more outlandish characters over beef-tallow fries.
In a town that voted 90 per cent Democrat and where some restaurants had ejected Republicans during the last Trump administration, embracing the Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd is a risky business.
I’m making polite conversation with head chef Bart Hutchins when co-owner Raheem Kassam wafts in, waving his “hellos”. He makes a show of flicking through a glossy magazine, the latest to feature his Washington restaurant, before declaring the article “boring”. “I don’t care whether it’s positive, it just needs to be interesting,” he says before sitting down.
The bar is high for being interesting here. I’m neither a cabinet member nor an eccentric in matching tweed with a libertarian podcast. I’m blonde but I can’t quite coax my locks into the bouffants beloved by the Republican power women seen propping up the bar drinking their French 75s.
For a restaurant that opened in October, Butterworth’s has garnered an extraordinary amount of column inches. The main investor is Uber’s senior legal counsel, Alex Butterworth, but it is his co-investor who has become the face of the restaurant. Kassam, a well-connected Brit who was once adviser to populist politician Nigel Farage, set up the UK arm of Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News before moving to the US to launch his own conservative news outlet, The National Pulse.
Bannon has hosted private events and interviews at Butterworth’s and, like a pied piper, prompted other conservatives to follow. The Washington Post took note and published a piece earlier this year, proclaiming that “Maga’s new hangout is for the weirdos and freaks”. Diners have included secretary of state Marco Rubio, FBI head Kash Patel, treasury secretary Scott Bessent and former national security adviser Mike Waltz.
But Butterworth’s is interesting exactly because it’s not (just) a Maga bar. Kassam, despite having just offered me a caviar bump, likens the restaurant to the sitcom Cheers but where people can enjoy a drink regardless of their political stripes. “I meet people in here every night who say, ‘By the way, I’m left wing, don’t tell anyone,’” he says with an exaggerated whisper. “And I’m like, ‘So are those eight other people over there, so are the three at the bar – you’re totally fine.’”
The restaurant, it should be said, is a hoot. One where 1980s hits and French synth pop thunder under a deer-antler chandelier. Head chef Bart Hutchins is a veteran of the DC-dining scene and on show is his nose-to-tail approach with a French-accented menu featuring bone marrow with escargot and lamb tartare with foie gras.
Butterworth’s isn’t the first restaurant to mix eating and ideology. At Political Pattie’s, an ill-fated bar that actively branded itself bipartisan, the owners were wonderful: well-intentioned, eloquent and idealistic. The restaurant was awful, devoid of atmosphere and filled with preachy quotes on the walls and forgettable cocktails. It closed not long after opening. Butterworth’s, however, is proof that some Washingtonians prefer a well-cooked steak to the usual political beef.
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a Monocle contributor who is based in Washington. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
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