Vox Media

Tierney Plumb is the editor of Eater DC, covering all things food and drink around the nation's capital.

Chef David Guas, a 24-year culinary vet by way of New Orleans, finally has a full-service restaurant to call his own. Neutral Ground Bar + Kitchen quietly opened for dinner service last month in the downtown McLean space that formerly housed Assaggi Osteria & Pizzeria.

Guas is best known for Bayou Bakery, Arlington’s acclaimed counter-service spot for Crescent City classics like beignets, buttermilk biscuits, Hurricanes, and chicory coffee since 2010.

At his latest Northern Virginia project located a 15-minute drive away, Guas turns to small farmers, heritage growers, and fishermen throughout the mid-Atlantic and bountiful Gulf Coast waterways to send out modern riffs on regional American favorites (6641 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, Virginia). Neutral Ground refers to the grassy street medians where New Orleans locals have long congregated to soak up Mardi Gras and other Big Easy events.

Tables are set with custom-made wooden caddies, a stylishly efficient home for silver spoons, forks, and knives. While dining out on a European vacation last winter, he spotted similar cute cubicles for everything from toast to utensils. Like partitioned picnic basket compartments, the idea is to “feel more accessible and casual, allowing freedom to pick what you want,” he says.

Head-on barbecue shrimp with French bread nods to chef Davis Guas’ hometown.

From wood-burning to roasting and baking, almost every dish on the seasonal menu is touched by fire in one way or the other. Opening standouts include a Caesar salad built with crispy Parmesan crumble and white anchovy filets; a wood-fired bone-in pork chop; roasted Blackberry oysters dunked in garlicky-lemon butter; and a Shenandoah Valley double-patty burger topped with Vidalia onions, American cheese, ketchup, yellow mustard, and pickles on a potato bun.

A palm-shaped iron handle affixed to a big wooden door leads the way to a coastal-chic interior, starting with a cluster of basket weave lights hovering over a slick-green host stand.

Dreamy decor takes tips from the midcentury boom of pastel-toned Palm Springs and all-things Rat Pack. That includes include saw palmetto-patterned wallpaper; swaying palm tree art installations punched up in pink, tan, and orange hues; vintage fabrics and wax-coated barstools; and breeze blocks providing partitions for a small private dining area called the Cabana Room. Other throwback accents include 1940s-era airline posters depicting the Chesapeake Bay and Philly’s Liberty Bell in watercolor form.

A color-soaked patio up front framed with boxed foliage resembles a garden party, complete with comfy chairs shaded by burnt orange umbrellas and a striped green-and-cream cabana.

Neutral Ground was designed by //3877, and Simone Rathlé oversaw the overall look with help from boutique artisans.

The extensive beverage menu centers around American classics, zero-proof drinks, regional beers, and wines on tap, by the glass, or bottle. Going off a “bigger is better” mantra, core cocktails supersized at 16 ounces include the Pink Palm — a homemade riff on frosé — and a rotating “dealer’s choice” dubbed Oceans 11 (right now it’s a frozen mojito).

The Patio Punch (tequila, Giffard Peach mango liqueur, orange, agave, lime, and pepper).

The space was completely gutted, aside from the kitchen, and the buildout took six months. Guas, who’s lived just a mile away for over 20 years, created the kind of spot that he and fellow friends want to pop into “two or three times a week.”

Mains are an approachable $30 and under, including a fried quail surrounded with sweet, sour, and spicy sauce, short grain rice, and pickled cucumbers.

“I have been waiting for the right space in McLean to turn up vacant and make sense to me,” says Guas. “I causally asked my broker to call on this property if it ever went dark.” In 2021, it did.

Guas inherited its Marra Forni wood-burning oven, which he plans to “maximize” out of the gate. The fortuitous cooking mechanism was always on his wish list, had he built a restaurant from the ground up. “Having fire as a fuel source is so fun,” he says.

Items from start to finish get the char-grilled treatment, including the cabbage in a chopped salad and blistered strawberries coated in basil syrup. The author of James Beard Award-nominated cookbook DamGoodSweet swings on the savory side (“I don’t like heavy, super sweet desserts,” he says). See: a burnt caramel custard with a nutty crisp.

The Chocolate Candy Bar features flourless cake, praline crunch, mousse, nibs, salt, and smoked mandarin caramel.

Aside from essential Thai spot Esaan, which opened in the same homey strip mall in 2012, he says the suburban site is in need of more cheffed-up options.

“We are empty nesters and built a nighttime neighborhood restaurant for adults,” says the father of now-two grown sons. As in, there’s no kids menu or butter pasta in sight. “We say we are ‘upscale casual’ with no high chairs or booster seats,” he says.

Hours start at 4 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday until 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday until 10 p.m. A “Social Hour” menu full of discounts on snacks and drinks runs 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. during weekdays at the bar. The 120-seat space will add Sunday brunch soon.