New Trump power dynamic ushers in a Gilded Age in D.C.
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Jeff Bezos and former President Obama separately dined at the new, $16-million Osteria Mozza in Georgetown during inauguration weekend. Photo: Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Trump's made-for-TV inauguration gave a taste of a blossoming new Gilded Age in Washington.
Why it matters: In a town whose residents overwhelmingly voted against Trump, the new Beltway elites are ensconcing themselves in their Cybertrucks, parties with the 1% and an expanding portfolio of extravagant restaurants and clubs.
What I'm hearing: "If Gilded Age means throwing money around, then we're in for it," says writer Sally Quinn, who foresees plenty of elaborate parties, and fewer of those intimate Washington dinner parties of yore.
- "It's very Palm Beach," she tells me, predicting: "Trump will probably show up at more events than he did before."
Zoom in: The table is already set. Look no further than restaurateur Stephen Starr, whose $16 million buildout of Osteria Mozza in Georgetown is attracting the likes of Jeff Bezos. For his next project, Starr plans "to resurrect a gilded era of Washington power dining with the reimagining of The Occidental," replete with tableside martini service — "his most glamorous, decadent D.C. restaurant yet," per his reps.
- As to why he's channeling Gilded Age glam: "People want to get dressed and feel fancy without being boring and stuffy," says Starr, who plans the Occidental opening in the next few weeks. "Even if you're 30, you don't want to go to the same old hipster Brooklyn places."
- Hoping to make a splash later this month is Ned's Club, a fancier Soho House from the same creators, that will be a neighbor of the White House. The $5,000-a-year club hosted a preview night over inauguration weekend with Petrossian caviar and hand-rolled cigars.
Meanwhile, as the Trumps reportedly seek to reclaim the Old Post Office building hotel, it's rumored that Elon Musk wants to buy the Line hotel at auction.
- Eater cites "multiple sources familiar" with Musk's plans to turn the 220-room building into a "private social club" — smack-dab in D.C.'s counterculture and Adams Morgan bar scene, less in proximity to federal landmarks than that local institution known as Jumbo Slice.
Musk planting a flag in AdMo over "stodgy" Georgetown would give him an "imprint on the social life of D.C.," says Chuck Thies, a former advisor to Jim Graham, the late D.C. council member who helped redevelop the site into the Line.
Buyers are scooping up more luxe real estate than usual. A flurry of multimillion-dollar home sales in McLean, Kalorama and beyond point to a "Trump bump."
What we're watching: Some cautiously hope the new MAGA crowd will venture outside of their bubble.
- "Washington's always been a bastion of nouveau riche," says Kevin Chaffee, an observer of the capital's social scene. "I just hope they get out of their own milieu a little bit."
The bottom line: "There's a lot of ostentatious behavior and social elitism that if it was here before, it is not nearly as veiled as it once was," Thies says.
Anna Spiegel contributed to this story.
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Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the name of The Ned's D.C. location is Ned's Club.