After a decade of buzzy Thai pop-ups, Alfie's is here to stay
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Alfie's sets up shop in Georgetown with Northern Thai cooking and natural wines. Photo: Courtesy Alfie's
If you’ve been around D.C. long enough, you probably know Alfie’s: chef Alex McCoy’s Thai pop-up he launched a decade ago — and has revived again and again.
- But if not, get excited: The scrappy 25-seat restaurant and wine bar feels like a globetrotting friend finally settled down.
Why it matters: The Georgetown restaurant will be Alfie’s first permanent home, where McCoy and business partner Justin Ahn can play with fiery Northern Thai flavors, hyper-local ingredients and a playful list of Virginia and natural wines.
The big picture: McCoy has done a lot of restaurants since Alfie’s first popped up — most notably Lucky Buns, which he recently parted ways with — but “I’ve always made it a point to revisit Alfie’s as much as possible and keep it alive,” he tells Axios.
- Hence sold-out pop-ups from D.C. to London, which helped shape the Alfie’s opening today.
- The original was more street-food focused, with McCoy cooking dishes “as traditionally as possible.” Now, he’s applying the ethos of Thai cooking to what grows — or swims — around here.
- “If it’s not tamarind, it’s sea buckthorn. If it’s not mackerel, it’s rockfish,” he says. “At the end of the day, we’re not trying to change the food.”
Dig in: Expect old Alfie’s favorites alongside dishes that can change several times a week depending on what McCoy finds at farms, markets and local fishmongers.
- Staples include khao soi noodles, housemade Thai sausage and laab kua, the fragrant Northern Thai version of the minced-meat salad.
- A 16-ounce steak gets the au poivre treatment, Alfie’s-style: a vibrant green peppercorn curry with house-cut fries.
- Cockles — a hit from Alfie’s London pop-up — are stir-fried with lemongrass, lime leaf and chilies, then tossed in a Thai chili jam butter punched up with Calabrian ’nduja.
Between the lines: Even the holy basil comes from McCoy’s garden on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Expect local rockfish, oysters, summer squash, Sungold tomatoes and whatever else looks fresh.
The intrigue: “We want to pull people out of their comfort zone,” McCoy says — but that doesn’t mean resurrecting every experiment.
- So yes, they’re bringing the heat. No, the ant larvae omelet probably won’t return.
To drink: Alfie’s wants to nudge you outside your wine comfort zone, too — taste-wise, not price.
- About 90% of bottles land between $35 and $60, with a focus on natural, low-intervention and biodynamic wines from established regions “doing things a little differently.”
- And Virginia’s growing wine scene gets serious real estate, including bottles from Novella, Linden, Early Mountain, Lightwell Survey and others.
- McCoy thinks local wine deserves the same enthusiasm D.C. diners give local crab. “We have these well-priced wines in our backyard that kick well above their average — they should be on every list in the city.”
The vibe: Intimate and deliberately unfussy. Bottles line the shelves with prices scrawled in chalk, and the restaurant is so small you can practically high-five McCoy and Ahn in the kitchen from the host stand.
- That tiny footprint is part of the point: McCoy says 25 seats let them cook limited-run dishes with local ingredients, and keep enough staff on the floor to actually talk diners through an unfamiliar wine or dish.
- “We never wanted to take ourselves too seriously,” McCoy says, “but we did want to take the product really seriously.”
Book ahead: Alfie’s takes reservations — and since they went live last week, McCoy says they’ve booked 700 and counting.
- So if this was giving you Little Serow flashbacks, relax — no long lines, but Alfie’s will hold some seats for walk-ins.
- His preferred scenario: Come in, say hi to him and Ahn, grab a $50 bottle of wine and “just forget everything going on in the world and have a good time.”
What’s next: Alfie’s officially opens Sept. 2 in Georgetown at 1228 1/2 31st Street, Northwest.