Clarity’s Ever Changing Tasting Menu Outside Washington, DC

We enjoy a nice tasting menu and have been eyeing Clarity for a while. It’s consistently reviewed as one of the best in Northern Virginia. Our visit had some wins and a couple of misses. But with their constantly changing menu, flexibility, and good service, we’ll be back.

Since their menu changes every day, we have been checking their website (clarityvienna.com) daily about 4:30pm for a menu that met our taste buds and Friday, February 9th, we had our match. We used a rideshare app to travel over as we were planning to do the pairings (drink responsibly!) for an early evening time slot. 

We were seated immediately and their bar manager Victor came over to greet us and discuss the menu. After pointing out that we had the choice of the “Special Wine Pairings” or “Victor’s Master Whisky Pairings,” we quickly chose to do one of each. Nice branding Victor! Warm bread and oil followed. There was no salt, pepper, or vinegar to season the oil although I’m sure we could have requested it (yeah, one of us likes a little pepper and sometimes some Parmesan cheese in their oil — but this isn’t an Italian joint.)

We began with an amuse-bouche or “gift from the Chef” with Victor serving a glass of Gabino Prosecco, a brut sparkling wine from Italy and a dram of Green Spot, Single Pot Still Irish Whisky, from Cork, Ireland. This was accompanied by a fried snapper bite served with cucumber, carrot, red cabbage, and an aioli. We both commented that the bite had the same mouth feel as a crab cake. The sparkling wine paired well with the fish bite. The whiskey was smooth and worked well with the dish.

For the first course, we dined on flash seared Albacore Tuna, with fresh hearts of palm, red onion, butternut squash, winter radish, cherry blossom shoyu, and char roe.  For the wine pairing, Victor selected a dry Riesling from Dr. Konstantin Frank, from the Finger Lakes, 2021. For the whisky, he chose Kujira Single Rice Grain Japanese Whisky from Okinawa, Japan. The wine was a perfect pairing. Japanese whisky is always a welcome treat and it worked well after several bites of the dish versus concurrently like a wine.

For the second course, we were served crisped Santa Barbara Sablefish with white salsify, cordycep mushrooms, Thai basil and coconut curry paired with Domaine Guerrin & Fila, La Marechaude from Burgundy, France and Ardbeg Corryvreckan Single Malt Whisky from the Islay region of Scotland. We knew when we made the reservation that this was probably going to be a miss for at least one of us – not a fish fan. We both sampled it, but it wasn’t a home run. It turns out, we could have requested a substitution (which is a really awesome option). Many places do not allow substitutions in their tastings. The wine pairing was solid though. While generally the scotch drinker among us doesn’t like the super peaty Ardbeg, it complimented the soft fish well.

Our third course was Westholme Australian London Broil (medium rare) with yukon gold potato puree, cipollini onion and a red wine sauce. This was paired with Earthquake Zinfandel Lodi, from California 2021 and Glenmorangie The Quinta Ruban Single Malt Whisky from Tain, Scotland. Both the wine and whisky were well received.

The dessert course was a spiced winter fruit cobbler with a tuille candy shard, strawberry mousse, vanilla bourbon caramel, pear & green apple compote, and vanilla ice cream. Oddly, they only gave us one dessert for the two of us. We were ok with that, as one, it wasn’t that great, and two, we were on the full side. Dessert was paired with Chateau Roumieu, Sauternes, from France (2020), and Elijah Craig bourbon. (The menu said it would be Four Roses Small Batch). Normally, we have had Sauternes with Foie Gras but it went well with the dessert, especially the ice cream. We both thought the dessert was just “meh” except for the ice cream which was well executed.

So, in the end, we had some wins and some misses. Service was OK, but not as good as you would expect for the price point. That being said… we will return. It was a good “value” in our book.

Clarity Restaurant
https://www.clarityvienna.com/