Jonathan V. Last, gourmand
Pane e Nino Until last week, I had been going to A.V. Ristorante, a modest Italian restaurant on New York Avenue, for as long as I'd been in Washington—longer even. During my college years in...
...had been, for years, the only bright spot...
...One of the developers took an interest in the land A.V...
...Modernity had been encroaching on A.V...
...So too had some actual celebrities, including Jack Nicholson and even, once upon a time, Cary Grant and Mae West...
...This "did a great deal for their morale," Humphrey wrote, "and let them know that they were not forgotten...
...by the lure of celebrity...
...I never did spot Nino, or any other notable, at A.V...
...More than any other American city, Washington is a town of pretensions...
...That was many years ago...
...Fred Thompson, Jimmy Hoffa, Strom Thurmond, and Russ Feingold had all been patrons...
...But the crown jewel of this collection was a letter from Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968, thanking the Vasaios for bringing patients from Bethesda Naval Hospital to the restaurant and treating them to dinner...
...They served wine in squat, glass tumblers and specialized in a garlic-laden white pizza that was served not whole, but chopped into small pieces and stacked in a basket...
...is sitting on...
...In our callow youth, my friends and I were drawn to A.V...
...When Augusto died in 1982, his wife Assunta (known as Sue) took over, and later their sons August and Johnny kept up the place...
...During my college years in Baltimore, my friends and I would sometimes escape to D.C...
...The restaurant used to be lit by candles stuck in empty wine bottles...
...I suppose it was only a matter of time before an increasingly censorious city decided that the business itself should make way for bigger and better things...
...had none...
...But while I once found this slightly deflating, I came to appreciate it...
...featured a jukebox stuffed with opera records and two walls filled with pictures and memorabilia—lots of smiling politicians and glad-handers...
...We would eat dinner at A.V...
...over the years...
...I later learned that Alfonse D'Amato and Denny Hastert were regulars, as was Janet Reno during her time in town...
...Perhaps noting the city's penchant for the exercise of eminent domain, the Vasaios sold...
...for years...
...The city's fire inspectors forced management to abandon this practice in 1998...
...Justice Scalia was but one of the bright lights who dined at A.V...
...No commercial establishment in Washington is complete without an ego wall...
...In 2003, the District opened a gargantuan new convention center in the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood, two blocks from A.V...
...Afterwards, we would drive a little further along New York Avenue, pass the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, then turn back and make our way south and east to the Capitol...
...Ristorante has been closed to the world...
...The next day they tracked the fellow down and gave him back his money...
...A lights-out dinner for two might cost $40...
...He didn't notice it at the time, but as they were doing the books at the end of the evening, the Vasaios did...
...Jqnathan V Last...
...Next to lawyers and drug stores, it's hard to think of anything Washington needs less...
...Even before these changes, A.V was from another era...
...The entrance to A.V...
...The project was meant to reinvigorate a declining area in which A.V...
...The restaurant will be replaced by condominiums and office space...
...An old cigarette machine with pull-handles sat forlornly just inside the front door, but you haven't been allowed to smoke in a Washington restaurant for almost two years...
...Opened in 1949 by Augusto Vasaio, it stayed in the family...
...Or at least what passes for celebrity in Washington...
...Antonin Scalia had frequented the small, dark restaurant since he first arrived in Georgetown in the 1950s...
...Today, the road past the White House has been closed to traffic, the steps of the Capitol have been closed to the public, and A.V...
...In 1980 a Washington Post food writer related the story of a man who'd been accidentally overcharged by $25 at A.V...
...for the evening...
...To the extent that these things can be measured, the plan seems to have worked: Today there are nearly as many construction cranes as parking meters around Mount Vernon Square...
...To a certain kind of young man, the prospect of happening upon the preeminent legal mind of our time enjoying carbonara at a neighborhood hole in the wall was incredibly alluring...
...Augusto's grandson, August Jr., worked there until the very end, walking the floor and even waiting tables...
...The decor consisted of cheap wood paneling and red-and-white checked plastic table cloths...
...We'd go sit on the Capitol steps until late into the night, smoking cigars and gazing west up the Mall and the broad, empty boulevards and making conversation with the occasional Capitol Police officer...
Vol. 12 • August 2007 • No. 45
