Dish, by Tom Sietsema

Move over, Eamonn’s. Watch out, CommonWealth. To hear Mark Weiss describe it, fish and chips and bangers and mash have never had a home in Washington as fashionable as what the entrepreneur is prepared to unveil to the public Oct. 27 at 1099 New York Ave. NW. Among other details, his gastropub, Againn, will be outfitted with 130 individually lighted and personalized lockers for Scotch, which patrons can reserve for $500 a year.

Decorated with faux fox heads, dark paneling and a zinc-topped bar, the 5,600-square foot restaurant will be the first for Weiss, the CEO of the newly formed Whisk Group based in Rockville. But with 17 years of experience at the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons, among other brands, he's no stranger to the hospitality business.

The name of the establishment (pronounced "again") is loosely translated from Gaelic into English as "with us," says Weiss, who was born in the Netherlands, grew up in New Zealand and has lived in England. He and his partner in Whisk Group, Bahar Makinaci, hope to sign a chef this week, pending negotiations. The aim, says Weiss: "Top-end comfort food." Entrees are expected to run between $17-$25.

Againn will also feature a raw bar and three private dining areas, including one equipped with a flat-screen TV (you know, to watch soccer games).

Weiss is nothing if not ambitious for Whisk Group and future restaurant concepts, both here in the U.S. and abroad. "I'd love to [reimagine] a French brasserie for Paris and a pub for London," he told me.

DC Modern Luxury

Pubs, generally speaking, are about as abundant as politicians in this city. But authentic British inspired gastropubs? That’s another story.

The opening of Againn in a glassy office tower near Mt. Vernon Square merges trad Old World ideas with mad modern twists. Savor ale-battered fish and chips, shepherd’s pie and Welsh rarebit in a Euro-chic interior, featuring faux fox heads in shadowboxes, white subway tiles and a zinc bar. Nibble Anglo signatures like oysters beside your own private Scotch locker (130 are available for rental at $500 a year).

Why not invite a friend? It makes sense: againn means “with us” in Gaelic. The visionary force behind this unconventional eatery is a pair of seasoned hospitality pros who cut their teeth at the Ritz-Carlton. Ace business partners Mark Weiss and Bahar Makinaci share an eye for quality. They hired veteran chef Wesley Morton (formerly of Citronelle and Circle Bistro) to rock a menu of contemporary classics. Meanwhile, Weiss and Makinaci envision seven future restaurants around the world, making Againn merely their beginning.

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Zagat Buzz

Mark Weiss honed his hospitality skills overseeing Ritz-Carlton's international operations before launching his own company, the Whisk Group. Its first independent venture, a gastropub called Againn (Gaelic for “with us”), is slated to open next month at 1099 New York Ave. NW, and Weiss took time to chat with Zagat Buzz about the project.

Zagat Buzz: What made you choose DC as the site of the Whisk Group’s first restaurant?

Mark Weiss: Well, I have been living in the DC area for the past several years while I worked for the Ritz-Carlton Group. But more important is the fact that this area is emerging as a major food and beverage market. There is a lot of excitement about restaurants – the area’s strong economy is attracting talented chefs. Interesting concepts are being launched here, like Brasserie Beck’s reinvention of the idiom.

ZB: Why a British-inspired gastropub?

MW: I opened a couple of pubs under the RC umbrella, including one in Dublin. And many years ago, I helped my parents open one in New Zealand, where I was raised. It seems a fun idea to re-concept the traditional pub into a modern idiom. Thus Againn will mix the modern – a sleek glass facade – with an old-world zinc bar, dark paneling and black-and-white tile floors. The food will use the best possible ingredients and techniques to enhance the flavors of favorites like shepherd’s pie and oysters Kilpatrick.

ZB: You’ve said that DC has a “wonderful happy-hour culture.” Was that a factor in your planning?

MW: DC is a professional city where people work differently compared to, say, Hong Kong, where people get up late, or Dubai, where they work on rigid nine-to-five schedules. Here people work long, flexible hours, often meeting people for drinks and a bite and then going back to their offices. Lots of business and networking happens in restaurants. We won’t close between lunch and dinner and we’ll offer a huge opportunity for happy hour, with lots of space for mingling. There will be a raw bar and a long bar, with a happy-hour menu featuring seafood and a reinvented toasted cheese in a cast-iron skillet. Of course, our operation will be 50% restaurant, with two private dining rooms and entrees running from $17–$25.

ZB: Pubs are about drinking as well as eating – tell us about that aspect of the operation. I hear you are planning to have reservable, personalized lockers for customers’ whiskey bottles.

MW: We’ll start with some 75 beers, 18 on tap, and we're hiring a beer master. Our walk-in wine cellar will have 1,000 bottles. However, our focus on scotch is another story. My travels in Asia made me familiar with that area’s huge culture of single malts – regular restaurant clientele store their cognac or whiskey in special lockers and offer drinks to their dining companions. I thought it would be a lovely design element to incorporate a wall of individual wooden lockers, each with a glass wall that was lit from within, to illuminate the bottle. There will be a discreet nametag on each locker, but, this being DC, generic labeling is possible.

– Olga Boikess

DC Luxury

He’s the architect who designs DC’s most award-winning and, yes, fully booked restaurants. But don’t begrudge Peter Hapstak the line at the door. Your table (and the chic surrounds) will be well worth the wait.

Peter Hapstak is a man obsessed. With organic vodka (CapRock, in particular). With new music (he’s got more than 8,000 CDs). And, most of all, with restaurants. He dines out as many as six times a week and has designed nearly 30 local foodie meccas, including red-hot newcomers Potenza, Policy and Blue Ridge. With so many passions and so few hours in the day, the 53-year-old designer and avowed night owl is clearly fueled by more than just Red Bull.

Before sacrificing his sleep in the name of hospitality design, Hapstak churned out corporate spaces for CORE, the architecture firm of which he is founding principal and partner. He spent seven years crisscrossing the States designing for Sprint PCS, before burning out on “cube farms.” Hapstak was hungry for something more. “It was really watching the Starbucks phenomenon that got me. The whole idea that this spot for coffee could become a place for a stroller society or somewhere to hang out,” he explains. “This idea that culture is important and that comfortable places for people to interact are important started to take hold.”

At first, CORE designed coffee shops—Hannibal’s and Barista Brava—and then expanded into restaurants. One of the first: Mie N Yu, a little slice of exotica in Georgetown that opened in 2003. “It was the first time we went to a really different place. That’s when I went bipolar and the light bulb switched on,” Hapstak says. “All of a sudden, designing was fun and there was an outpouring of projects.” BlackSalt, Comet Ping Pong and Brasserie Beck followed, the last of which became the architect’s calling card.

Beck’s chef/owner Robert Wiedmaier was so wowed by the results he basically gave Hapstak carte blanche to design an onthe-boards outpost on the Jersey Shore. “I told him to put Beck on steroids,” Wiedmaier says. Anticipating an opening in 2011, the design takes its cue from classic European train stations with arched ceilings and subway tile throughout. But the most talked about element is sure to be a soaring 20-foot tower of kegs.

Brasserie Beck certainly got the attention of Whisk Group, which is opening its debut restaurant in DC, Againn, this fall at 1099 New York Avenue, NW. “Reinventing the gastro-pub seemed right up Peter’s alley,” says CEO Mark Weiss. “We talked to five to ten architects on a global scale—people from Ireland, New York, Canada, who have proven track records. But we selected Peter.”

The old and new together is something Hapstak nails time and again. “I’ve got a fresh idea for anything you’ll toss at me,” he says. “I’ll slice it, dice it and put it back together in a way no one’s ever seen.” The Whisk Group wanted Againn to feel authentic (think leather wall panels, personal scotch lockers, seasonal gastropub fare) even though it is housed in an über-modern building with a glass façade and exposed concrete ceiling. “I got really geeked about the juxtaposition,” the architect says.

As a young boy growing up in Hopewell, VA, Hapstak would lose himself in Super City, a Lego-like construction system of the 1960s. Becoming neither the butcher his father was, nor the teacher his mother was, Hapstak has unwittingly merged both by dabbling in the food industry and bringing his clients along every step of the way. Clients actually sign him up because he’s not a yes-man. Dan Mesches, founder and CEO of Stir Food Group, says that the process of working with Hapstak is filled with “dynamic tension.” When developing Potenza, the two debated the differences between authentic and rustic. Touches like millwork inspired by confessional screens and mod walls that look covered in peeling wallpaper set the tone. “Peter has this frenetic energy about him,” says Mesches. “But the great thing is, it get reined in and put on paper. Then a great project comes out of it.”

What makes CORE’s restaurants notable—aside from their award-winning interiors—is that so many of them are unqualified hits. “There are those who are non-believers,” says Hapstak. “But if they look at any of these restaurants and the revenue flow and the volume, well, then they tend to say, ‘Buddy, anoint yourself in some holy water!’ And we get the job.”

Count Dan Simons among the converted. “When we talk about sales per square foot and revenue per seat, a lot of designers don’t speak that language,” says Simons, principal of Vucurevich/Simons Advisory Group (VSAG), the consultant and management team behind Founding Farmers. “Many just create a beautiful space that works, as opposed to also getting a return on investment.”

Of course, bringing in big bucks is not what keeps Hapstak designing into the wee hours. At Founding Farmers, for instance, a dedication to all things green (the environmental kind!) drove the project. Thanks to salvaged materials, Dyson hand driers and LED lighting, the restaurant is the first in DC to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council and one of the first upscale-casual restaurants in the country to achieve LEED Gold status. “If you come saying, ‘I want to open a restaurant to make a lot of money’ or because it’s the cool thing to do, that’s not for me,” says Hapstak. “But I will take somebody who has nothing but passion.”

That’s why he’s worked on small eateries like Sweetgreen, the local chainlet of salad and fro-yo spots, opened by three bright-eyed Georgetown grads. It’s also why his current docket includes glossy venues like Barton Seaver’s 14th Street fish market and Bob Slade’s Tavern on King, along with a Bethesda location for Georgetown Cupcake and My Hero, a sub shop from Stephan Boillon.

To prepare for these upcoming projects, he routinely visits his old ones, sitting at the bar to eavesdrop on customers and see firsthand what works and doesn’t. “I’ll hit everybody in town—BlackSalt, Founding Farmers, Potenza, Blue Ridge. I don’t do this just because it’s a job. I do it because it’s a passion,” he explains. “This is something I can’t not do.”

Washington Business Journal

The Building that houses Whisk Group's first restaurant project in Washington DC wins awards from Washington Business Journal.

WASHINGTON DC - Whisk Group is opening their first restaurant in Washington DC in an award-winning building. 1099 New York Avenue, NW, Washington DC won the award for New Office Development presented by Washington Business Journal in May 2009. The building was also a runner up in the Architecture category, behind Gaylord National Resort.

The 175,000 square-foot Tishman Speyer building, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, has a distinguished architectural style composed entirely of overlapping glass windows and curtain-wall systems that create a shingled effect, which allows natural light into the space.

Whisk Group is planning to open a 5,600 square foot gastro-pub on the street level of the building, with the vision to create a contrast between the modern façade and the traditional elements of a British-style pub. The menu will focus on well executed pub-style food with classics delivered in a way to meet today’s casual yet discerning customer expectations.

The gastro-pub, Againn, is designed by CORE DC, and the construction firm is K3. The opening is scheduled for fall 2009.

Washington, DC (September 9, 2009)—Whisk Group LLC, a new boutique hospitality group led by industry veterans and partners Mark Weiss and Bahar Makinaci, announces AGAINN restaurant, opening this October in the award-winning Tishman Speyer building. A modern European-inspired gastropub in the heart of the nation’s capital, AGAINN is a new, 5,600-square-foot space that will become home to traditional pub fare executed with a contemporary approach, featuring the best of locally-sourced organic ingredients, an extensive beer and Scotch program and artisanal cocktails. Loosely translated from Gaelic meaning “with us,” AGAINN will be a fresh new addition to the city’s bustling dining scene and the first of many new restaurants around the world to come from Whisk Group. Conveniently located on New York Ave., NW, just one block from the 11th Street exit of Metro Center, AGAINN is near many of the city’s notable landmarks, including The White House and major art museums.

Led by CEO Mark Weiss, with more than 18 years of hospitality experience at some of the top brands in the world, including most recently The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company as regional vice president of international operations, Whisk Group is based in Rockville, Md., and encompasses the best in the world of service, cuisine and hospitality. Chief Operating Officer Bahar Makinaci, previously senior corporate manager of sales and catering operations at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, partnered with Weiss for the launch of the company and shares his vision.

“I was raised in New Zealand and have lived in London, two cultures that have a passion for great beer and pub food, so I’m particularly excited to launch AGAINN as our first of many exciting restaurant ventures,” said Weiss. “DC has such a wonderful happy hour culture, a hunger for delicious, high-quality food and appreciation for excellent service. We look forward to AGAINN becoming a regular meeting place for locals and Washington visitors alike.”

The menu reinvents traditional British pub cuisine by incorporating organic ingredients and offering family-style dining with many dishes served in cast iron skillets and pots. Among the dishes planned for the menu are Shepherd’s Pie; Ale-battered Fish & Chips with gribiche sauce; Cumberland Bangers & Mash; Grilled Amish Country Aged Cheddar Sandwich with Scallions and chips; Welsh Rarebit; Smoked Fish Cakes with lemon-horseradish cream; and Oysters Kilpatrick. An extensive single-malt Scotch and beer selection is planned to complement the gourmet pub fare along with a comprehensive international wine list and artisanal cocktail program.

Designed by Peter Hapstak of CORE, the notable Washington-based architectural design firm, AGAINN is a chic gastropub featuring a vintage-inspired interior complete with rich, dark paneling and cognac-colored furniture accents, white subway tiles and stately light fixtures. Clean lines and contrasting shades of white and black are present throughout the restaurant. Incorporating design elements from pubs across Europe, faux fox heads in shadowboxes will be dramatically featured in the entrance, made exclusively by an artist who casts them out of plaster and finishes them with modern, high-style black enamel. Other important focal points at the entrance are the freestanding raw bar and the continuous, 18-seat zinc-coated bar which serves as the backdrop to the main dining room.

AGAINN’s sleek glass façade allows 11th Street passersby to see the inviting 140-seat restaurant’s handsome millwork, striking glass light fixtures and broad booths. Adding a bit of visual intrigue, guests of AGAINN will also be able to have a front-row look into the kitchen through a series of textured glass windows in the dining room. For parties and events, AGAINN offers two, completely private dining rooms (accommodating eight and 14, respectively) and one semi-private dining room (accommodating 27), lined with 130 private Scotch lockers available for guests to reserve for one year for $500. The lockers are available on a first-come, first-served basis and each one will be emblazoned with a personalized nameplate.

AGAINN is owned and operated by The Whisk Group LLC and will be open for lunch and dinner daily. For reservations or additional information please call (202) 297-0601 or visit www.againndc.com.

7,638-square-foot Parisian-style restaurant planned for the first quarter of 2011

Whisk Group LLC, a boutique hospitality group headquartered in Bethesda, Md., has signed the lease for an 7,638-square-foot restaurant space on the ground floor of 101 California St., at the corner of Front St., in San Francisco. Mark Weiss, CEO and founder of Whisk Group, plans to open a grand, Parisian-style brasserie in the space, called Brasserie Lille, complete with patisserie, full bar and outdoor seating, in the first quarter of 2011. The Johnson Studio, in Atlanta, Ga., has been retained to design the brasserie, with construction set to begin in the fall. Further details, such as the executive chef, general manager and menus, will be announced later this year.

“Whisk Group will create a world-class French brasserie worthy of this prime location in San Francisco, offering an authentic, finely crafted dining experience that will remind guests of the best of Paris while maintaining a strong tie to local farms and purveyors,” said Weiss. “We’re excited to partner with Bill Johnson on the project. His firm’s talent and approach to restaurant design, not to mention award-winning experience working with some of our country’s best chefs, is invaluable, and matches Whisk Group’s forward-thinking, global vision for all of our restaurants.”

Formerly the regional vice president of international operations for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., Weiss founded Whisk Group in the spring of 2009. During his 10-year career with the global luxury hotel brand, he accelerated from one food and beverage management position to the next, and served on the opening team for over 38 Ritz- Carlton hotels and more than 75 restaurants around the world. The Bay Area was home to Weiss from 2001 to 2006 while he was director of food and beverage at The Ritz- Carlton, Half Moon Bay.

The San Francisco brasserie is the third restaurant officially announced by Whisk Group, and the company plans to add several more to its portfolio in the next 12 months in both San Francisco and Washington, DC. Whisk Group’s first restaurant is the critically acclaimed AGAINN, which opened in Washington, DC, in October 2009 at the corner of 11th Street and New York Ave., NW. A modern European-inspired bistro in the heart of the nation’s capital, AGAINN is a 5,600-square-foot space dishing up traditional British Isle cuisine executed by Executive Chef Wesley Morton with a contemporary approach, featuring exceptional, locally-sourced organic ingredients. The restaurant also showcases an extensive beer and Scotch program along with artisanal cocktails. The second restaurant in the AGAINN collection, AGAINN Tavern, opened in Rockville, Md., on Tuesday, June 29.

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