Legends of this fall
Back in August, we told you about the return of The Jockey Club, Washington’s legendary restaurant in the then-Fairfax Hotel (now Westin Embassy Row) which is being resuscitated after a seven-year absence. For 40 years, The Jockey Club was a popular see-and-be-seen spot for Washington A-Listers and visiting celebrities and is frequently referred to longingly by older Washingtonians as the sort of power spot that hasn’t been replicated since it left.
“We have a lot of good restaurants now,” Pisces Club founder Wyatt Dickerson told Yeas & Nays back then, “but the Jockey Club had a panache that some of the other places just don’t have.”
Well, Jockey Club regulars — and just the curious, generally — can swing by the Westin on Massachusetts Avenue and get a peak at what the old Jockey Club looks like in its newer form, even though its official opening isn’t for a few more weeks.
Still there? The dark wood. The red-checked tables. The banquette tables. All have been recreated to replicate the old Jockey Club’s signature style.
But it’s not a spitting image of the old place, that’s for sure. The Jockey Club’s regular cave-dwellers will find more light and a more modern look in this, the Jockey Club’s latest form. (Perhaps The Palm restaurant’s glass atrium is an attractive concept for today’s power diners?)
“You’ll find a more contemporary design,” said one source involved with the new Jockey Club. “We recognized the importance of duplicating the ambiance of the original Jockey Club, but we’ve brightened it up a bit and added some more sophisticated features” (like fabric on the red benches). “But, no, it won’t be identical.”
Which doesn’t please everyone. “It’s not the old Jockey Club, that’s for sure,” says one regular to the old haunt. “Some people may not care, but for the folks who would regularly stop by the Club, it could be a reason to say ‘to heck with it.’”
