Amazonia (2nd Floor) Causa (1st Floor) — Restaurant in Washington

Given that we have just returned from Argentina and Chile, we were excited to find an Andean based Michelin star restaurant. The description sounded excellent, and everyone was impressed with the seafood. We arrived and we unexpectedly met with a Japanese style tasting menu. To be clear, we love Japanese food and have been fortunate enough to visit Japan and experience the cuisine first hand. The type of Japanese food they served at Causa was considered “Nikkei” - a very popular form of food in Peru. However, there was no indication that this would be a Japanese style meal at any point in time prior to arrival.

We were immediately seated at the bar and met with information from our very informative waitress. Everything throughout the night was incredibly over explained to the point where food would become cold before you could taste it and half was inaudible.

At the very beginning, we received information from our server on how the restaurant worked, the tasting menu, wine pairing which we prepurchased, potential additional add ons (as is common with most Michelin star tasting menus) and an iPad with an app resembling DoorDash that simply named fish by the species and no other preparation listed aside from a small area down below that was primarily sushi. During this prolonged monologue, we also received our amuse small bite and first course of beverage, which was a delicious kombucha.

Overall, service was a complete verbal overload, yet we were left with no idea what the menu would be, inspiration of the Nikkei format, or how the restaurant worked in terms of what additions to order if that was deemed essential. By the time we could finish our first bite and drink some kombucha, the iPad was swiftly taken away, and we had no other opportunities throughout the night to add things on to our meal.

It was a bit premature to ask about add-ons when we had little idea what the courses would be and how full we would be by the end of the night. In retrospect, I wish we ordered some sort of fish, but we had no idea if we would need it or not.

Getting to the actual courses, things were just weird. It was a combination of Japanese fusion and New Age pretentious style Michelin food with numerous ingredients and mousse/gel like textures without any significant flavor overall. One bite tasted like fish toothpaste. The portions were incredibly small and the timing was poor. We spent so much time waiting between what were essentially little bites. Most dishes were fish and other ingredients either pureed or minced into tiny morsels, reminiscent of Fancy Feast paté. The best fish course was a miso style cod but this was not much better than what you’d find at a nice Japanese restaurant anywhere else.

In addition to the disappointing initial plates, the timing was very prolonged considering the small bites. We ended up having to ration sips of wine waiting up to 30 minutes between courses. The wine itself was excellent. The final savory course protein entrees were especially disappointing with a cold small piece of A5 wagyu, cheek, and short rib. The pescatarian option was a whitefish that was brazenly overcooked and lacked any particular Peruvian or Japanese flavors.

The additional fish dishes being delivered to other patrons varied between whole cooked fish and sushi/sashimi. The handling, cut quality, and presentation of the Japanese raw fish was subpar at best and we have seen much better preparation at non Michelin star sushi restaurants.

A very odd feature was the use of secret service style ear pieces for every employee of the restaurant. It was very distracting and felt detached.

Overall a very disappointing experience of poorly executed Andean Japanese fusion. There is nothing Peruvian about this food. The use of 3 Peruvian sourced flavors when a dish has 20 coming in the form of a cream isn’t acceptable. Would not recommend. Btw if you didn’t already know this place had a Michelin star (completely undeserved), they will remind you in almost every dish by shaping some aspect of the food into the iconic...

Where to start when talking about one of our favorite places in DC? We recently visited to celebrate our anniversary and spent about 6 hours here, starting with pre-dinner drinks at Amazonia, moving downstairs for the tasting menu at Causa, then heading back up to the bar to finish the night. While Causa and Amazonia are two different spaces, the staff ensured that we never felt like they were completely disconnected because there was constant communication as we were ushered up and down. This is a great place to celebrate a special occasion. Starting with pre-drinks: We arrive about an hour before our dinner reservation and made our way upstairs to the bar, where we met Fernando, mixologist extraordinaire. He taught us a lot about different drinks on the menu as well as the individual components of the drinks. I would highly recommend starting your evening here if you want to do the tasting menu downstairs. It's a great way to relax and get settled in. We've previously eaten dinner at Amazonia, which we also highly recommend. As we waited for our reservation slot to arrive, Fernando let us know that someone would come up and escort us downstairs when our table was ready, so we didn't need to rush or worry about being late. He also gave us a chance to look at the fish market menu and gave us the tip of ordering a fish with two preparations. More on that shortly. Moving downstairs to Causa: The dining room is intimate, seating around 20 guests, with plenty of natural light and sightlines into the kitchen areas. Following Fernando's tip, we ordered a fish off the fish market menu - we chose the threadfish which was kind of like a hybrid of the best parts of tuna and salmon to us (would recommend!). For the cold prep, we chose the Tiradito, which was sort of a hybrid of the sashimi and cebiche preps. The leche de tigre was phenomenal and we found ourselves spooning it up to not let it all go to waste. For our hot preparation, our server actually offered to let us do all three of them by josper grilling the fish and bringing all the sauces out on the side. This made for such a fun experience combining different flavors (and filled our entire table!). The cold and hot preps came out at different times, nestled into our tasting menu experience in a way that made them feel natural. I highly recommend adding a fish onto your tasting experience. The tasting menu itself was incredibly well executed - the flavors were complementary, and dishes were well-balanced. Along the way, we learned about Peruvian culture and the parts of Peru from which the dishes were inspired. Chef Carlos Delgado was a frequent visitor at our table, providing a lot of the insight himself as well as adding the final touches to the dishes (such as a liquid nitrogen mixture poured onto the cebiche to add a burst of coldness and open the flavors to individual sauces). We were able to interact with most of the staff over the course of our meal, and their excitement and pride in the menu shone through. Our final box of treats for the evening contained some of the best-tasting single-bite confections I have had in the city, and I will hold onto hope that one day I might be able to buy them outside the tasting menu to give as gifts (and eat myself!). We opted in for a pisco flight as well and learned a lot more about pisco as a result. The three we tried had such different flavor profiles, and we enjoyed pairing them up with dishes along the way. After dinner, we were escorted back upstairs to try some more cocktails. In total, I think we got through 9 during our visit and were helping other guests decide on cocktails...

One year later update:

When things are easy, sometimes they go unnoticed, but difficult situations are usually unforgettable.

After experiencing Causa, I knew I needed to make my return to Amazonia. This opportunity arose when I was booking my friends late summer birthday.

On what seemed to be a beautiful night on the rooftop with rain pitter pattering on the plastic roof, quickly became a tropical downpour and thunder storm. Our server Mason, stayed calm and found us another table further away from the howling wind and rain. We were also approached by the manager, who could sense our concern of the brewing storm and offered to look for another table.

Mason expertly guided us through the drink program and food options despite having to essentially yell over the rain, we had a lot of fun with this by joking about the authentic jungle weather of the Amazon. To our surprise, we were moved to a more sheltered table inside where we began our meal.

Personally, I have never felt more cared for or seen by a restaurant staff anywhere in DC. Just as I began to lose hope that high end restaurants were losing touch with their customers, this experienced restored my faith.

Causa/ Amazonia has become even better in the past year since I first visited when they opened. Their ability to execute on the simple tasks like ensuring your water is full, you have clean plates for the various courses, and your napkin is folded when you return from the bathroom is comforting.

But their ability to navigate difficult situations, and make sure their guests are happy even when the kitchen makes a mistake or the weather does not cooperate is a special kind of attention to care. I believe this deserves recognition because personally, I have spent way too much money dining out. But at this restaurant, the staff, kitchen, and bar make it all worth it and will leave you wanting for more.

They are doing something really unique here. I wish them all the luck in their pursuit of excellence.

Original post: WHAT A SPOT!

Since they recently opened, it was my first time here but, I will certainly be back. I did the tasting menu with a friend and was super impressed by my experience since I hadn’t done one like this ever before.

The coordination between the wait staff and the kitchen was really incredible. As dishes arrived on the counter, the waiters would coordinate their actions to present the food to you. It was really impressive! After being served your food, head chef Carlos would come by and explain the dishes.

Carlos himself was super friendly and excited to present his creations. He’s clearly someone who cares about what he’s serving his guests. Not only was every delicious, it was also very thoughtful.

Chef Carlos takes you from the coast of Peru, through the Andes Mountains, and deep into the Amazon jungle. He also works with local communities within the Amazon to bring unique local ingredients to D.C. so no need to bring your passports

Sorry my pictures are not great I was really distracted by the...