The Arlo hotel’s new restaurant opened four weeks ago with a foie gras terrine on its dinner menu. Last week, District voters approved a ban on selling it.
Altair, which opened Oct. 15 under a glass ceiling off the lobby of the Arlo Washington at 333 G St. NW, lists a foie gras terrine with port-shallot jam, truffle and cornichon for $28, according to the menu posted on its website and checked Nov. 12. On Nov. 3, voters approved Initiative 86, which would bar restaurants and retailers in the District from selling foie gras and other fattened-bird-liver products starting July 1, 2027. The measure passed with more than 73 percent of the vote in unofficial D.C. Board of Elections results, Axios reported.
Whether the dish actually leaves the menu depends on steps that have not happened yet. The ban takes effect only if the D.C. Council pays for it. The city’s chief financial officer put implementation at $314,000 over four fiscal years, money not in the current budget and financial plan. The measure also has to clear congressional review. Renwick Hospitality, the New York company that runs Altair, gave Eater “No comment at this time” when asked about the ban on Nov. 4.
The place
Altair is the second restaurant by that name. Renwick opened the first in Midtown Manhattan in 2023, according to Eater DC’s Oct. 7 first look by Tierney Plumb. The company runs restaurants and bars in Arlo and Motto hotels in New York, as well as the Art rooftop bar atop the Arlo here, Eater reported.
The 82-seat restaurant takes over the lobby-level space that held Arrels, chef Pepe Moncayo’s Spanish restaurant, which closed this spring after just over a year, Eater reported. The design firm /3877 redid the room around a live tree hung with lanterns, according to the same report. The restaurant’s website offers reservations in three areas: the glass atrium, the lounge and the main dining room. The theme, as Altair puts it on its site, is “celestial wonder,” with food and drink organized around “the classic elements of earth, fire, water, and air.”
The restaurant’s website lists KB Ingram as executive chef, Tammy Vodinh as food and beverage director and Monisa Fisher as events manager.
The menu and prices
All prices below come from the menu posted on Altair’s website, checked Nov. 12. Menus and prices change, and Altair describes its menu as seasonal.
Dinner is split into a “vegetable driven” section and a “land and sea” section. Vegetable plates run from a $14 Parker House roll with thyme, maple butter and acorn squash to $34 honeynut squash ravioli with brown butter, pancetta and agrodolce; a mushroom ragu with three-cheese tortellini is $29. On the land-and-sea side, Chesapeake Bay oysters are $24, branzino $34, diver scallops $38, lamb rack $48 and a Roquefort-crusted filet mignon $54. A dry-aged young chicken for two is $58, and a “Pig Out” pork platter for three is $89. Desserts are $16 each.
Signature cocktails are $22 and are grouped under the four elements; several are marked as available without alcohol. Wines by the glass run $16 to $32, and most beers are $10. Breakfast runs from $16 overnight oats to a $26 “Arlo Breakfast” with three eggs.
The record
DC Health’s online inspection portal lists a routine inspection on Oct. 8, 2026, a week before the opening, of the food operations at the Arlo Washington, 333 G St. NW. DC Health does not grade restaurants; it runs pass-fail inspections and tallies violations. The report lists three priority violations, two of them corrected on site; one priority foundation violation; and three core violations.
The inspector recorded raw food stored over cooked food, which the person in charge moved; items in the walk-in past their date marks, which were discarded; a glass-washer sanitizer solution out of compliance; no handwashing sign at a cookline sink; a bar handsink hot-water knob that did not work; and no DC Health variance letter on file for specialized processes. The inspector’s comments read, “APPROVED- No objection to the issuance of Restaurant Total license,” and also ordered the establishment to cease and desist reduced-oxygen packaging, sous vide cooking and acidification of white rice “effective immediately,” pending direction from DC Health. The report gave five or 14 days to correct the cited violations.
As of Nov. 12, the portal showed no follow-up inspection posted for the establishment since Oct. 8. That does not mean the items were not corrected or that a variance was not granted; it means none was posted. An earlier change-of-ownership inspection at the address on June 11 recorded no violations. Both reports list Kwabena Ingram as the certified food protection manager.
The foie gras measure sets fines of $1,000 to $5,000 per day for a violation and lets the Department of Energy and Environment move to suspend or revoke the business license of a repeat violator, according to the CFO’s fiscal impact statement. The CFO’s office said DOEE would need an additional inspector and that it “does not currently and is unlikely to inspect kitchen or other back-of-house operations.” Hudson Valley Foie Gras, one of the country’s two major producers, is consulting lawyers about a challenge, Axios reported. The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington said after the vote that it was concerned about “the precedent [the ban] sets for government deciding what restaurants can serve and diners can choose,” according to Eater. “Tonight D.C. decided that force-feeding a bird has no place here,” Cady Witt, campaign director of Pro-Animal DC, which led the campaign, said in a statement shared with Axios.
What others say
As of Nov. 12, The Inquisitor had found no full critic’s review of Altair in the major Washington outlets. The Infatuation listed it Oct. 14 among the city’s new openings, with a note by Omnia Saed that “we haven’t been here yet,” and wrote of the celestial theme, “We’re not entirely sure what that means, but we think we’re into it?” Eater’s first look described the room as “situated under a glassy, greenhouse-like ceiling” with “vantage points of the night sky.”
The Inquisitor was unable to verify a current Google or Yelp aggregate rating for the D.C. location and does not report one.
Practical information
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Address | 333 G St. NW (lobby level of the Arlo Washington), Washington, DC 20001 |
| Hours | Breakfast 7 to 11 a.m.; dinner 5 to 10 p.m.; bar closes at 11 p.m. |
| Price range | Dinner plates $14 to $54; dishes for the table $58 to $89; desserts $16; cocktails $22 |
| Reservations | Through the restaurant’s website (OpenTable); seating in the glass atrium, lounge or main dining room |
| Phone | (202) 839-8326 |
| Website | altairdc.com |
| Accessibility | The accessibility statement posted on Altair’s website covers the website itself and lists ada@renwicknyc.com for reporting problems; it does not describe physical access |
| Transit | A short walk from the Judiciary Square and Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro stations |
How this column works: This column is reported from menus, public records, interviews and published reviews; Adela Marchbank is a pen name used by The Washington Inquisitor.
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