The South American countryside comes to DC

The Mister and I usually enjoy Fridays as “date night” or rather my excuse to try a new restaurant 🙂 Del Campo had recently opened and I quickly made a reservation. In Spanish, Del Campo means “from the countryside” but there is nothing particularly “rustic” here.

Starting off dinner with the Papa Porteno cocktail, made with rum, grilled grapefruit and lime juice and maraschino, simple syrup, and grapefruit bitters. I like citrus cocktails and this didn’t disappoint. It’s not very sweet so it hit the spot.

The server brought out a tiny carafe of olive oil along with a container of sea salt flakes to have with the warm grilled bread. It was so delicious! The bread was smoky and a wonderful aroma. I was tempted to eat all of it 🙂

Our appetizers of pork chicharones (L) with ribs and belly along with a sweet potato emulsion and tuna ceviche (R) made with grilled avocados, pistachios, olives and burnt shallots

We also shared the grilled peas which comes with grilled mortadella and cubes of ricotta along with the charred cauliflower with salsa verde. So if you’re vegetarian, you can certainly eat the sides because there are purely vegetarian options. Between you and me, I want to go back just to try the different vegetable sides!!

With so much food (we didn’t finish it and we had to wrap it up!), we passed on having dessert but I plan on going back. With it being on the red line, it’s 2 stops from my house and if I really need to drive, there’s valet parking along with ample street parking along Massachusetts Avenue.

The restaurant space is beautiful and I look forward to the next time I feel a need to spend some time in the South American countryside.

You can read a few other perspectives here and here. The folks over at Eater, compiled a list of reviews from Yelp, bloggers and critics. If you go, let me know what you tried!

Cheers!

MXM

Del Campo
777 I Street, NW
Washington, DC
(202) 289-7377