Beloved Thai Pop-Up Alfie’s Permanently Lands in Georgetown

1. The menu celebrates Mid-Atlantic ingredients.

At the first iteration of Alfie’s, McCoy prided himself on making Thai dishes that were very honest interpretations. They were shipping fish, produce, and other ingredients directly from Thailand. “I’m not Thai, so I didn’t feel like I had the right to change things,” he says. “That was down to the spice levels, the fermentations, the nam pla.”

But over the past decade, after cooking residences in London, pop-ups in New York, and partnerships in Bangkok, McCoy realized the truest version of his dishes should lean on regionality and seasonality wherever he’s cooking.

“You can have the same dish in Thailand throughout the year, done 100 different ways, because of what’s available,” he says. “So then it became, how can we utilize what’s here in D.C.? It might not be traditional, but let’s focus on rockfish and crab. If we can’t get fresh tamarind, let’s use buckthorn.”

Dishes might feature snakehead from the Chesapeake or morels and asparagus picked by foragers. One dish they have planned is monkfish, cockle, and blue crab curry mingling with the Thai flavors of fermented fish sauce, rice powder, and fiery mouse chile.

2. The opening will kick off with dinner service, with a more distinct lunch menu later down the line.

For those craving the cuisine from the Park View pop-up, that will live on through Alfie’s lunch service, which is expected to launch later down the line and will focus on Northern and Esan Thai street food dishes. Within the daytime menu, devotees will remember McCoy’s dry noodle dish ba mee haeng.

But when it comes to dinner service for Alfie’s debut, the menu will be completely market dependent. The team will utilize the ingredients that are in season, and what they’re growing on-site, including lemongrass and holy basil.

The dinner menu will consist between 10-20 dishes on a chalkboard and rotate a few times a week. Some entrees to anticipate are khao soi made with from-scratch curry paste, smoked catfish laap with key lime, bavette steak swimming in green peppercorn curry served alongside crispy fried sunchokes and macerated plums, and Hat Yai fried chicken wings with aajad pickle relish and a sauce of fermented fish pepper Sriracha.

Additionally, a big focus will be natural wines from Virginia poured by the glass, which will also rotate according to the food menu. “A sole with dashi butter might call for a glass or Linden’s Hardscrabble Chardonnay,” McCoy said. “And for something with more heat, we’d pop open a bottle of this beautiful Petit Manseng from Novella.”

Singha and local beers will also be available.

3. The space is small by design.

Ahn first fell in love with Alfie’s when he was working with the Thai government, and he would bring embassy officials to the Park View pop-up. “Every time they came into town, that was my first stop,” he remembers. “And they all lost their minds.”

Part of the appeal of the original Alfie’s was how intimately connected the customers felt to each other, and to the staff. There was even a small table in the kitchen where regulars could dine, or rice bags they could sit on if that table was full.

That same energy will be present in the new spot, located on a narrow, brick-lined court off of 31st Street NW. The small size and almost clandestine location makes sense for the ethos of the place, and also for its economics.

“There’s a lot of character in these buildings and these alleys and little nooks and crannies of the neighborhood,” Ahn says. “And since seating is very limited [below 30], we’re able to maintain our quality and a certain level of service without breaking the bank.”

4. Wait on the patio, not in a line.

Of course, the tricky part of running a 25-seat restaurant, especially one with a decade’s worth of anticipation, is getting everyone in the door. While Alfie’s will be very reservation heavy, half of the tables in the restaurant will be available for walk-ins.

“I am an enemy of waiting in lines,” McCoy says. “There is nothing less welcoming than making people wait in a line in the heat or rain to be able to sit in your restaurant.”

That’s where Alfie’s spacious back patio featuring 11 seats comes in. There, the owners plan to feature occasional live music, outdoor markets, and they might host a barbecue or two to make gai yang, or grilled Thai chicken over open coals.

5. Don’t be surprised if you see collabs.

A huge reason this Georgetown space felt right for Alfie’s, McCoy and Ahn agree, is that the neighborhood’s dining scene stayed vibrant despite the pandemic. The new restaurant’s neighbors include the omakase restaurant Two Nine, a new Spanish restaurant from Claire and Ari Wilder, and a forthcoming pizza spot.

The team envisions lots of collaborations, pop-ups, and events shared between all the restaurants. With some major cities trending toward more corporate, 400-seat restaurants, McCoy sees Alfie’s as the antithesis to that. “The great thing about having a small team is we can have fun with this,” he says. “We used to do a lot of collaborations in D.C., and we really want to bring that back.”

Most of all, the team at Alfie’s wants the concept to live up to its original fanaticism.

“There’s nothing worse than going to a restaurant in the old days that was really special to you, and the new version is a letdown,” McCoy says. “While the menu might look a bit different, the consistent part of this idea is that you can walk in and you’re remembered, you’re known. You can still come up to our open kitchen and give us a high-five.”

Alfie’s is open Wednesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. to midnight.

Jess Mayhugh is a Baltimore-based writer and editor who has contributed to Eater, Punch, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Saveur, Serious Eats, and more. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.