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Hank's Pasta Bar, the upstairs Italian concept above Hank's Oyster Bar in Old Town North, will officially launch full dine-in service on Thursday, May 7, followed a week later by a public grand opening and ribbon cutting on Thursday, May 14.
The restaurant has actually been seating dine-in guests since Wednesday, April 15, in a soft opening used to work out operational details, fine-tune the menu and finish the dining-room build-out, publicist Aviva Goldfarb said in an email. May 7 is when "all the updates will be tested and live," Goldfarb said.
The May 14 event will draw a more public spotlight. According to a Chamber of Commerce email circulated this week, the chamber is coordinating invitations to Mayor Alyia Gaskins, members of the City Council and city economic-development staff for 5 p.m. brief remarks, a ribbon cutting and a champagne toast.
The pasta concept occupies the second floor of the corner building at Montgomery and N. St. Asaph streets, with its own street entrance at 600 Montgomery St., separate from the oyster bar at 818 N. St. Asaph St. below. The two restaurants share a building but operate as distinct concepts; on the dine-in side, customers cannot order across the two menus.
A long road back
The May 7 launch caps a multi-year arc for the brand. The original Hank's Pasta Bar operated from late 2016 to September 2019, when the space closed for renovations. It briefly returned in August 2020 as Hank & Mitzi's Italian Kitchen during the pandemic, but that concept closed permanently in June 2021. Hank's Oyster Bar moved into the corner building in April 2022, expanding across three floors.
Hank's Pasta Bar then re-emerged in August of last year as a takeout- and delivery-only operation working out of a separate second-floor kitchen in the same building. The April soft opening began the transition of that kitchen-with-a-pickup-window into a full sit-down restaurant.
Pasta your way
The dine-in concept is being marketed as a partnership between Chef Jamie Leeds, founder of the Jamie Leeds Restaurant Group, and Chef Darren Norris of the Norris Food Group, whose restaurants include Shibuya. Norris, who has cooked Italian cuisine in New York, Washington and South Florida and was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, designed the menu, the restaurant said in announcing the partnership.
At the menu's center is a build-your-own bowl format starting at $16, with seven artisanal pastas (including a gluten-free option), house-made sauces, proteins, vegetables and toppings. The chef-driven side of the menu includes mafalde and sausage with broccoli rabe and Calabrian chili, fusilli with shrimp and pistachio pesto, four-cheese lasagna and rigatoni Bolognese in either meat or mushroom. Antipasti include ricotta crostini, an Italian chopped salad and burrata with slow-fermented tomatoes. A kids menu rounds out the offerings, and the restaurant lists vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options.
The service format is a hybrid: guests seat themselves, scan a QR code at the table to order, and have food brought out on plateware by a staff member who also handles drinks and ID checks. The bar pours Italian wines, beer and cocktails.
"It's the kind of place you'd find down a side street in a Tuscan hill town, after being tipped off by a friend who says, 'trust me,'" Leeds said in a statement, describing the upstairs dining room as warm and low-lit, with hanging ferns and string lights.
Free prosecco through grand opening weekend
The first 50 dine-in guests each night from Thursday, May 14, through Sunday, May 17, will receive a complimentary glass of prosecco. A non-alcoholic sparkling alternative is available.
Hank's Pasta Bar serves dine-in Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m. The restaurant also continues takeout and delivery, and runs a Pasta Points loyalty program with double points on Mondays and Tuesdays. The full menu is at hankspastabar.com.
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