Randall Doetzer isn’t exactly sure when people started thinking of Restaurant Adarra as a “tapas restaurant,” but the chef and co-owner would like to clarify a few things.
“It isn’t Spanish. It isn’t tapas. I don’t know where people get the information for this place, but it’s wild,” he says.
The restaurant, which reopened in the old Mamma ‘Zu location in December, has been on an evolution since the first, smaller Adarra location opened in Jackson Ward in 2019.
It’s finally approaching the vision Doetzer and his wife Lyne set out to achieve. But when diners walk in and ask where the traditional tapas are, or which member of the staff is from the Basque region, Doetzer gets frustrated. “It gets vastly oversimplified, and that’s destructive almost … you’d be hard-pressed to find a huge amount of Basque flavors in here because that is not the point,” he says.
The Doetzers do love the Basque region of Spain and are inspired by the way the food is prepared, but they aren’t trying to recreate it.
“The reason Basque food is so good is because everything is there,” Doetzer explains. “The most Basque thing we could do is become as Virginia as we can be. But if I say we are a Virginia restaurant, someone comes in and wants shrimp and grits.”
“At every restaurant in Northern Spain, if you go out back you’ll see some dude sitting at a fireplace cooking everything he can get his hands on,” says Doetzer.
Doetzer gestures to the custom-built oven that anchors the kitchen and practically covers the back wall of the restaurant.
“Everything works backward from this,” he says. The behemoth requires a different configuration of the flames and shelving each day based on the type of food the Adarra team is cooking, the weather and even the type of wood. “It’s very specific work and it’s fairly miserable,” he says. “It’s not romantic at all.”
He does acknowledge that Adarra’s previous location may have added to the confusion. The restaurant’s size constraints, not to mention the constraints of running a restaurant during COVID-19, led them to lean more into Spanish flavors and ingredients like tinned fish. “When we moved, we shed everything from before except the people,” he says. “We took a lot of lessons from the last place and applied them here.”
In the new spot, the crew only works with whole animals and focuses on ingredients that are delivered daily from local purveyors. “I don’t import hardly anything anymore and I feel like that’s as Basque as it can be… I import salt and olive oil, basically, and that’s about it,” Doetzer says. “Once we run out of meat, I don’t have meat until the guy shows up again.”
This means the menu changes daily, as does the oven configuration. Even at the bar, Danny McDermott regularly uses herbs from his own garden in the rotating and creative cocktail selection. For Doetzer, it’s about providing the best dishes he can: “The quality is better when you can be more aggressively local.”
This one-of-a-kind focus extends beyond the menu, too. “That’s kind of the really stubborn part of all this,” Doetzer says. “I don’t want parallels to anyone. It comes off as arrogant, but it’s not coming from that place at all. These are my ideas. These are Lyne’s ideas. These are Nick’s [Hancock, Adarra sous chef] ideas. Once you come in here, you shouldn’t be able to get anything like this.”
When designing the space, each step from the front-door handle to the custom crown molding and hand-painted bar was intentional. “It’s such a break from what’s out there,” Doetzer says, gesturing to the door. “You’re almost forced to put your phone away.”
The stately paintings that add to the restaurant’s warm, elegant vibe were inspired by the bar at Adarra’s previous inherited location. Doetzer noticed that one end of the bar faced overwhelming shelves of liquor bottles, while at the other end, there was a painting. “I saw that painting save so many dudes on dates,” he says, noting that it provided inspiration to fill conversation during awkward pauses. “I thought, let’s make the whole restaurant about that.”
And then there’s the wine list—or lack thereof. While Doetzer does not count Adarra as part of the “natural wine scene,” the restaurant’s extensive selection, as well as his and Lyne’s preferences, lean that way. With more than 3,000 rotating wines and over 90 different Champagnes, maintaining a menu would not only be cumbersome for the staff, it would be overwhelming for customers. While he acknowledges that some people hate giving up the power of not having a wine list, “most people just breathe a sigh of relief.”
Instead of choosing from a list, diners are encouraged to talk to their server (or Lyne) about their flavor and price preferences and let the staff find the right glass or bottle for them. And for those who are scared about breaking the bank: “I can hit almost anything you need for under $75 [per bottle] and certainly for under $100… value is super important,” says Doetzer.
“Our whole thing is making sure we have a personal experience with you,” he says. “We’re not into flipping tables. We’re trying to make sure you really experience something and come back.”
To accomplish that, the staff sits down nightly and reviews all the reservations—they actually read the notes you fill in when booking. Tables are intentionally close together to encourage conversation and connection, but if you say it’s your anniversary and you want a romantic evening, the staff might space your table differently.
Doetzer does realize that, in the days of social media and scouring a menu online before dining in, he’s asking diners to relinquish control and that might not be for everyone. “Give me five stars or give me one star, just don’t give me three stars,” he says.
“It may not be what you are expecting and we’re not going to change that,” he says. “It’s a room full of people trying to do our very best for you… sit back, take a load off. You’re here to have a good evening. Let the best group of people we can put in a room take care of you.”
