GAINSWave Therapy in Chevy Chase, MD

Opal, Eater’s essential 38 destination for fish, vegetables, and meats from the American coastline in a converted Chevy Chase row house, welcomed a superstar walk-in over the weekend. Rapper and business mogul Jay-Z strolled in for a late brunch on Sunday, August 6, the same day his equally famous wife Beyoncé wrapped up a two-night concert at Landover, Maryland’s FedExField.

Around 4 p.m., as the group was wrapping up brunch, staff from the strip’s neighborhood pizza spot Little Beast Cafe & Bistro whipped up a gift box of cupcakes from its Red Velvet confectionary shop. “Our staff was super psyched when they found out he was over at Opal,” says Meaghaan Tolman, director of operations at Gordon Restaurant Group. “His security guard said he was going through the back door to avoid press.”

Little Beast’s teenage employee of the month Javi Thompson took charge and patiently waited in an alley, cupcakes in tow, for the VIP exit near dumpsters. “Jay-Z was extremely nice and appreciative,” says Tolman. “His actual quote was, ‘I love you for this, man.”

The box was filled with a half-dozen of Red Velvet Cupcakery’s greatest hits like Southern Belle, cookies-and-cream, vanilla bean, and carrot cake flavors.

“I think everyone’s aware Beyoncé and Jay-Z no longer eat sugar, but I’m sure the bodyguards enjoyed,” says Tolman.

Jay-Z and his Sunday brunch group — which included his sister-in-law Solange Knowles — choose a six-top table next to Opal’s open kitchen, offering a front-row seat of its wood-fired oven that bakes baller breads and roasts all sorts of proteins. The nearly year-old sibling to Logan Circle’s super-seasonal mainstay Nina May comes from culinary duo Colin McClimans and Danilo Simic.

“He was very nice to staff and offered to take a photo,” the team told Eater. “He seemed to particularly enjoy Opal’s wood-fired bread and brunch pastries.”

Brunch at Opal is pretty cheap by a billionaire’s standards. Its two-course tasting menu option with a beverage ($29) includes items like yogurt and puffed sorghum granola, preserved tomato baked eggs with cannellini beans, rapini, and toast, and mushroom risotto.

Opal’s Instagram account enjoyed a big bump in followers after the unannounced celebrity appearance, notes a rep. “We picked the right day to throw a baby shower at Opal! Our guest of honor was QUITE excited!” commented user @clairenb2014.

Located on the D.C.-Maryland border, the Chevy Chase strip is about a 50-minute drive from the 62,000-seat home of the NFL Washington Commanders and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour stop. Her Sunday night show was delayed for about two hours due to storms, and her camp paid Metro $100,000 to keep its doors open later.

Jay-Z is the latest big-name performer spotted out and about in D.C.

Grammy-winning rapper Drake made the most of a two-night stand at Capital One Arena in late July. In town for his It’s All A Blur tour stop, he carved out time to DJ a set for a packed crowd at Dupont’s subterranean nightclub Heist, show up at Versus sibling Ciel Social Club, and dine at RPM Italian.

Tropical Depression Ophelia is moving slowly north, with more rain through Sunday in parts of Maryland. A flood watch is still in effect.

Mark Hand, Patch Staff

|Updated Sat, Sep 23, 2023 at 8:47 pm ET

Updated at 8:30 p.m.

MARYLAND — A flood watch remains in effect and up to 4 inches of rain is possible in central and southern Maryland this weekend as Tropical Storm Ophelia moves across Virginia, and buffets the mid-Atlantic with strong wind gusts.

Ophelia was downgraded from a tropical storm by the National Hurricane Center’s 8 p.m. update Saturday, and the storm was approaching the Richmond area. The storm is expected to bring additional rain through Sunday

“On the forecast track, the center of Ophelia is expected to continue moving over southeastern Virginia through tonight, and then over the Delmarva Peninsula by tomorrow,” said the National Hurricane Center. “Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. Additional weakening is expected, and Ophelia is likely to become a post-tropical cyclone tomorrow.”

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch from 8 p.m. Saturday through 8 a.m. Sunday morning, warning that flash flooding is a risk in urban areas because of excessive rainfall.

Find out what's happening in Bethesda-Chevy Chasewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The flood watch covers the District of Columbia, Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, Charles, Prince George's and Baltimore counties. Also included are the cities of Baltimore, Bowie, College Park, Greenbelt, Laurel, Glen Burnie, Annapolis, Severn, Severna Park, Arnold, Odenton, Waldorf, Bethesda, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, Columbia, and Ellicott City.

"As the center of Tropical Storm Ophelia moves north along or near the Interstate 95 corridor, it will produce an area of enhanced rainfall. This is expected to result in 2 to 3 inches of rain, with high end amounts of 4 inches possible," the NWS alert said. "This heavy rainfall will occur in a 1 to 2 hour period, and could result in flash flooding within the urban I-95 corridor."

The storm made landfall at about 6:15 a.m. on Saturday near Emerald Isle, North Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center. At landfall, Ophelia had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, just shy of hurricane strength.

The center of Ophelia is forecast to weaken as it moves over Virginia and Maryland Saturday night. Rain, wind, coastal flooding and high surf will occur well before the arrival of the storm's center, according to The Weather Channel.

A wind advisory for central, eastern and southern Maryland will remain in effect until 8 p.m. on Saturday, with winds 20 to 30 mph and gusts up to 50 mph expected, the National Weather Service said.

"Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result," the NWS said. "The combination of a long period of gusty winds and increasingly saturated grounds from rain will result in a higher likelihood for downed trees across the area."

If the storm tracks right along the coast or just inland, a significant amount of water may be pushed into the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, which could result in moderate coastal flooding at times of high tide, as opposed to minor coastal flooding, according to AccuWeather.

On Friday, Gov. Wes Moore signed Executive Order 01.01.2023.13 declaring a state of emergency beginning in preparation for the effects of the storm. Emergency management officials urged residents to remain alert and have multiple ways of receiving alerts.

A state of emergency means residents should remain alert and follow officials’ guidance and news stations in order to be informed of the situation. The order allows the governor to access critical resources in order to increase the state’s response. It also allows Maryland to receive assistance from other states as part of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.

The streets of Ocean City started to flood early Saturday morning, with wind gusts of 50 mph, as Ophelia moved up the East Coast, according to WJZ.

Ocean City said Friday that its personnel completed pre-storm action items, including closing the seawall and removing items from the beach. Residents were instructed to secure outdoor furniture, grills and water vessels, and prepare for power outages.

Related: MD Residents Can Prepare For 'Nasty' Tropical Storm Ophelia

Coastal flooding is a serious concern for areas along the Tidal Potomac and shores of the Chesapeake Bay as the storm pushes a surge of water northward, especially true near high tide for areas in Annapolis and Baltimore that typically flood during major coastal storms, the Capital Weather Gang reported.

Weekend events canceled because of the weather, according to WBAL, include:

Some thunder could accompany the heavy rain Saturday night, with a slight chance of a couple brief tornadoes in southern Maryland, according to the Capital Weather Gang.

The combination of a long period of gusty winds and increasingly saturated grounds from rain will result in a higher likelihood for downed trees across the area.

The NWS issued a tropical storm warning for Worcester, Somerset, Wicomico, Dorchester, Calvert and St. Mary's counties through Sunday morning.

A coastal flood advisory has been issued for Anne Arundel County from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Saturday. A coastal flood warning has been issued for Anne Arundel County from 8 p.m. Saturday until 8 a.m. Sunday.

A wind advisory has been issued for Cecil, Howard, Montgomery, Charles, Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Harford, Baltimore, Caroline, Kent, Queen Anne's and Talbot counties until 8 p.m. on Saturday.

A flood watch has been issued for Dorchester, Somerset and Worcester counties and the Maryland beaches until further notice.

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It’s an unseasonably warm spring night and the 20 seats on the patio at Opal, the charming American bistro that chef Colin McClimans and business partner Danilo Simic opened in October, are full. Sitting beneath a forest-green-and-white fringed umbrella and sipping on a refreshing gin cocktail boosted with thyme syrup, grapefruit and lemon, I come dangerously close to making the rookie restaurant mistake my mother warned me against when I was a kid: filling up on the bread my friends and I had ordered to nosh on while negotiating menu choices. It’s two wedges of focaccia that McClimans tops with za’atar seasoning (sesame seeds mixed with herbs he grows onsite and dries), parbakes and finishes in the wood-fired oven of Opal’s small open kitchen. Served with honey butter and good extra-virgin olive oil, it’s fluffy, yeasty, irresistible and worth every penny of its $8 price tag.

Opal is the second restaurant for McClimans, 35, and Simic, 33. They opened mid-Atlantic-focused Nina May in Washington in 2019; an all-day cafe called Elena James is slated to open by the end of the year in the Chevy Chase Lake development under construction in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The two consider all their projects to be labors of love, but Opal a bit more so to McClimans. He grew up in the neighborhood and lives there now with his wife and two children and says the project has special meaning to him. “We’d go to Arucola Osteria [which occupied the Opal space from 1994 to 2019] for all our family birthdays,” he recalls. “We felt that the neighborhood was underserved and there was a market to do a food-experience-driven restaurant there.” He and Simic looked at the space in January 2022 and made a deal with its owner, Tim Walsh, who had turned Arucola into Capital Crab seafood restaurant in 2019, closing it in 2020. They named the restaurant Opal, McClimans says, because he and Simic ran out of kids’ names—McClimans’ two children are May and James; Simic’s are Nina and Elena.

McClimans caught the cooking bug as a kid from his father, who taught him at an early age to make waffles for the family breakfast. As a teenager, he started working as a busboy in restaurants when visiting his grandparents in Ohio during summer vacation. Over the years, he worked his way up to fry cook, then grill cook, at a fine-dining French restaurant. “They had a chef’s garden and sourced beautiful things,” he says. “I was fortunate to be young and have my career shaped in a kitchen doing the right things.” He worked for a four-star resort in North Carolina after graduating from Catawba College there in 2011 with a B.S. in business administration, returning to Washington in 2012 to take a job as chef de cuisine at chef Todd Gray’s Equinox restaurant, where he worked until 2018.

Opal, which is 2,500 square feet, seats 70 on the first floor, including 10 at the bar. An upstairs private dining room seats 20. The decor is simple, with a white beamed ceiling and walls, light blue banquettes and blond wood floors and accents. A rear booth offers a bird’s eye view of the wood-fired oven, where a deft cook may be pulling out oysters bubbling with orange-hued tequila chile butter or roasted rainbow carrots. The bivalves are delectable (crush some of the housemade dill-laced oyster crackers onto them) and so are the carrots, which are glazed with black vinegar and hot spicy honey, then piled atop whipped feta cheese and crowned with pickled shallots.

The menu refers to starters as “A Few Things to Try.” Some, especially pastas, are ample enough to have as a main course. McClimans’ saffron spaghetti with clams is a fine rendition of the dish his father used to serve to impress company; its sauce of clam broth, white wine, butter, lemon and garlic confit is lick-the-plate good. Delicate agnolotti stuffed with ricotta cheese, peas and ramps and served in a buttery sauce laced with tarragon and preserved black truffle is, like most of the chef’s dishes, an ode to seasonality. Case in point: butter-poached asparagus served with frizzled leeks and gribiche sauce (a creamy vinaigrette made with hard-boiled eggs, capers, pickles and shallots—it’s the “it” sauce of the year, showing up on many DMV menus).

A smart strategy at Opal is to opt for the prix fixe menu for the table, which includes three snacks, two shared plates and each diner’s choice of entree. The abundance is a bargain at $59 per person. The snacks, in my case a mini avocado tostada with mustard green chimichurri and toasted sesame seeds, a small cup of sunchoke soup with toasted hazelnuts and pickled mustard seeds, and a flaky, diamond-shaped spanakopita topped with dollops of tzatziki and harissa (spicy red pepper sauce), are perfect accompaniments for pre-dinner cocktails. I don’t care for one of the shared plates—a mishmash riff on Niçoise salad with green beans, olives, giant capers and potatoes—but the other, a crispy ham and mashed potato croquette with aioli, parsley oil and an herb salad, is a winner. (They don’t publicize it, but diners can order prix fixe menu items a la carte.)

For entrees, don’t miss the seared scallops with cannellini beans. McClimans and staff shelled 200 pounds of beans in November and froze them so we can reap the rewards now. They’re cooked simply and slowly with carrots, bacon and butter, melding into a sumptuous stew. Ham steak is not something one sees much in restaurants these days other than at breakfast, which makes it all the more intriguing. McClimans buys pork shoulders from Virginia’s Autumn Olive Farm, dry-cures them for 24 hours, then cuts them into steaks that he cooks sous vide for 24 hours. They’re seared to order and served with ricotta cheese, asparagus, mustard vinaigrette and sprigs of mint and chervil that join in a springtime jig in one’s mouth. Grilled chicken breast paillard is covered with so many things—sunchokes, cucumbers, olives, fingerling potatoes and dill—that I’m inclined to summon an editor. The grilled dry-aged strip loin with peppercorn sauce and frites, by contrast, shines in its restraint.

Opal has the makings of a great neighborhood restaurant—a talented chef at the helm; affable, well-versed servers; and a (mostly) unfussy seasonal menu. Desserts, however, are a weak spot. Having sampled all three (key lime pie, tiramisu ice cream and bittersweet chocolate mousse with berry compote), I can’t recommend any of them. It’s a minor glitch that could easily be resolved by taking a cue from Buck’s Fishing & Camping, a great neighborhood restaurant a half mile down the road. They only offer ice cream and sorbet (outsourced) and a square of housemade un-iced chocolate cake with whipped cream for dessert. Sometimes, plain but good wins the day.

Opal

5534 Connecticut Ave. NW, Chevy Chase, D.C.; 202-570-0289; opal-dc.com

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Favorite dishes: Ramp and pea agnolotti; saffron spaghetti with clams; rainbow carrots with smoked feta cheese; wood-fired oysters with tequila chile butter; seared sea scallops with cannellini beans; the Simple Summer Menu’s snacks (avocado tostada; sunchoke soup; spanakopita) and ham-and-potato croquette

Prices: Appetizers: $14 to $23; entrees: $22 to $36; desserts: $12

Libations: Co-owner Danilo Simic created Opal’s beverage program. The wine list numbers 53 bottles (five sparkling, $40 to $188; 17 whites, $42 to $77); three rosés ($39 to $49); and 28 reds ($44 to $170). Reds and whites are divided equally into three categories: USA, Europe and the rest of the world. Fifteen wines by the glass range between $12 and $16. The 10 alcohol-based cocktails ($13 to $17) are mostly interpretations of classics, such as a caipirinha flavored with mandarin orange, a mule made with berry basil syrup and a smoked Sazerac. There are also three non-alcoholic cocktails ($7).

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Service: Friendly, knowledgeable and attentive

Development

Washington DC

Galerie Living, an Atlanta-based senior living owner, has joined forces with Washington, D.C.-based developer Community Three to bring a new senior living community to Chevy Chase, Md.

The Corso Chevy Chase community will be built on the site of the former National 4-H Conference Center at 7100 Connecticut Avenue. The partnership received unanimous approval from the Montgomery County Council to rezone the 12.3-acre site to make way for the senior living development.

SEE ALSO: APAH Begins Redevelopment of $150M Marbella Apartments in Arlington

When complete, Corso Chevy Chase will consist of 287 independent-living units, 190 assisted-living beds, and 30 memory care beds. The development will also include 5,000 square feet of retail.

Galerie Living acquired the site in December of 2021 and has been working ever since to get the development approved. In response to community feedback, the developers made adjustments to the massing and height of the project and addressed concerns around parking and traffic.

“When we visited the D.C., area several years ago, we saw two opportunities—there is a desire for and a lack of luxury senior living communities and the site of the former National 4-H Center in Chevy Chase represented an optimal site in the community to bring our luxury Corso brand to the Chevy Chase market,” Tim Gary, Galerie Living’s founder and CEO, told Commercial Observer.

Galerie Living currently has four communities operating in the Atlanta area, and two new projects under development. The Chevy Chase project marks Galerie Living’s first community outside of Atlanta.

In the vote leading up to the approval, Montgomery County Council members praised the development team for its efforts to engage and respond to the community and noted the importance of the need in the county for more senior living beds, according to a council statement.

“As we move forward to refine the details of the design and on to implementation, we are very fortunate to have collectively built a solid partnership that will ultimately result in a better, more sustainable, and additive redevelopment effort,” Grant Epstein, president of Community Three, said in a prepared statement.

Corso Chevy Chase is slated to be completed by the end of 2025.

Keith Loria can be reached at Kloria@commercialobserver.com.

President Biden is making the rounds with donors in Chevy Chase, Md., Manhattan and Chicago this week. At these intimate off-camera events, his comments sometimes go beyond what he says in public.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

We are following President Joe Biden and his dash for cash. He attended two fundraisers today in Chicago and has another two tomorrow in New York City. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith was at a couple of Biden campaign events in Maryland last night, and she's been digging into what all this fundraising says about the state of the reelection campaign.

Hey, Tam.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.

SHAPIRO: Seems like a lot of fundraising for, I don't know, 18 months before the election. What's going on here?

KEITH: Well, there is a big campaign finance reporting deadline in a couple of days. So the president, the vice president, the first lady, the second gentleman, they are all out doing these events, speaking to wealthy donors in private settings, typically homes. And all told, they've done more than 20 of them in the last few months. Biden himself has done more than a dozen since launching his reelection campaign.

SHAPIRO: You got a firsthand look at a couple of them. What are they like?

KEITH: Yeah, I was part of the pool of reporters who follows the president wherever he goes. And we followed to Chevy Chase, Md., which is this affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. The first fundraiser was really quite intimate. There were maybe 20 people in what I'm guessing was the living room of Michael and Susie Gelman's home. Susie Gelman's grandfather owned the Levi Strauss company, and she and her husband have been quite active in both Democratic politics and Jewish organizations. So the president, in this living room, grabs a hand-held microphone. He moved around the room. And in the end, he took questions. But we didn't get to see that part.

The second fundraiser was a very short motorcade away, held in a tent in Sandy and Stewart Bainum's backyard, next to the swimming pool. It was dumping rain, and the donors all were quite soggy as they came in. That one was bigger - about 60 people around large weddings like you'd see at a - large tables like you'd see at a wedding. And Stewart Bainum is the chairman of Choice Hotels, also a very wealthy donor. He said this was the third time that Biden has been to his home, which I think is what happens when you're a big donor. Biden said he would keep his remarks brief, and then he talked for 45 minutes in a very free-flowing manner.

SHAPIRO: And what did he talk about for those 45 minutes?

KEITH: Well, a lot of the same sorts of things that we would see from him on camera. But it was sort of a different vibe. I'd say that the Biden that I've seen at fundraisers is more like the Biden I saw and you saw when he was vice president and we were covering him then. He's less guarded, more loose. Last night there was a helicopter that buzzed right over the tent, and he joked, oh, that's Trump; he always flies over.

There's not a script. I would say, at times, he pulls back the curtain more. He often talks about his decision to run in 2019 and tells this very personal story about conversations he had with his grandchildren about how brutal the campaign would be. And that's not a story that he's told on camera. He talked yesterday about his views on Roe v. Wade and said that as a practicing Catholic, quote, "I'm not big on abortion." And then he went into more detail about his views on abortion than he usually does in public. And also, he's a lot more loose when talking about foreign policy.

SHAPIRO: And that's gotten him into trouble at some fundraisers, right?

KEITH: Indeed. At a fundraiser last week in California, he referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator, which is out of sync with the official government line and was not well received by China. And that was just as U.S. diplomats were making progress in repairing relations. At a fundraiser in New York last October, he talked about his concerns about nuclear Armageddon as relates to Vladimir Putin's Russia. So he's a bit more blunt at times, but he's also pretty consistent. He always says that he's never been more optimistic about America than he is today, whether he's talking to donors or on camera.

SHAPIRO: Any idea how much money he's raising?

KEITH: We don't know yet. But these fundraisers have mostly been for the Biden Victory Fund, which means that that money is shared between the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties. In theory, each donor could give up to nearly a million dollars this campaign cycle. We don't know if they're maxing out. And we won't know how much they raised until July 15, when a report comes out.

SHAPIRO: NPR White House correspondent, Tamara Keith. Thanks for coming into the studio.

KEITH: You're welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF NU SHOOZ SONG, "I CAN'T WAIT")

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