Colvin Run Tavern:

Nine years to the day after opening his award-winning eponymous restaurant in Foggy Bottom, midway between the White House and Georgetown, Bob Kinkead has launched his first spinoff, in an upscale mall in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

There are obvious differences in the food and setting — the modern American cuisine at Colvin Run Tavern ranges further afield than the seafood-dominated menu at Kinkead’s, and the former is much more elegant than its acclaimed downtown cousin. Nevertheless, Kinkead’s new venture upholds the high standards that have made him one of the Washington area’s most successful restaurateurs.

A tavern in name only, Colvin Run is located on a cobblestoned European-style courtyard across from Tysons Corner I, cheek by jowl with Tiffany’s and a Hermes boutique, in a space previously occupied by Primi Piatti, an Italian restaurant whose downtown parent, ironically, sits directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from Kinkead’s.

Bob Kinkead’s Colvin Run Tavern
8045 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, Va.
(703) 356–9500

Hours: Open Mon.–Friday for lunch
(11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.); seven
days a week for dinner (5:30 p.m. –
10 p.m.); bar open 11:30 a.m. –
midnight. Valet parking.

Prices: Expensive: Luncheon appetizers $7–$10; entrees $11–$20; dinner appetizers $8.50–$20; entrees $22–$35. Full dinner with wine, tax and tip, $65–$75.

Named after a Revolutionary War era tavern a few miles west of Tysons Corner, Colvin Run is one of the prettiest and most comfortable restaurants I’ve seen. Designed by the D.C.-based husband and wife architectural firm of Adamstein and Demetriou at a cost of $2 million, it seats 168 in a smoke-free environment and features four separate dining rooms, each with a d