Kyojin

Kyojin at 3315 Cady’s Alley NW occupies the converted industrial corridor that connects M Street to the canal-level Georgetown below, sharing the alley address with Kafe Leopold, the Austrian cafe that was among the Cady’s Alley original tenants when the lane was developed into a retail and dining destination in the early 2000s. The Cady’s Alley physical setting, with its concrete and steel industrial bones and the European design furniture showrooms that line the lane, provides a context for Japanese dining that is unusual in DC’s restaurant landscape.

Japanese restaurant cooking in the format that Kyojin represents covers the range of the Japanese culinary tradition that the American dining market has developed an appetite for: the sushi preparations from nigiri through maki, the grilled and broiled preparations of robatayaki and yakitori, the cold preparations of sashimi and the chilled noodles that Japanese summer cooking features, and the hot preparations of ramen, udon, and the braised dishes that Japanese comfort food organizes around.

The Cady’s Alley address at 3315 is the same address as Kafe Leopold, the long-running Austrian cafe at the alley entrance. The alley itself is a Georgetown institution that the neighborhood’s design and dining community has used since the redevelopment introduced the concept of converting a service lane into a curated destination. The industrial setting that the alley’s brick walls and concrete flooring provide gives any restaurant at this address a physical distinction from the M Street and Wisconsin Avenue dining rooms.

The sake program at Kyojin provides the Japanese beverage accompaniment that the food program requires. The Japanese sake tradition, which encompasses the full range from the earthy and savory junmai types to the fragrant and fruity daiginjo types, is as complex as the wine category that a French or Italian restaurant’s beverage program draws on. For the Georgetown customer who wants to explore sake beyond the generic hot sake of the standard sushi restaurant, a restaurant like Kyojin provides the selection and the staff knowledge to make the exploration productive.

Hours run Tuesday through Sunday from the early evening service. The Cady’s Alley context that Kyojin occupies is significant for the restaurant’s identity: the lane is Georgetown’s design district, lined with European furniture showrooms and design studios that give the alley a distinctly different character from the M Street commercial strip or the Wisconsin Avenue boutique cluster. Dining in Cady’s Alley is dining in a Georgetown context that most visitors never encounter, which gives the restaurants in the lane a neighborhood secret quality that the main commercial streets cannot replicate. The Japanese restaurant format in this setting serves the Georgetown design community and the neighborhood residents who know the alley’s culinary addresses. The robatayaki tradition of grilling at the table, the izakaya format of shared small plates with drinking, and the kaiseki multi-course format are all expressions of the Japanese culinary tradition that Kyojin can draw from in composing its menu for the specific Cady’s Alley dining audience.