The Red Hen

Ragu at the pass

Fennel sausage ragu clings to mezzi rigatoni before the plate leaves the pass. Scott Bacon works as Executive Chef at The Red Hen in Bloomingdale, Washington DC, holding a station built for rustic Italian cooking and Mid-Atlantic ingredients. His path here runs through Magdalena in Baltimore, where he was Executive Chef from 2021, and through a Maryland frame that still shapes the food: the Chesapeake, Columbia, nearby farms, and the habit of cooking outward without losing the local ground. Bacon grew up in a mixed-race global family, and the kitchen language he brings to this room is one of connection rather than display. The Red Hen gives that perspective a tight form. The menu can hold fennel sausage rigatoni, arancini, Maryland-inflected dishes, and a broader set of flavors without treating range as decoration. Bacon has spoken of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed as a place where nearly everything he wants is close at hand, except citrus. That absence matters. It keeps the hand local, even when the plate reaches beyond the region.

Handmade pasta and open flame

The work at The Red Hen sits in the repetition of a concise, seasonal menu: a one-page structure with starters, handmade pastas, and mains, adjusted as the room and the market require. The pastas carry much of the house’s argument. Mezzi Rigatoni with Fennel Sausage Ragu and Pecorino Romano is the anchor, joined by Squid Ink Linguini with Calamari, garlic, ginger, and lemon, and Pappardelle with Braised Beef Cheek and caramelized onions. The cooking does not separate comfort from discipline. Fried Brussels Sprouts arrive with feta and anchovy-caper aioli; Grilled Octopus takes cauliflower-almond crema, cucumber relish, cilantro, and ’nduja breadcrumbs; a Fried Berkshire Pork Chop Milanese brings radicchio and mustard crema into the same register. Wood-fired cooking is part of the method, with firewood stacked in view above the open kitchen. The beverage side stays close to the food, with Italian wine and craft beer chosen for a room that moves between counter dining, the bar, and the tables without changing its pace.

Brick, timber, and a crowded room

The room does not soften the work so much as tighten it. Exposed brick, reclaimed timber, beamed ceilings, and dim light make the restaurant feel enclosed around the counter and the pass, a small room with a loud pulse. The three-sided bar is not a waiting area dressed as theater; it is part of the floor’s movement, close enough to the open kitchen for the fire and pasta station to stay in the diner’s peripheral vision. Plates cross from the pass into a crowd that knows the house as a neighborhood restaurant, even with the Michelin Bib Gourmand attached to its name.