PassionFish, one of the flagship restaurants of the Passion Food Hospitality Group, has landed a spot at Lot 31, the upcoming mixed use development at the corner of Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues.
This is the first Maryland location for the restaurant group, which has seven other eateries in the District and Virginia. Passion Food also has a widely acclaimed PassionFish restaurant in Reston, Va.
The new Bethesda location will take up a whopping 9,000 square feet, seat 150 diners and include space that can be used for private events. The restaurant will be a prominent and visible fixture on the street level of the new complex.
Reston’s PassionFish Executive Chef Chris Clime will be overseeing the new location, which will have a similar menu to the original restaurant, but with some changes.
Not surprisingly, he’ll be focusing on Maryland seafood. The Reston restaurant is already part of the ‘True Blue’ crab certification program—a Maryland Department of Natural Resources initiative that allows participating restaurants serving authentic Maryland crab to display a logo—but in Bethesda, Clime will be expanding the selection of dishes with crabmeat.
His signature soup, which won an award in a Maryland seafood cooking competition, will also be served at the new restaurant. Look for a crab and butternut squash bisque with Creole-flavored sunflower seeds and basil oil.
The Bethesda locale will also feature Maryland rockfish, when it’s available, and otherwise strive for 60 percent of the ingredients to be from Maryland farms and fisheries.
Other tweaks: The bar area in Bethesda will be a lot bigger than the Reston location, and there will be an expansion of the sushi offerings.
Expect PassionFish to drop anchor sometime in 2015.
