You’ve been part of the Albi team since the very beginning. What do you think has been the key to the restaurant’s staying success?
On some level, one of the things that we’ve always tried to do is reinvent ourselves. We’re constantly looking to keep things fluid yet purposeful, and most importantly, fresh. We reexamine ourselves all the time to make sure that we’re pushing to be better than the day we were before. We’ve never sought out the accolades. Instead, we’ve always tried to be the place we want to be, that we’d want to dine at. I think that really comes through in the Albi experience.
I think Albi is so special because it’s fine dining but still extremely familiar and comforting. How have you achieved that?
I’m a realist, I don’t believe in things that I can’t see. So I hesitate when I say that we’ve created soul at Albi, but there’s something special about what we’ve built. I think the key is that the team is really committed to that as a unit. They give everything 100% of their dedication and focus, and they’re so proud. We always try to stress the idea of being welcoming, that is, it’s more important to us to be thoughtful than technically correct. For example, if the rules of fine dining say that you should pour wine from one side of the guest but that breaks up a conversation, we’d rather pour the wine from the other side.
Tell me more about the renovations you did last year.
We did the full renovation in March of last year and really changed everything. The tables, chairs, lights, sound, paint, the front entrance — it was truly a reinvention of the restaurant. Honestly, it started off as a little refresh and then become a full 2.0; that’s the sort of reinvention I was talking about before. We never want to rest on our laurels.
Albi is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m.
Lulu Chang is a Texas-bred, D.C. and N.Y.C.-based writer who covers food, travel, lifestyle, and wellness, with a particular knack for spotting the cultural trends behind what and where we eat. Her work has appeared in outlets including USA Today’s 10Best, Eater, InsideHook, Prevention, and more.
