Ellizabetta La Strega Restaurant Casts Its Opening Spell

On Pennsylvania Avenue, where a French-Belgian institution once anchored the neighborhood for 25 years, blue umbrellas now shade a patio beneath a banner reading "Ellizabetta La Strega," two crescent moons curling around the name like a quiet incantation. Inside, portraits of women painted with florals circling their heads look down from the walls, each one a friend or family member reimagined in witch form by the restaurant's own owner. This is Ellizabetta La Strega Restaurant, which opened its doors September 8 in Washington's West End, a story reported by The GW Hatchet.

The Italian restaurant has taken over 2401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the former home of Marcel's, a beloved French-Belgian fixture that closed in 2024 after its owners were unable to reach agreeable lease terms with the building's new ownership. Named after owner Elli Benchimol's grandmother, Ellizabetta, the restaurant's full name translates to "Ellizabetta the witch" in Italian.

A Third Restaurant From an Established Hand

Benchimol is not new to Washington's dining scene. She already owns two Georgetown establishments, La Bohème and the Michelin-starred Apéro, giving her considerable credibility as she expanded into West End with a concept distinctly her own. That existing track record likely eased some of the uncertainty that typically accompanies a brand-new restaurant opening in a previously beloved space.

The lunch and dinner menus lean heavily on Benchimol's Italian heritage, blending her family's northern and southern Italian roots into dishes spanning vegetable, meat, and vegan options, including standouts like the triple goddess ragu and crispy Berkshire porchetta. One of her grandmother's own recipes, a herb-marinated chicken Milanese, appears on the dinner menu as a direct tribute to the restaurant's namesake.

A Signature Dish That Crosses Restaurants

Among the menu's offerings, Benchimol singled out one dish as her personal favorite. "My favorite is probably the Mayan Lemon Chittara pasta with caviar on top," she said. "It's very decadent, delicious. It's actually a crossover dish that we also have at Apéro, so keeping it in the family." That small detail reveals something about how Benchimol approaches her growing restaurant group, treating her properties less as entirely separate ventures and more as connected expressions of a shared culinary sensibility.

Sustainability also shapes much of the sourcing behind the menu. Benchimol said a majority of the restaurant's produce and meat comes from local farms across Pennsylvania and Virginia, a commitment she has maintained despite rising supply costs, because she believes sustainable sourcing remains the right approach regardless of the added expense.

A Two-Year Search and a Five-Month Delay

Benchimol and her team, which includes husband-and-wife chefs Jennifer Castenada-Jones and Stephen Jones, began searching for the right space two years before La Strega's eventual opening. After securing the West End location, the restaurant faced an unexpected five-month delay while the building underwent renovations. "There was scaffolding up while they were replacing the windows outside, which kind of put a damper on our opening as well," Benchimol said. "But other than that, it was fairly smooth. It's a lot of waiting, unfortunately."

That delay proved costly in ways beyond simple frustration. Benchimol temporarily relocated some of La Strega's managing staff to her other restaurants during the wait, a decision that led to overstaffing at those locations. "It was very expensive because we were overstaffed over there, but it gave us a lot of time to grow as a team," she said, framing the financial strain as an investment in staff cohesion rather than a pure loss.

A Ritual Borrowed From Italian Tradition

Between lunch and dinner service, La Strega hosts what it calls "The Witching Hour," running from 3 to 5 p.m. and 9 to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and from 4 to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The concept draws directly from Italy's aperitivo hour tradition, when people gather for drinks paired with light snacks before dinner. Guests receive special pricing on select menu items alongside a complimentary Chef Cicchetti Selection, a rotating assortment of Venetian tapas, with any beverage special, including the restaurant's signature La Strega spritzes.

"It changes every day," Benchimol said of the Cicchetti Selection. "It's usually a little toast or snack that goes with your beverage because you should always have a bite to eat when you're drinking." The restaurant also plans to introduce Tarot Tuesdays during Witching Hour, inviting local tarot readers in for guests seeking a reading alongside their aperitivo, a playful extension of the restaurant's witch-themed identity beyond food and cocktails alone.

Regulars From Across Benchimol's Restaurant Family

Community response since opening has been notably warm. Benchimol said neighbors have quickly become regulars, and many longtime patrons of Apéro and La Bohème have already made their way to the new West End location, carrying existing loyalty across her expanding restaurant group. That kind of cross-pollination between properties suggests Benchimol has built genuine trust with her customer base over time, trust that translates directly into curiosity about her newest venture.

What This Opening Reveals About Hospitality Priorities

Benchimol was clear about what she considers the true measure of success for La Strega, and it isn't the food alone. "I hope that they enjoy the way we made them feel while they were here," she said. "It's an experience, and that's the goal. It's just hospitality overall, and then of course, the food and everything else is the afterthought of that." That philosophy, prioritizing emotional experience over even the menu itself, reflects a broader shift increasingly visible across independent restaurant openings this year, where distinctive concept and genuine hospitality often matter as much to guests as technical culinary execution, a pattern echoed in unrelated hospitality transitions elsewhere, including the quiet ownership changes tracked in recent Onondaga County business property sales, where entire restaurant futures often hinge on far less visible decisions than a themed opening night.

A Space Reborn, Not Replaced

What Benchimol has ultimately built inside 2401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW is not simply a replacement for what came before, but a genuinely new chapter for a space that spent 25 years telling a different story entirely. Ellizabetta La Strega Restaurant now carries forward its own name, its own family recipes, and its own particular sense of ritual and welcome, painted portraits watching over guests who, whether they realize it or not, are being invited into something considerably more personal than a typical dinner reservation.