Greek Group Balos Announces New Italian Restaurant Downtown
Skip to main content Current eater city: Washington, D.C.
Plus, Carmine's marks 15-year milestone and more intel Jun 27, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC
Downtown is getting a chic Italian spot from rapidly expanding Balos Restaurant Group. The upscale newcomer will be called Sorella, per a rep, and span nearly 10,000 square feet (1800 M Street NW). Landlord Columbia Property Trust, which is in the midst of renovating the 10-story office tower, confirms the 15-year restaurant lease on the ground floor. While the 'all-new concept' is in the 'very early stages,' the look and menu is going for 'Amalfi Coast' vibes. Co-owners Joe Ragonese, Tom Tsiplakos, and Stefanos Vouvoudakis are best known for Balos Estiatorio, the napkin-throwing Greek hot spot in nearby Dupont (and celebratory site of Washington Capitals NHL star Alex Ovechkin's record-breaking goal). Its New York-styled sibling Bar Angie, which debuted in April in the West End, will soon expand across state lines with the opening of the much-bigger Angie in Arlington, Virginia. Vouvoudakis and Tsiplakos are also behind NY-born For Five Coffee Roasters, which also fuels the restaurants' espresso martini programs. Sorella plans to debut in spring 2026, joining Pret A Manger and Slapfish at the base of the building.
Penn Quarter's 750-seat Southern Italian staple Carmine's just turned 15, and to celebrate, chef Glenn Rolnick put a lighter, summery spin on its traditional lasagna. The all-veggie, 'pinwheel' platter feeds up to six and features spinach lasagna sheets from Rafetto's NYC. Carmine's will donate 20 percent of each $37.95 order sold to DC Central Kitchen. A who's-who of D.C. cut a 15-foot-long version this week to commemorate the big birthday. With 20,000 square feet and nine private dining rooms, Carmine's is considered the city's biggest restaurant (425 7th Street NW).
Lasagna pinwheels feature sundried peppers, ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, roasted eggplant, basil, and plum tomato sauce.
Chicatana, a breakout star in Columbia Heights' crowded taco scene, suffered extensive damage in the late hours of Wednesday night. Per DC Fire, a mechanical fire occurred in the kitchen (with no injuries reported), and the restaurant will remain closed until renovations are completed. The 3-year-old spot, which recently relocated to the nearby 14th Street NW space that formerly housed DC Corazon, caters to daring diners with generous use of ants and grasshoppers — a delicacy of its chef's native Guerrero. Due to its proximity, Italian standby Little's Coco's was also forced to close until Monday, June 30 'to deep clean for smoke.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Citigroup Sees Bigger IPOs as Private Deals Bulk Up Valuations
(Bloomberg) -- A wave of big initial public offerings is building as emerging growth companies stay private for longer and bulk up their valuations through secondary stock sales. Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined Mapping the Architectural History of New York's Chinatown Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer 'I don't know if it's here forever, but I think you are winding up a coil,' said John Collmer, global head of private placements at Citigroup Inc. 'You are creating this massive backlog of quality companies that will go public.' The shift is being bolstered by institutional investors who are increasingly eager to invest in late-stage companies that could go public in the next three years, Collmer said in an interview on the sidelines of the bank's Private Company Growth Conference in New York this week. This explains why private placements are on the rise in 2025 following a slump that began in 2022 when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. As developing technologies become increasingly prominent, investors are scurrying for exposure to those sectors that aren't well represented in public markets — yet. 'Fifteen years ago, people wanted to invest in Uber because you couldn't get it in the public market,' Collmer said. 'Today they are looking for the artificial intelligence, robotics and defense technologies companies that they can't get in the public market. They tend to be big industries that are being disrupted and the disruptors are in the private market.' Take for instance Elon Musk's SpaceX, along with OpenAI, Stripe and Databricks Inc., all of which have turned to private secondary sales to provide liquidity to investors, including employees. That market has expanded to around $60 billion, up from $50 billion last year, according to a report released by research firm Pitchbook last month. New York-based Ramp Business Corp. recently revealed that new and existing investors had purchased $150 million of shares from employees and early investors at a price valuing the fintech startup at $13 billion. IPO Uptick Coming Despite the growth in private secondary sales, companies will eventually see the benefit of going public, according to Cully Davis, Citigroup's head of growth equity. Davis said there's at least one sign that there could be an uptick in the number of growth IPOs: A flurry of publicly traded tech companies, including some new ones, are selling zero-coupon convertible bonds to raise money. 'When that market starts to open up, and it has opened up dramatically in the last month and a half, those are really positive signals,' he added. From an M&A perspective, an IPO also has its advantages. 'It's quite helpful for a company to have a legitimate publicly traded security that is liquid and that is independently valued and allows them to pursue acquisitions with confidence and with a currency that has real value,' he said. which is a Citigroup client, is focused on growth for now while keeping its options open. The AI software firm was valued at nearly $800 million in 2023 after a capital infusion of $150 million from a group of investors that include Nvidia Corp. 'We are figuring out what's the right path of growth, whether it's through an incremental acquisition or, at the right point, looking at an IPO,' said DK Sharma, chief operating officer. 'But right now, we're focused on getting the appropriate muscles for growing big time on top of our momentum today. America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1 ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
NY Judge Slaps Down SEC, Ripple's Second Request for an Indicative Ruling on Proposed $50M Settlement
A New York judge has rejected a joint request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs for her to approve a proposed settlement agreement that would slash Ripple's civil penalty to $50 million and dissolve the permanent injunction against the firm. It is the proposed removal of the permanent injunction, and not the $50 million civil penalty — discounted from the original $125 million imposed by the court last year — that appears to be the sticking point for District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), who wrote in her Thursday ruling that a permanent injunction against further violations of federal securities laws was, as the SEC suggested at the time, 'warranted because of the enormous sums of money Ripple made in violating the law and Ripple's incentives to continue doing so.' 'Indeed, if the Court should not be concerned about Ripple violating the law, why do the parties want to eliminate the injunction that tells Ripple, 'Follow the law'?,' Torres wrote. 'When the Court imposed the injunction, it did so because it found a 'reasonable probability' that Ripple would continue violating federal securities laws. This has not changed, nor do the parties claim that it has.' The request comes amid sweeping changes at the SEC following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in January and the subsequent departure of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Under the SEC's new leadership, the regulator has adopted a more crypto-friendly regulatory posture, creating a Crypto Task Force spearheaded by Commissioner Hester Peirce and dropping a host of investigations and litigation against crypto companies. However, as Torres pointed out in her ruling, most of those cases were dismissed by the SEC 'before a court found a violation of federal securities laws.' 'Regardless of leadership changes, the SEC has avoided whipsawing between arguments in ongoing litigation in order to protect the agency's credibility,' said Corey Frayer, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America. 'In granting favors to crypto companies, SEC leadership has chosen to tarnish a 90 year reputation the agency carefully built.' This is the SEC's second request for an indicative ruling — essentially, a preview of what a lower court will do if a higher court sends the case back down to the lower court for a final decision — that Torres has rejected. In May, she slapped down the first such attempt, citing both jurisdictional and procedural flaws. Earlier this month, the parties tried again, filing a new, expanded request with the court arguing that 'exceptional circumstances' warranted the modification of Torres' final judgement. Torres was completely unmoved by SEC and Ripple's arguments, writing: 'The Court respects the freedom of parties to amicably resolve their disputes. It is also true that the SEC, like any other law enforcement agency, has discretion to change course after an enforcement action is initiated. But the parties do not have the authority to agree not to be bound by a court's final judgment that a party violated an Act of Congress in such a manner that a permanent injunction and a civil penalty were necessary to prevent that party from violating the law again. For that, the parties must show exceptional circumstances that outweigh the public interest or the administration of justice. They have not come close to doing so here.' If the parties 'genuinely wish to end this litigation today,' Torres wrote, they have two other choices: they can either withdraw their ongoing appeals in the case, or they can take an appeal. 'Neither option involves requiring this Court to absolve Ripple of its obligations under the law,' Torres said. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
A Big Win: Rep. Lawler on Tentative SALT Deal Reached
Representative Mike Lawler (R) NY shares his thoughts on tentatively reaching a deal on SALT with his Republican colleagues in the Senate. Rep. Lawler talks about how this deal could benefit additional states outside of New York, New Jersey, and California & the potential hurdle the House is facing as the self-imposed tax bill deadline looms. Representative Lawler speaks with Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg's "Balance of Power."
