2317 Calvert Street NW Restaurant History

Francis May (1886-1957) was the first restaurateur to take space at 2317 Calvert Street NW,
when he opened May’s Restaurant in 1931. The address is a two-story speculative commercial
building on the northeast corner of 24th and Calvert Street NW, that had just been completed in
response to the 1930 construction of the Shoreham Hotel on the diagonally opposite square.
Retail businesses in the new building could serve guests at both the new Shoreham as well as the
Wardman Park Hotel, which had been built in 1918 and was just expanded with the Wardman
Park Tower in 1931.

May, an immigrant from the part of Austria-Hungary that would later

become Czechoslovakia, came to Washington in 1906 and eventually
worked his way up to become manager of Rauscher’s Restaurant on
Connecticut Avenue, one of the city’s finest in early 20th century. In
1931, he decided to open his own restaurant. He ran May’s until he
retired in 1947 and later came out of retirement to serve as the catering
manager at Avignone-Freres on Columbia Road in Adams-Morgan—a
restaurant as elegant and prestigious in mid-century as Rauscher’s had
been in an earlier era.

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Next to occupy the space was an early Middle eastern restaurant, The
Sheik. The Sheik had been founded on I Street downtown in 1940 by
brothers Karkur “Kay” Misleh (1910-1970) and his brother Joseph Misleh
(1898-1948), natives of Palestine. After Joseph died in an automobile
crash, Karkur moved the eatery to 2317 Calvert Street, where it became a
Middle Eastern supper club, complete with belly dancers. Kay Misleh also
ran the New Bagdad Restaurant at 1733 I Street NW.

Arnold Fogan (1911-1969) and his wife Louise (1912-2007) opened Fogan’s
Steak House at this location in 1952. Arnold had previously worked at
Naylor’s Seafood Restaurant on the Southwest Waterfront. The Fogans
redecorated the former Sheik space, adding a cocktail lounge and hiring a
veteran bartender, Joe Michaels. The restaurant was popular and continued in
business until 1960.

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 In 1961, Angelo DeFinis (1910-1994) opened Angie’s Italian Gardens
in the former Fogan’s space. DeFinis, who was born in Pennsylvania, had
worked as a waiter at the Hamilton Hotel downtown in the early 1940s
before enlisting in the army in 1943. He later worked at the Copley Plaza
Hotel before opening his restaurant at 2317 Calvert Street. DeFinis told
the Washington Star-News in 1972, “If it wasn’t for the two hotels we
wouldn’t be here at all—they keep us alive.” DeFinis’ brother Michael,
called the “omelet king,” was a chef at Angie’s. A 1973 Star-News article
called Angie’s “one of those extremely ugly but profoundly real
neighborhood restaurants that are tucked away in the corner of our city,
in this case on the second floor over a dress shop and grocery.” At
Angie’s, “the walls are purple and green, arbors of plastic grapes hang
over the tables in a threatening manner, paper ferns wilt in windowboxes,
and old Chianti bottles and newspaper clippings line the walls.”1

After 12 years of running the Apana restaurant in Georgetown, Amarjeet “Umbi” Singh opened
New Heights at 2317 Calvert Street in 1986. New Heights was a formal American nouvelle
cuisine restaurant that was an immediate hit. Phyllis Richman termed it “the most brazen of the
New American kitchens. There is nothing on the menu that leaves you unstartled except the
green salad with mustard vinaigrette.”2 Like Apana, New Heights attracted an elite crowd,
including David Brinkley, Jim Lehrer, Nancy Reagan and many others. The Clintons reportedly
arranged for daughter Chelsea to eat dinner at New Heights while on her first date in public. The
restaurant continued in business for more than three decades, becoming somewhat less formal in
style over time but continuing to offer new and sophisticated dishes.

ã John DeFerrari, 2021

1
Louise Lague, “The Omniscient Omelette,” Washington Star-News, Sep. 23, 1973.
2
Phyllis Richman, “Cuisine Art: The Beauty of New Heights,” Washington Post, Sep. 28, 1986.