Chef Anthony Jones named the restaurant's signature dish for Mel, who has run a crab truck in Jones's native Calvert County, Southern Maryland, for as long as he's been alive. A red sauce of caramelized red onions, aromatics, cumin, coriander, chilies, peppers, tomato, and smoked paprika is blended with chicken stock, cooked into the rice, dried in the fridge, then seared hard and left alone in a very hot pan to build a crust like socarrat or Persian tahdig. The rice is finished with seasonal vegetables, fish sauce, and lemon, then topped with local blue crab warmed in beurre monté, pickled squash and fennel, okra fermented in house-made hot sauce, crispy shallots, charred lemons, and uni béarnaise.
Washington DC
Marcus DC
Mel’s Crab Rice
red onions / garlic / chilies / peppers / tomato / smoked paprika / chicken stock / rice / oil / asparagus / mushrooms / fish sauce / lemon juice / blue crab / butter / herbs / pickled squash / /okra / hot sauce / crispy shallots / charred lemons / uni
Signature Dish
From Prep to Plate
On the ground floor of NoMa's Morrow Hotel, Marcus DC is chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson's Washington outpost, with the kitchen run by local chef Anthony Jones, who grew up in Calvert County, Maryland surrounded by Chesapeake Bay seafood. Host Seth Tillman watches Chef Jones build the restaurant's namesake dish, Mel's Crab Rice, named after a Southern Maryland crab vendor who inspired his love of the ingredient. Jones layers caramelized onions, garlic, fresh chilies, cumin, coriander, and smoked paprika into a rich base for the rice, then sears it in a hot pan for a crisp, tahdig-style crust before finishing the dish with a generous topping of fresh crab. It's a plate built on Black, Southern, and international influences that reflects both Jones's childhood and DC's diverse food culture.
And 'crab rice' is a low-key name for the extravagant platter that arrives heaped with crunchy shallots, okra, obe (a fiery Nigerian red-pepper sauce), uni-infused béarnaise — and crab.
Washingtonian Staff
