What’s the best meal Keith Duggan can get for €120 in Washington?

Every day this week, our foreign correspondents will accept the challenge of finding the best meal possible in their city for the equivalent of €120. First, Keith Duggan introduces us to dinner in a Washington bookshop.

You won’t live the high life in Washington, DC on a dining budget of €120, but nor will you starve.

The return of Donald Trump in January this year coincided with a prolonged winter blast of snow and the sense of an entirely new era in the city.

Within weeks, Butterworth’s, on Capitol Hill, began appearing in news and magazine articles as a popular meeting spot among the ascendant Maga set – it was the restaurant of choice for Steve Bannon when he participated in the “Lunch with the FT” feature, cheerfully assuring readers that Trump would run for a third term.

Aside from attracting Maga-ites it has drawn rave reviews for an unfussy reimagining of standard bistro favourites and terrific staff. They’ll happily let you in the door in Butterworth’s with your modest budget. But it won’t take them long to serve you.

You could book an evening dinner table, split the crispy cauliflower with miso caramel ($18), have mains of dry-aged duck breast with kale and sauce verjus ($37) or lamb heart Bolognese ($29, and a Maga fave, one imagines), definitely forsake the cocktail menu and have a couple of glasses of Sancerre – and still leave a standard tip of at least 20 per cent.

But a better option, on this budget, would be to take yourself off to one of Washington’s venerable old haunts, Kramers. It’s essentially a wonderful independent bookshop masquerading as both a bar and cafe/restaurant that has been a fixture on Connecticut Avenue, just above the famous green and water fountain on Dupont Circle, since the 1940s.

It was where the concept of the bookshop cafe originated in the United States and for a time, in the boozier decades, it remained open all night.

Now, like much of Washington, the shutters come down early.

Celebrated past visitors include Maya Angelou and Barack Obama, but the place hit national headlines in 1998 when the owner, Bill Kramer, fought a court petition from independent counsel Kenneth Starr to have the bookshop reveal the titles of the books bought by one of its customers, Monica Lewinsky.

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It’s a hugely popular weekend brunch location, particularly when it’s still warm enough to sit outside. Unsuspecting first-time visitors often move from the poetry section through a narrow doorway and in to the darkened bar, mirroring the pathway of many an actual poet. The bar is low-lit, even during the day. The restaurant is at the rear.

Decor is minimalist, to put it politely, but the menu is eclectic and everything is good. Steak and eggs ($29) and Kramers Benedict ($22) are brunch staples. For dinner, the cream of crab soup ($14) is served with grilled ciabatta and the crispy Brussels sprouts ($12), with lemon, parmesan and a side of ranch dressing, do much to rehab the reputation of that maligned veg.

Pizzas and those ginormous American sandwiches also feature, but highlights on the mains are blackened salmon ($25) and the shrimp and grits with Andouille sausage in a spicy tomato sauce ($22). It’s the sort of place that invites parking of calorific anxieties at the door.

The Triple Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake ($12) is the best reason to visit Kramers, and possibly Washington itself. It’s an obscenity, in the best sense.

The wine list is short and modestly priced: a bottle of the (only) Sauvignon Blanc is $35. So that’s a three-course meal for two for $120 (if you skip the caffeine) – a bill which would suggest a tip of around $30. And you might even pick up a book. kramers.com