A plain wooden door between the bookshelves of a hotel library leads into Allegory, the downtown Washington, DC cocktail bar that won North America's 50 Best Bars' award for best cocktail menu in 2023 and again in 2026. The library belongs to the Eaton DC hotel at 1201 K Street, and its free collection of books on race, gender, climate, art and advocacy is chosen by the non-profit Teaching for Change.
Through the Progress Library on K Street
Allegory opened with the Eaton in the fall of 2018. The hotel calls the room you walk through first the Progress Library, and it has armchairs, a gray-tiled fireplace, a patterned rug and a ceiling covered in a collage of posters from DC's punk and hardcore scenes by local artist JD Deardourff. Allegory takes no reservations and warns on its homepage that the wait can run "up to 2-3 hours," so plan on time in the library. On Fridays and Saturdays the people waiting get their own Library Menu of four $16 mashups made "in honor of... columbia room (rip)." Try the cosmogroni (citron vodka, ambrato vermu, aperitivo, orange, bold cranberries) or the 50/50 martini (ford's gin, vermouth blend, orange, champagne acid), both written in lower case on the menu. When a table opens they text you, and you have five minutes to answer.
Ruby Bridges Through the Looking-Glass
Allegory itself is windowless, with a curved bar lit from underneath, black globe pendants, tufted black leather banquettes, velvet club chairs and a leopard-spot rug. The mural is by Erik Thor Sandberg, a DC painter, and the bar's own site calls it "a surreal, bordering on ghoulish re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland" in which Alice is Ruby Bridges, who in 1960, at six years old, became the first Black child to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana. Ruby's version of Wonderland is an all-white school where she is met by mobs and protestors, and both stories end with the slaying of the Jabberwock. Humpty Dumpty, the White Rabbit and a dodo stand around a checkerboard floor and a red-framed mirror, and over one banquette a girl in armor with a sword takes on a red Jabberwock. The hotel had asked for a bar with a Surrealist bent, and Sandberg got the job by being the first to answer its call for bids, with the Bridges idea. In the back lounge a red lion and a white unicorn stand among giant chess pieces, and on Fridays and Saturdays local DJs play vinyl only.
The Banned in DC Menu at Allegory
The current menu, Banned in DC, arrived on February 27, 2025 and carries Ruby's story into a dystopian Washington, with Bad Brains as an influence. The artist Katie Miller spent more than seven months building its 17 scenes out of children's toys, over 15,000 pieces and more than 1,000 miniature books in all, and the result is a hardback book you can only read at the bar. In July, Tales of the Cocktail named it the World's Best Cocktail Menu. There are 17 drinks, twelve with alcohol at $19 and five without at $14, and each one lists its ABV and the bartender who made it.
Kapri Robinson, Tales of the Cocktail's US Bartender of the Year in 2024, made the Dreamteam with Grey Goose Vodka, Aqua Aged St. Germain, Leblon Cachaca, Kleos, Tomato, Verjus, Perrier. The lightest drink on the menu, at 7.7%, is the BLACK DOVE (Patron Silver Tequila, Extra Juicy Pomelo, Over-Ripe Apples, Campanella, Perrier, Carbonated), a fizzy tequila drink that tastes mostly of apples, according to WTOP. Gin drinkers should try the Garden: Part Deux (Tanqueray 10 Gin, Horsetail, Mustard Seed, Pineau de Falernum, Lemon, Perrier, Carbonated). Beware the Jaberwocky (the menu spells it with one b) is Siete Misterios Mezcal, Nocheluna Sotol, Aperitivo, Strawberry Guava, Marigold.
Whiskey drinkers should order All That She Carried, Greg Long's drink of Michter's Rye, D'usse Cognac, Shiitake, Pecan Granola, Marshmallow, Tamarind, Peat, Space S'more. At 23.7% it is the strongest drink on the menu... and the only one with a marshmallow. For those skipping alcohol, the NERO is Amaro Lucano Non-Alcoholic Amaro, Blood Orange, Rich Coffee, Spiced Citrus, Perrier, Carbonated. The menu's last page has QR codes for donations to the Ruby Bridges Foundation and Teaching for Change, and the Ruby doll in Miller's scenes is a likeness the foundation approved.
Getting a Seat at Allegory
Allegory is open Monday to Thursday from 5pm to 11:30pm and Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 1:30am, and is closed on Sunday. Allegory is seated only, with no standing at the bar, so the line moves only when a table leaves. Arrive at 5pm or come early in the week. Groups top out at eight, and a check can be split four ways at most. The food runs to marinated olives ($10) and mixed nuts ($7) all night and a grilled cheese with white cheddar, gruyère and tomato dip ($14) until 10pm. Deke Dunne, who helped open Allegory in 2018 and wrote the story for Banned in DC, left in 2026 for a Jewel of the South residency in New Orleans and is planning his own DC bar for 2027. Princess Johnson, formerly of the Hamilton, is now beverage director.
Allegory is No. 57 on North America's 50 Best Bars for 2026 and is in our guide to the best bars in Washington DC. Five blocks south, on F Street, Silver Lyan occupies a bank vault under another hotel, and Service Bar on U Street serves fried chicken until midnight.
A 20% gratuity is added to every check and distributed to the staff working that night, and the Library Menu adds, in lower case, that further tips "are not expected, but always appreciated."
