Mallard

The Neighborhood Restaurant Group & Chef Hamilton Johnson are pleased to announce the opening of Mallard, a warm, convivial & hospitality driven restaurant near Logan Circle featuring the chef’s reverent yet playful take on the diverse food cultures of the American South. No stranger to Low Country & Southern cooking; Hamilton grew up in Inman, South Carolina with an appreciation for the Southern foodways by cooking alongside his mother and father in the family kitchen. After spending his formative years as a chef in a handful of Charleston’s storied kitchens, Johnson made the move to DC and quickly found his way to Vidalia, the district’s much-missed bastion of modern Southern cooking, where he spent eight years and served as Chef de Cuisine. The name Mallard was inspired by Hamiton’s father’s hobby of carving wooden decoys, a cultural touchstone that felt familiar to NRG founder Michael Babin, who hails from south Louisiana. “Hamilton and I are both from places where wildlife, hunting and fishing traditions connect tightly with cooking, eating, drinking and socializing, and Mallard will celebrate that social