The Buzz About Puck's "The Source"

Yesterday, I walked right past The Source (Wolfgang Puck's newly launched restaurant), but I still haven't eaten there yet. The restaurant, located in the Penn Quarter section of Washington, D.C., has been open for about a year.

The Source initially opened for dinner only, but now it is open for both lunch and dinner. Has anyone had an experience at The Source worth sharing?

On his blog, interior designer Patrick Baglino raves about the restaurant's visual appeal:

The design of The Source is razor sharp, super polished, very sleek, sophisticated and cutting edge.

. . . The modern aesthetic design boasts floor-to-ceiling windows that line the restaurant and a two-story, temperature-controlled glass wine wall linking the main floor with the upstairs that holds the more than 2,000 bottles of the restaurant’s impressive collection.

The only two friends I know who have eaten at The Source had very positive comments about the interior space, but both felt the food was not quite up to the sticker-shock prices.

I was disappointed to read that the interior of the restaurant is so noisy that, according to the Washington Post's Tom Sietsema, diners "must speak with (a) raised voice" in order to be understood. Somewhere along the way, America's leading restauranteurs seem to have confused noise with sophistication.

This is a tough economic environment in which to operate a restaurant, even in supposedly recession-proof Washington, D.C.