Boveda Spanish meats & 'tails on the low

Boveda means "the vault", so keep it in there lest word of this "Latin speakeasy" gets out and it becomes some sort of bustling speak-difficult.

Tucked into the Westin Hotel, the lounge feels like the entertaining room a wealthy Spanish family would never actually use, with rustic, branch-like ornaments, orb-ish lamps, and warm woodgrains framing plush orange banquettes and raised booths. Despite calling itself a speakeasy, this place is really about the food, so maybe they just meant that it's tough to talk with your mouth full of goodness like a mixed churrasco plate (chili-marinated skirt steak, ancho-orange pork, Portuguese sausage, and annatto-marinated chicken w/ green rice and fresh mango salsa), and head-on snapper prepped "old school" (brushed with green recado sauce and fried crisp). There's also "Brazilian steak frites" (rib eye with yucca fries), slow-cooked pork shoulder shredded and served on tortillas, and interesting Latin/Washingtonian (Latintonian?) mash-ups like a "tropical ceviche" full of Maryland jumbo lump crab.

Oh right, and there's cocktails. Herradura gets mixed with black honey tea & bruised jalapenos, and highballs get filled with mezcal, sugar cubes, bitters, and grapefruit peels for what they call the "Tequila Old Fashioned" -- have a couple, and you'll likely feel unspeakably good.