(Updated at 7:30 p.m.) The Capital One Center development in Tysons is ramping up with lodging and dining.
The Watermark Hotel, featuring 300 luxury rooms, will open tomorrow (Tuesday), and the Wren — a Japanese-American bar and small plates restaurant — opens Friday (Sept. 24), said Tara McNamara, the hotel’s sales director.
“Our inspiration is derived from ‘izakaya,’ the Japanese concept of having a place to gather together to relax and chat while enjoying good food and drink,” chef Yo Matsuzaki said in a news release.
The restaurant’s fare includes oysters, sashimi, baby beet salad with yuzu pistachio vinaigrette, and grilled Black Angus ribeye — all of it prepared in front of guests. It will be open to the public from 5 to 10 p.m. with the bar operating from 3 to 11 p.m.
The Wren is located on the 11th floor by the hotel’s lobby, overlooking part of Tysons as well as The Perch, the recreational space featuring a park, brewery and other amenities that opened in late August. The park is located above Capital One Hall, a new performance venue opening Oct. 1 with Josh Groban.
This past weekend, a three-day festival showed off the sky park’s amenities. Superheroes rappelled down a side of the hotel to wash windows for the event.
Grab-and-go options in food truck façades are slated to be added by The Perch in the coming spring in a portion of the roof that construction crews are still preparing.
Capital One Financial owns The Watermark Hotel and is rolling out its debut with rooms for employees as the company navigates a return-to-work policy this November that keeps telecommuting in place on Mondays and Fridays.
The hotel’s suites feature local artists’ works that adorn everything from soap holders to wallpaper sponge paintings.
Jonathan Lee with B.F. Saul Company Hospitality Group, which is operating the hotel, shared with visitors how Capital One executives tested out which mattresses to pick for the hotel.
One was a base model, another was the kind used at the Ritz, and a third was ultra luxury: Without knowing which was which, the executives’ preferences centered on one choice, Lee said, causing the mattress budget to go through the roof.
A Capital One Center spokesperson later denied that executives had tested the hotel mattresses, calling the account inaccurate.
