Introducing Spanish charm and flavor to Georgetown, Bodega is the new tapas restaurant that opened on M Street in May. Ryan Wolfe, its manager and a veteran of the restaurant business, is confident that Bodega will become a significant part of the local culinary landscape. While a hit with locals and tourists alike this summer, Bodega is surely hoping to become a hotspot among Georgetown students. With its international flavor and fun atmosphere, it surely will be.

Q: What does Bodega add to the Georgetown restaurant scene?
A: Bodega is a Spanish tapas restaurant, something that has never been in the Georgetown area. What we brought was a new lounge and a new atmosphere. Bodega is a place to come on dates or hang out in the afternoon. It is a very relaxed atmosphere, where you can eat some great food and have some fantastic drinks.

Q: Of all the possible locations in D.C., why was Georgetown selected as the location to open Bodega?
A: The owner’s group saw a need for the particular services we offer here, and we all really like Georgetown. The gentlemen who own this place also own News Café, and after being there for five years, they really enjoyed the area and had a fantastic opportunity to take over this location that used to be Manhattan Seafood Grill, and we jumped at the chance.

Q: How did the owners decide to open a tapas restaurant?
A: The four guys who own it are Moroccans — they grew up across the Mediterranean from the Sun Coast of Spain. They spent a lot of time over there, and they really missed that about their childhood and missed that fantastic tradition of fresh tapas from the Costa del Sol, and they decided of all things they would like to open a tapas restaurant and make sure it was authentic and traditional.

Q: What is the chef’s culinary background?
A: Our executive chef was trained professionally by one of the best chefs in the area. He spent time in Spain. He himself is Salvadorian; however, his experience and expertise is with Spanish cooking.

Q: What is your personal background in the restaurant business?
A: I am one of the two managers here, but my background before that is several years in working private events at restaurants, as well as tending bar for a number of years here in Georgetown, as well as other clubs in the area and also table service, as well.

Q: What is your favorite dish on the menu?
A: Well, the most popular item on the menu is gambas al ajillo, which is grilled shrimp, which are served with garlic, lemon and pepper sauce. That, as well as our atún a la plancha, grilled tuna with caramelized onion, are just to die for.

Q: What is your personal drink recommendation from the bar here?
A: We are actually in the process of changing up a chunk of our wine list. We have had had about a 50-50 split of American and Spanish wine breakdown, and in the next week, we are going to become 100 percent Spanish. But if it comes down to what is the best drink to get here, it has got to be our sangria. Our red sangria or our cava sangria, our sparkling white wine, are both refreshing drinks.

Q: Bodega just opened this summer — are there any immediate changes you are planning?
A: As we become more acclimated to the neighborhood, we are going to try and get an entertainment license. We have a group of flamenco dancers and players frequently here, and sometimes they put on impromptu shows here. We would like to start working with them and other performers. All people to come in and play, dance and have a great time. That is our biggest change, we don’t want to have a situation where we ever raise our menu prices more then what is needed to as the economy goes along. We are pretty set with our prices. We are pretty set with what we offer. We want to be traditional. It has to be very consistent.
The elements that we have right now are put in place for the next one or two seasons. Our menu will change as we go along, we will go with seasonal items, items will change, it will be dynamic, our wine list will be dynamic. We will change our wines up consistently throughout the year. We are going to start, probably in October, wine “flights,” where we will have a wine class for anyone interested in taking. We will offer up five or six wines, maybe of the same grape or same region of Spain and introduce people to some wines they have never tried before.

Q: In the current state, what is the biggest risk in opening a new restaurant?
A: The biggest risk is opening a restaurant at this time. The economy, with the situation we have with recession and stagflation and inflation and a stagnant market, there are a lot of risks. If you do not have items that the guests are interested in, if you don’t have an environment that is appealing to them, then you are very likely to fail — it is like that in any market. This is a risky business to get into, but if you do it right and you do it because you love what it is that you are offering, and you are honest to your guests and you give them a good product, then the risk is not that high.