Cherry Blossom Season is Here!

My favorite time of year is a good excuse to make gazpacho with cherries (and more!)

Hola my friends, 

Springtime in Washington DC might be my favorite time of year. I know I am not the only one who thinks so…my little town gets very crowded in these first weeks of spring with millions of visitors coming to admire the 3,700 trees in full bloom on the National Mall during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. 

This year is the 111th anniversary of the cherry blossom trees, a beautiful symbol of friendship and diplomacy between Japan and the US, and the branches are already full of pink flowers…we’ve had blue skies, and with the weather getting a little warmer, it’s such a magical time to be here. You can see the trees blooming in the livestream! 

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But there is not all good news here, as you may have heard? Because of climate change and flooding caused by rising sea levels, the trees’ root systems are getting damaged and the future of our annual spring tradition is becoming increasingly uncertain. Now more than ever, the cherry trees need support to ensure they will continue to bloom and thrive for the next 100 years. 

If you want to help with the preservation of these trees, you can support the Trust for the National Mall which takes care of the trees through their Adopt a Cherry Tree campaign! All of the funds go to supporting the arborists’ year-round work to protect tree roots, prune and trim the trees, and collecting tree tissue and soil samples to monitor the health of the trees. 

This season always brings me back to my childhood…I grew up in an area outside of Barcelona that is famous for its cherry trees, so we would always have fresh cherries to eat. My friends and I, we would actually play this game where we would try to eat the cherries directly off the trees while leave the pits and stems attached! Such a funny thing for young boys to do, but we loved it.

So of course I like to honor this season at my restaurants…every year we do a National Cherry Blossom Festival Cherry Picks menu for four weeks! I know it’s a long time, but I told you it’s one of my favorite times of year so we like to celebrate as long as we can with special cocktails, dishes, and desserts inspired by the magnificent cherry blossom trees. 

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At Jaleo we are serving some cherry-filled twists on our favorites. You’ve had Gazpacho, right? But probably one more focused on tomatoes and vegetables than with fruit. But gazpacho is one of the most versatile and amazing dishes because it can be anything. I’ve said this before my friends…you may know gazpacho as a noun, but you can use gazpacho as a verb! As in…Will this gazpacho? If the answer is a fruit or vegetable that’s juicy and soft, then you can! So for the cherry blossom season we do gazpacho at Jaleo with bright cherries mixed in with ripe tomatoes and red bell peppers, and we garnish it with cherries too. I think you will love it! (And you should absolutely try making it at home!) 

And for dessert at Jaleo, we have our Basque-style cheesecake with cherries (and I have to tell you we have something very exciting coming on Wednesday…I’ll be sharing our recipe for Burnt Basque Cheesecake!!). 

It’s not just cherries, though! Across the street at Oyamel, we are making some dishes inspired by both Japanese and Mexican flavors using a Japanese ingredient called umeboshi, a type of pungent and powerful pickled Japanese plum. It’s on our El Regalo cocktail, a mezcal drink with ginger, umeboshi, and lime. And at Spanish Diner in Bethesda we use it in a gin cocktail for spring that I think you will love (especially if you like gin like I do). The Floreciendo Riki is made from a mix of Ford's Gin, elderflower, Luxardo, manzanilla, lime, and umeboshi. Boom!

All of our restaurants are doing something special including China Chilcano, where we are serving a beautiful drink called the Sakura Sour, a seasonal take on the Peruvian classic that’s made from pisco, lime, egg white, and Sakura (cherry blossom!) bitters…this is the cocktail of the moment, a springtime favorite.

The Sakura Sour at China Chilcano

If you are in DC or the area I hope you will stop by and say hello and enjoy some of these dishes and cocktails! If not, find a cherry blossom tree near you and look up and enjoy the gorgeous view of this springtime tree!