Chic for All: How Steve Salis Is Redefining Luxury Hospitality One Accessible Bite at a Time
Luxury, for all its glitz and exclusivity, is evolving. Where once chic was confined to velvet banquettes, white tablecloths, and a rarified few, it’s now something else entirely: a feeling, a mood, a standard—within reach. Few entrepreneurs understand this shift better than Steve Salis.
As founder of Catalogue, the Washington D.C.-based hospitality platform behind acclaimed brands like Ted’s Bulletin, Honeymoon Chicken, and Federalist Pig, Salis is reimagining the experience of eating out—not as a moment of indulgence reserved for special occasions, but as a stylish, everyday ritual. His philosophy? Premium approachability. In other words: chic, without the velvet rope.
Catalogue’s portfolio is built on this principle. Each brand reflects a thoughtful balance of craftsmanship and comfort, high taste and low pretension. Honeymoon Chicken, for instance, elevates a beloved American staple—bone-in fried chicken—with hot honey lacquer and Veuve Clicquot on the side. Its retro-futurist dining room feels equal parts nostalgia and New Nordic. It’s not about irony. It’s about joy.
Then there’s Ted’s Bulletin, a former D.C. brunch standby now reborn under Salis’s guidance as one of the most fashionable new restaurants in the city. The brand’s new flagship in the NoMa neighborhood has become a scene unto itself: power brunches, early coffee counters, and 5 o’clock cocktails all coexisting under one intentionally relaxed but editorially crisp roof. The concept behind the name has even been retooled, T.E.D. now stands for The Every Day, a nod to Salis’s mission of creating dining spaces that serve all parts of life with the same care as a luxury hotel lobby or Parisian bistro.
This intentional frequency (breakfast with your kid, lunch with your client, dessert with your date) is what separates Salis’s brands from other elevated casual ventures. While competitors compete for category moments like brunch or happy hour, Catalogue’s collection of restaurant brands is designed to become lifestyle anchors. They aren’t places you save up to visit once a month; they’re spaces you fold into the rhythm of your week.
While “democratizing luxury” has become a tired cliché in some corners of design and retail, Salis is giving it new life in hospitality. He’s not trying to make high-end dining cheaper—he’s redefining what premium can be. Food is plated beautifully, not expensively. Interiors are styled, not styled-for-Instagram. Service is thoughtful, not theatrical. It’s about translating the values of fine dining—craft, sourcing, intentionality—into something you can enjoy in jeans, with a baby stroller, on a random Tuesday.
This approach hasn’t gone unnoticed. Honeymoon Chicken earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand within months of opening and has 3 nods since its opening 3 years ago. Ted’s has become a go-to for those who would otherwise be jostling for a table at Le Diplomate. Even Federalist Pig, Salis’s take on barbecue, delivers smoked meats with chef-y precision and an edge of cool that feels more Copenhagen than county fair.
In this way, Salis isn’t just building restaurants—he’s building an ecosystem where food is art, space is experience, and taste is social capital no longer gated by income or pedigree. Chic is a kind of confidence, and what Salis offers the public is exactly that: confidence in your taste, confidence in your time, confidence that your everyday life is worth styling.
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