Alex Butterworth didn’t set out to create the Washington hangout for high-profile members of Team Trump. In fact, it was Melbourne, not MAGA, that was the inspiration for Butterworth’s, his restaurant/bar that has become the place to eat and drink for some of the Trump administration’s most powerful figures.
Its architect is the former leader of the Young Liberals in Australia, and a one-time would-be political candidate. In 2012, Alex Butterworth ran for preselection for the federal seat of Pearce in Western Australia. He was overwhelmingly defeated by Christian Porter, who went on to become attorney-general before his political career was cut short in 2021.
Mr Butterworth moved on and abroad to the United States in 2020, where he currently works as a lawyer for Uber. But a side hustle was always on his mind.
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“Sitting in Melbourne, I was complaining to my friends at the time about the fact that DC, even though it’s a global city, has a similar population to Melbourne — it just doesn’t have the food scene that Melbourne does,” Mr Butterworth told the Latika Takes podcast in Washington DC.
“You’ll be familiar with the Melbourne Supper Club. I wanted to bring some of that Melbourne restaurant scene to DC.”
He took over an old oyster bar on Pennsylvania Avenue, situated around a 15-minute walk from the Capitol building and created Butterworth’s, which is billed to Americans as a French cafe or bistro.
The menu originally had a full Australian breakfast and a pavlova. But Head Chef Bart Hutchins, an American who used to work in the Obama administration, said the breakfast plan fell victim to DC’s post-COVID late-morning starts and the Ozempic surge, while the deconstructed pavlova confounded his team.
“We couldn’t do it well enough, consistently enough to keep doing it,” he said.
“I can make it, and the other highest-level chef could make it, but the people below that couldn’t make it. It’s a particular dish that requires a lot of technique, and it’s not just for anybody to make.”
The mismatched interiors, collected from antique and op-shops, exude a timelessness and, unlike most Washington haunts, do not have a single photograph to suggest it is smack bang in the United States’ political capital.
While there are nods to Uncle Sam — a giant USA flag hangs on one wall above a creased-leather sofa on the second floor — the artworks and pieces hung on the wall also quietly reference Australia and Great Britain. There is nothing that speaks to being in the capital of the United States, as is customary with many DC establishments, that plaster their walls with photos of their politically powerful clientele.
This was deliberate, as was the proximity to the Capitol building.
“People who live in this city all the time and who are working here all the time kind of want an escape from that,” he explains.
“I have, as a personal thing, a portrait of the Queen up, we have our old, late 1800s map of Australia, a lot of French influence, a lot of British influence in the art, but we have deliberately steered away from the gimmicks and tried to create something really unique and curated.
An early map of Australia hangs in the restaurant. Credit: Latika Bourke/The Nightly
“I expected that being so close to the Capitol, we would have political staffers, members of Congress, political groups, lobby groups, journalists coming in.
“But I think that restaurants often live or die on their quality, on their ability to attract, whether it’s tourists or just local residents. I really had no expectations other than yes, we will have a variety of different people coming in, and our proximity will bring in the political crowd.
“But what it has become since then has far exceeded those expectations.”
Regulars at Butterworth’s include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney-General Pam Bondi and MAGA thought-leader Steve Bannon. Mr Bannon chose the restaurant for his lunch with the Financial Times earlier this year.
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, has also been spotted lunching at Butterworth’s, as has Reform UK populist leader Nigel Farage.
Perhaps the success in cracking MAGA’s elite was inevitable — one of their co-investors is Raheem Kassam, a prominent Brexiteer who is influential in Donald Trump’s orbit.
Marco Rubio attends the Uninvited party at Butterworth’s after the White House correspondents’ dinner in April. Credit: The Washington Post/via Getty Images
Additionally, Mr Trump closed his DC hotel in 2018, which had served as the political watering hole during his first stint as President.
“He won the election a month after we opened, and so through this sort of momentum that Raheem built by inviting friends and then through that vacuum needing to be filled, all of a sudden they were here every night.”
But this is not cost-free in a town that is decidedly anti-MAGA. The restaurant is already regularly targeted by protesters, although both men insist their clientele is split 50-50 left and right on any given night.
“The dividing line seems to me to be more, we do really well if your IQ is below 80 and we do really well if your IQ is above 110,” Mr Hutchins said.
“But if you’re in that middle zone where politics are like the only thing that matters and you aren’t capable of understanding what somebody else thinks or feels, then you really hate us, in a really big way.”
Alex Butterworth, left, and Bart Hutchins. Credit: Latika M Bourke/The Nightly
Alex Butterworth describes himself as a libertarian rather than a populist but believes Liberal Party politics in Australia can learn something from Donald Trump, as well as left-wing populists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“One of the things that Trump has shown to the rest of the world is that you can be on the conservative side of politics and have a backbone stand for your principles, not just be a watered-down version of what the left stand for and I think that a younger generation of people on the centre right, believe in that, want that, are looking for that,” he said.
Asked if current Liberal leader Sussan Ley was up to the job, Mr Butterworth was emphatic: “No, I couldn’t even tell you what her top one policy is, far less her top three.”
He said while he would not rule out returning home to try running again, he hoped to be in the restaurant business forever. And that could be viable. While he won’t share figures, he says the restaurant is breaking even, one and a half years after opening.
His is a business the President has been eager to boost. Earlier this year Mr Trump sent in the National Guard to ”rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse.”
Asked if it had made a difference to his business, Mr Butterworth said it had not.
“Business more or less stayed the same, but the safety level has gone up. I guess the short answer is, it’s too early to tell.”
He may yet have an opportunity to share the findings with the President first-hand. Mr Trump wants to visit, both men say, but is constricted by the Secret Service’s complex logistical needs for accessing buildings for Presidential visits.
At any rate, Mr Butterworth is not sure President Trump is quite the right fit for the bougie vibe he has created.
“I feel like this place is a little more Melania than Donald,” he said.
