The dining bubble that everyone fretted about last year? Far from bursting, it has only gotten bigger, judging from the torrent of new restaurants in and around Washington. For diners, it’s a buyer’s market. So many choices! So little time to try them all. While we said goodbye to some favorite places (C.F. Folks, Del Campo), we cheered legions of new kids on the block. Name a neighborhood and it likely benefited from a tempting arrival or more. Downtown has become an embarrassment of riches, for fish fanciers and Indian enthusiasts in particular, but a mental sweep of the region flags novel cooking in Northeast D.C., Fairfax, Silver Spring, even bucolic Sperryville, Va.

Hence, for a second year in a row, my spring dining guide focuses on newcomers, 30 restaurants that also underscore the area’s melting pot allure. Hawaii? Haiti? Their fan bases are covered. Most of the fledglings are worth a toast, but the exceptions might surprise you. To help narrow decisions, I’ve ranked my 10 favorites. Pardon me now while I head out to eat some more. I’ve got a full plate on the horizon: my 20th fall dining guide, out in October. Meantime, enjoy the fresh bounty.

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2019
Top 10

1

Mama Chang

Peter Chang’s latest, a celebration of women, puts homestyle cooking at center stage.

Small plates $10 to $14, family-style plates $17 to $40

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Mama Chang knows best

The latest from serial restaurateur Peter Chang seats more customers (200) than any other dining room in his realm. Good thing, given that Mama Chang welcomed 1,000 diners a day the weekend it opened in Fairfax — and shows no signs of slowing down. As the name implies, the spring arrival is a celebration of the women in Chang’s family: his mother, Ronger Wang, a former longtime farmer in central China, and Lisa, his wife and one-time superior. (In an earlier life, she outranked him in the kitchen of the Chinese luxury liner on which they both cooked.) Mama Chang is more or less an edible scrapbook for Lydia Chang, the couple’s daughter and chief of business development, who grew up eating delicate fish balls (look for them under “grandma’s original” on the menu) and her mother’s sweet potato noodles tossed with squiggles of pork and pickled mustard greens. With the exception of Lisa Chang’s popular scallion bubble cake, the dishes at Mama Chang — chicken chow mein, shrimp with snow peas (and teasing heat) — will be new to the brand’s fans. Dry-fried cauliflower, for instance, is a spicy take on the popular dry-fried eggplant offered at the family’s other outposts — and even better, if you ask me. The takeaway: Women rock.


703-268-5556

Dinner daily, lunch Friday through Sunday

Small plates $10 to $14, family-style plates $17 to $40

74 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

2

Punjab Grill

Sparkling design and luscious flavors add up to a feast for the eyes — and stomach.

Dinner $12 to $42

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Punjab Grill gives diners the royal treatment

The past few years have been encouraging ones for connoisseurs of Indian cuisine, whether they want fast (Rasa) or fancy (Karma Modern Indian). Now along comes a restaurant that wants you to think of it in the same league as the city’s starriest destinations. Early meals fuel high hopes for Punjab Grill, where chef Jaspratap Bindra is raising the bar for north Indian cooking with vivid chutney flights, chana masala rethought as silken hummus, and venison cooked with cracked wheat until it’s the texture of porridge. The last dish is presented with spoonfuls of enhancers — cilantro, ginger, lemon juice and clarified butter — that contribute to a one-of-a-kind haleem. The restaurant proves as sumptuous as it is luscious. Take your pick of a space meant to evoke a royal rail car from yesteryear, a “living room” dressed with romantic arched booths for two, and the dazzling Sheesh Mahal, a private dining room for 10 whose table candles are reflected in more than 100,000 tiny mirrors on the walls. Punjabis know how to throw a feast.


202-813-3004

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch Sunday

Dinner $12 to $42

79 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

3

Rooster & Owl

In a small, spare dining room, chef Yuan Tang dishes out surprise after surprise.

$65 per person

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Rooster & Owl makes magic

Chef Yuan Tang works nights, and his wife and business partner, Carey, keeps day hours. Throw in the couple’s passion for animals, and Rooster & Owl makes perfect sense as a name for their debut restaurant on 14th Street NW. The space isn’t much to look at, but the lack of scenery hardly matters when the food starts showing up. Baby carrots take on the flavor of good barbecue, aided and abetted by a scoop of velvety cornbread ice cream, a combination you might question until it hits your tongue. Meat takes a back seat here, deployed more as a garnish than a featured player, an exception being fried baby quail glazed with miso, honey and yuzu juice and splayed on creamy grits fired up with red pepper relish. Tuesday nights give diners a chance to decide what stays and what goes on the four-course script. That’s when Tang introduces four new dishes for $35, giving diners the option of eating works in progress for less than the usual price of admission. Crowd favorites from a recent audition included cucumbers accessorized with yuzu gel, feta cheese and ginger-garlic crumble, and salmon sporting a crisp coat of falafel. Think of them as public votes of confidence to the benefit of future diners. One thing is for certain: Rooster & Owl has animal magnetism.


202-813-3976

Dinner Tuesday through Saturday

$65 per person

73 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

4

Three Blacksmiths

The tiny Sperryville destination has become the hardest reservation around, for good reason.

$118 per person

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Get to Three Blacksmiths if you can

The lone complaint I’ve ever heard about this Sperryville sensation concerns the challenge of securing a table. “I just got in — in October,” a grateful friend emailed recently. The hardest ticket around is open just three dinners a week, seats no more than 20 diners and is cooked and served by a team of four, plus a dishwasher. (Co-owners John and Diane MacPherson McPherson are the hosts with the most.) Everyone eats the same five-course meal at the same time, although special requests are taken into consideration. Vegetarians, you’re welcome. As March gave way to April, diners sat down to some lovely hors d’oeuvres (French onion soup rethought as a crouton!) and a perfectly paced meal of trout set a sauce of yogurt and leeks, a carrot flattered with bright coins of kumquat and a crumble of pistachio and chile, purse-like manti stuffed with goat cheese … well, you get my drift. The dreamy dinner feels of the moment (burnt onion syrup with the fish, spruce oil to enliven the pasta) and closes with hazelnut genoise and toasted buckwheat ice cream. Pro tip: Thursdays are slightly easier to reserve than Friday or Saturday, and wannabe diners can book out as far as 203 days (29 weeks). Worth the trip? Definitely — worth any hassle, too.


540-987-5105

Dinner Thursday through Saturday

$118 per person

70 decibels / Conversation is easy

2019
Top 10

5

El Sapo Cuban Social Club

Raynold Mendizabal throws a raucous party every night in Silver Spring.

Dinner $22 to $28, dishes for two $52 to $56

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El Sapo Cuban Social Club rocks to an island beat

It took him almost two decades, but Raynold Mendizabal is finally serving the food of his homeland. “I wanted to be a chef first, a Cuban chef second,” says the visionary vision behind Urban Butcher in Silver Spring and now a jumping dining room where a guitar player strums near the bar, cocktails show up in big coconut shells and glass garage doors roll up in good weather. Diners have friends in seafood and pork (and the servers who present them). Salt cod fritters are little marvels, crisp and greaseless; roast pork is cooked to collapse and delicious with bitter orange and crisp panes of skin. The chef’s go-to main course is mine, too: oxtails marinated in rum, hot peppers and soy sauce and finished with oregano and orange. El Sapo’s filling food doesn’t leave much space for dessert, but trust me: The sugar-dusted churros served with lemon-lightened whipped cream are worth your while. One of the few downsides is the din. Elsewhere is better for a heart-to-heart or a catch-up with grandparents. Then again, this is a restaurant that makes you want to shout for joy, clap your hands and beat the conga drum at the entrance.


301-326-1063

Dinner daily

Dinner $22 to $28, dishes for two $52 to $56

85 decibels / Extremely loud

2019
Top 10

6

St. Anselm

Marjorie Meek-Bradley also serves flaky biscuits, stellar seafood and more.

Dinner $23 to $48

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St. Anselm makes meat eaters’ dreams come true

The dream team behind one of Washington’s hottest restaurants stars Marjorie Meek-Bradley, whose local career includes Ripple (may it RIP) and Zaytinya. Her new gig finds her in an exhibition kitchen in a lively Stephen Starr-Joe Carroll production, cooking food she says she likes to eat. Suffice it to say, I’ll have what she’s having: oysters sauced with smoked herb butter, a truly “monster” prawn with garlic butter, and salads that speak to the season. For a place that insists it isn’t a steakhouse, St. Anselm does a poor job of convincing us. The menu’s “bigs from the grill” are a meat eater’s fantasy; go for the juicy New York strip steak, best enjoyed in the company of garlicky creamed spinach and crisp, finger-long fries. Just be sure to start and finish a meal with, respectively, buttermilk biscuits and mint ice cream with shards of chocolate. The decor is quirky and fun. Near the busy bar hang portraits of past presidents deemed disasters, each face obscured by a lightbulb poking through the picture.


202-864-2199

Dinner daily, brunch weekends

Dinner $23 to $48

80 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

7

Estuary

At the Conrad hotel, Bryan and Michael Voltaggio take a whimsical approach to seafood.

Dinner mains $24 to $62

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Estuary shows the Chesapeake some brotherly love

Two years in the making, this room with a view on the third floor of the sleek Conrad hotel reunites brothers Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, sons of Maryland who became famous for competing against each other on the sixth season of “Top Chef.” (Michael won.) Their latest joint project is a mash note to the Chesapeake Bay and reveals the siblings’ playful nature. Expect crab, stuffed into a toasted brioche roll and garnished with crab-shaped plantain chips. But also cod, teetering on “ramen” fashioned from sliced cuttlefish and presented in a butter-kissed ginger broth. You’ll find lamb on the menu, but honestly, the heartier entree is a fist of steamed, dehydrated, roasted celery root with a length of heart of palm poking out. The whimsy looks like a veal shank but turns out to be vegan, right down to the intense-with-tomato reduction pooled around the centerpiece. The most original Key lime pie around features coconut sorbet in a thin chocolate shell resting on a soft saucer of roasted peanuts blended with coconut and, underneath it all, citrus curd. The drinks are top-flight, the kitchen shows off a red Molteni stove, and floor-to-ceiling windows give diners a birds’-eye view of CityCenterDC.


202-844-5900

Breakfast and dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner mains $24 to $62

76 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

8

Sushi Nakazawa

Especially at his chef’s counter, Masaaki Uchino entertains and delights with omakase to remember.

Omakase $120 per person at a table, $150 at the sushi counter

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Sushi Nakazawa puts on a singular show

The most controversial sushi counter around is also one of its most fascinating. An import from New York, where a chef from the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” holds court, the spinoff is in the superb hands of head chef Masaaki Uchino. The best place to catch his show is at one of the 10 stools facing him. Guests are not offered a menu, so every course is a surprise. Some nights might launch with three bites of nigiri that show off salmon — sockeye whispering of smoke is a favorite — followed by aged scallop sushi that hides some fire in its seasoning: yuzu pepper! Cured pickled gizzard shad, we learn, is among the most ancient sushi preparations, dating to the 18th century; tiger prawns are teased out of their red shells to reveal gently warm, sweet and succulent flesh. While one dish is being consumed, another is getting ready for your consideration, a visual that patrons in the dining room are denied. Two hours, the time it takes to eat 20 or so courses, goes by quickly — as can your money if you like to drink or add an a-la-carte dish to your meal. The restaurant’s connection to POTUS keeps some sushi mavens away: Sushi Nakazawa sits on the back side of the Trump International Hotel.


202-289-3515

Dinner and lunch Monday through Saturday

Omakase $120 per person at a table, $150 at the sushi counter

61 decibels / Conversation is easy

2019
Top 10

9

Little Havana

Alfredo Solis celebrates — and elevates — the cooking of Cuba.

Dinner $12 to $28

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Little Havana cooks up a Caribbean getaway

The cheapest way to get to Cuba is probably dinner at Little Havana, where $12 buys you a chicken stew to write home about and one of several colorful walls is painted to resemble a drive through the island’s capital. When he opened the storefront last August, chef-owner Alfredo Solis said, “We want to bring Cuban food to the next level.” From an open kitchen, he’s made good on his promise. My most recent dinner, beneath a turquoise ceiling and to the tune of salsa, saw nothing but home runs. Equal to the braised chicken, draped in chopped onion and tomato, is skewered grilled shrimp, glazed with guava sauce, tingling with chipotle, and festooned with grill-striped pineapple bites. Then there’s a smoky red pepper, stuffed with a cornucopia of black beans, corn, peas and briny green olives, everything arranged on a ruddy romesco sauce. Little Havana’s bar does the food justice (the white rum-based El Presidente, redolent of orange, is liquid sunshine) and if the weather cooperates, the front patio gives you a front-row seat to life in Columbia Heights — or is it the Caribbean? Little Havana spirits us away from the workaday.


202-758-2127

Dinner daily, brunch weekends

Dinner $12 to $28

75 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

10

Gravitas

In a former factory, Matt Baker makes his food taste as good as it has always looked.

Five courses $90, seven courses $115

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Gravitas hits a delicious stride

If there were an award for most improved restaurant of the year, I’d nominate Matt Baker’s airy and light-filled retreat in Ivy City. His food at Gravitas, set in a former tomato canning factory, has always been beautiful. Now, the plates have consistent palatability going for them, too. Consider a recent dinner that commenced with some one-bite snacks — a golden rice fritter with a crown of bachelor buttons, a warm oyster sharing its shell with minced ramps and a hint of pork — and went on to seduce us with a seasonal salad that could have doubled as a headdress for Dionysus, tuna sashimi striped with a crumble of nori and garlic, and morsels of rosy lamb on salsa verde alongside basmati rice. While I wish the format were a la carte instead of five or seven courses — not everyone wants such largesse on, say, a weeknight — the parade of dishes is a chance to explore Baker’s range. And from the bar flow impressive cocktails, my current choice being a margarita that finds a pinch of sea salt in the lime juice, oils from the citrus on the surface and a glass that remains chilled through the last drop. New to the program is brunch, where the draws run to silken quiche, sourdough pancakes with glazed blueberries, baked-to-order chocolate chip cookies and, by the end of May, a chance to enjoy it all on the rooftop.


202-763-7942

Dinner Tuesday through Sunday, brunch weekends

Five courses $90, seven courses $115

66 decibels / Conversation is easy

2019
Top 10

American Son

Chef Tim Ma brings a creative touch to familiar dishes in the Eaton DC hotel.

Dinner $10 to $26, sharing plates $30 to $125

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American Son knows how to please

Like the Eaton DC hotel in which the restaurant is set, chef Tim Ma’s latest menu is progressive. A diner can start with potato croquettes that look like funnel cake (but taste savory rather than sweet) and finish with an almost-all-white dessert (a bowl of tapioca set off with shards of meringue and passion fruit-mango ganache). In between are dishes designed to please a swath of customers, from beef cheeks on a puddle of grits to a “large format” shareable entree that displays the chef’s passion for Korean barbecue: a vegetarian delight of spaghetti squash tucked into lettuce leaves with racy condiments. The name? It’s a reference to Ma, a second-generation Chinese immigrant who spent part of his youth in rural Arkansas. The future chef adapted so well, his mother introduced him to fellow Chinese people as her American son. She should be proud of how well he’s feeding us now.


202-900-8416

Dinner daily, breakfast and lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner $10 to $26, sharing plates $30 to $125

81 decibels / Extremely loud

2019
Top 10

Boqueria

Chef Marc Vidal cooks with energy — and roasts a killer chicken — at the group’s latest outpost.

Tapas $5 to $36, large plates $36 to $45

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Boqueria will take you to Barcelona

You hardly need a menu to order at what always feels like a celebration. Looking around and sniffing works almost as well. The scent of garlic and lemon, for instance, leads us to a plate of sauteed shrimp, and who can resist silvery anchovies, freckled with orange zest, when they ride through the dining room with a thatch of housemade potato chips? Executive chef Marc Vidal’s pet entree, roast chicken with salsa verde, is likely to become yours once you taste his youthful memory from his native Barcelona. Not every dish is a score (Jaleo makes a superior tortilla Espanola), but enough of the menu is. Make time for crudo and for pork ribs glazed with sherry. Also, the seasonal sangria and the stuffed churros are great bookends to a meal. If I could change one thing in this Penn Quarter spinoff of a Dupont Circle draw, it would be the clamor. For better or worse, Boqueria is a blast.


202-552-3268

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Tapas $5 to $36, large plates $36 to $45

77 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Chiko

Danny Lee and Scott Drewno offer new dishes, more room and lunch.

Dinner $9 to $18, snacks $3

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Chiko brings its delightful mashups to Dupont

Just like the original fast-casual attraction on Capitol Hill, it’s a little Chinese, a little Korean, and wholly delectable. Co-owners Scott Drewno and Danny Lee have another hit on their hands with their Dupont Circle spinoff, which benefits from all the learning that took place on Barracks Row. (Groups have more room to maneuver.) The exercise will be familiar to fans, who can count on pork and kimchi pot stickers and cumin lamb stir-fry, but also some fresh ideas: cold noodles slicked with chile oil and crunchy with roasted peanuts, and a riff on shrimp toast that pairs wedges of crisp buttered ciabatta with springy diced shrimp in XO sauce. Dunk, dunk away. A perch at the four-seat, reservations-only chef’s counter puts you face to face with the cooks and pretty much gives you a taste of the whole menu. The cherry on top of all the fun: Unlike its sibling, the offshoot does lunch.


202-331-3040

Lunch and dinner daily

Dinner $9 to $18, snacks $3

76 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Cielo Rojo

Chef David Perez makes wonderful tacos and quesadillas, but the pleasures don’t stop there.

Dinner $11 to $20, tacos $3.25 to $3.75

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At Cielo Rojo, it starts with the masa

This mom-and-pop in Takoma Park is so small, customers perched at the knee-to-knee, copper-topped bar can more or less see their meal being made in the open kitchen, commanded by chef David Perez. The launchpad for his pleasing tacos and quesadillas is house-milled, heirloom corn — the chef plays with yellow, blue and red — sourced from farmers in Oaxaca. Mushrooms sauteed with garlic and finished with a splash of tequila make for a delectable “drunken” taco, and of the meatier options, I’m currently partial to shredded pork flavored with orange, so juicy you’ll need another napkin. Perez, a native of Mexico City, does big plates, too. Grilled rockfish cloaked in two sauces (guajillo red and parsley green) and surrounded by a thatch of skin-on fries, tomato salad and a fan of buttery avocado is food (and fun) enough for two. Cielo Rojo (“Red Sky”) proves a bit of a family affair. The chef’s wife, Carolina McCandless, is an easygoing presence in the dining room, where her father built the handsome oak benches and tile-topped tables. The cooking is best enjoyed in the company of a drink based on tequila or mezcal, but here’s the deal: Whiskey and gin are kept under the bar.


301-755-0833

Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday

Dinner $11 to $20, tacos $3.25 to $3.75

72 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Coconut Club

Adam Greenberg serves tropical flavors at his Hawaiian-inspired restaurant.

Dinner $20 to $30

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Coconut Club puts you in vacation mode

Cross “Gilligan’s Island” with spring break, and the result is a “Chopped” performer’s notion of a Hawaiian vacation in the big city. Just to see the place, near Union Market, is to wish you were in shorts and sandals. Diners enter to find a plant-fringed bar in the center of the action, tropical shades everywhere, and garage doors rolled up to let the good times spill outside. Of course there’s salmon poke, scooped up from a shell with lotus root chips, and Spam served three ways. (Try it as a skewered patty melt.) “I read every single comment card,” says chef-owner Adam Greenberg. “We’ve listened to the feedback.” If you dropped by early in its run and wished for less noise or more heat, you’re in luck. Count me a convert to Coconut Club’s chicken, brined in coconut milk and zestier than ever, and hurrah for a farro salad that makes you want to twist and shout, or at least finish every last pickled green strawberry, pistachio gremolata and crumb of sheep’s milk cheese. Smoky grilled pork ribs, showered with toasted cashews and Fresno chiles, don’t need extra firepower, but just in case, ask for the just-introduced, housemade habanero-pineapple hot sauce.


202-544-5500

Dinner Tuesday through Saturday

Dinner $20 to $30

79 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Dyllan’s Raw Bar Grill

The seafood restaurant needs to serve up more winners.

Dinner $25 to $64, raw bar $2.75 to $25 (with tinned cockles for $120)

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At Dyllan’s Raw Bar Grill, an inconsistent catch

“Our Spanish and Portuguese diners go crazy” at the sight of tinned seafood, says a host, eyeing the canned sardines on our table. Those of us who have knocked back the treat overseas are happy to reunite with the tradition, heaped on lengths of buttered baguette, in a low-ceilinged, canal-facing grotto of a dining room in Georgetown. For sure, the menu is different from any other in the neighborhood. In addition to the prepackaged goods, including squid, mussels and cockles, diners can opt for branzino with a kimchi that pulls punches; macaroni and cheese tinted green with avocado (better than it sounds); a brilliant vegetable tart made tangy with goat cheese; a dense and dry pork chop; and succulent roast chicken. The crab cake is big and crusty, and a slice of chocolate layer cake easily feeds four. What can I say? The restaurant is a mixed bag that seems to improve over time, but not fast enough for someone who lives to eat and is surrounded by choices, choices, choices.


202-470-6606

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner $25 to $64, raw bar $2.75 to $25 (with tinned cockles for $120)

74 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

I’m Eddie Cano

James Gee cooks two styles of Italian food, both of them likable and fun.

Dinner $14 to $29

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I’m Eddie Cano serves up affordable charm

Say the name fast. What should roll off your tongue is something close to the way an Italian speaker would say “I’m American.” Whatever. There’s no Eddie in the house, but there is a James, as in Gee, and he’s putting out some good food at a fair price in a room he says was dressed on “half a shoestring.” Whatever. I like the communal table in the center of the room and the walls painted with images of Sophia Loren and the Colosseum. Empty wine bottles linked with copper tubing make handsome dividers. The menu is split between Italian American and Italian dishes, with plenty to praise in each camp. My latest fixations include whipped salt cod and potatoes, tangy chicken Parmesan and a classic cacio e pepe. Chat up the attentive staff and someone might bring you a gratis shot of the house spirit as you’re wrapping up dinner. Whatever you do, make sure someone gets — and shares — zucchini sliced into strings, soaked in buttermilk, dredged in flour and fried to a crisp, with lemon for spritzing. What’s the word for heaven in Italian? You’ll say it fast.


202-890-4995

Dinner daily, brunch Sunday

Dinner $14 to $29

76 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Nama

Young Oh makes fine sushi — and even better dumplings and tempura.

Nigiri $3 to $7, rolls $5 to $20

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Here’s hoping Nama stays

“My! People come and go so quickly here!” Dorothy Gale was referencing her experience in Oz, but she might just have well been talking about the merry-go-round restaurant that has welcomed and dispatched a host of concepts and chefs in its short time in Mount Vernon Triangle. The current thinking is Japanese, with Young Oh behind the kitchen counter. (Handry Tjan left around Thanksgiving.) Nama’s sushi and rolls are fine, but the more compelling reasons to show up in this rich retreat are hot. As in shrimp tempura in a creamy curtain of chile-yuzu sauce, and pork gyoza floating in truffle-soy sauce broth. Spicy beet tartare with crisp quinoa lets vegetarians enjoy nigiri, while meat eaters can content themselves with a juicy wagyu beef burger. Its glossy bun is baked by pastry chef Alex Levin, the same guy who sends you into the night with a caramel-filled chocolate.


202-414-7066

Dinner daily

Nigiri $3 to $7, rolls $5 to $20

68 decibels / Conversation is easy

2019
Top 10

Officina

Nicholas Stefanelli’s huge showcase for Italian food includes a cafe/market, trattoria and rooftop terrace.

Trattoria dinner $29 to $54; cafe $8 to $18

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Officina offers three tastes in one

Open wide. Nicholas Stefanelli is serving up three floors and 14,000 square feet of fun at the Wharf. Use Officina (oh-fee-CHEE-nah) as you see fit. There’s a ground-floor cafe, bar and market. A set of stairs — and a climb worthy of CrossFit — brings you to a lively trattoria and an exhibition kitchen. Up on the roof awaits a terrazzo with fire pits, city views, even an amaro library, all screaming “date night!” Most of my meals have transpired in the dining room, which is clamorous but also delicious. Time has taught me to start with the soothing minestrone or the sassy calamari and to continue with risotto, sunny with saffron, or sweetbreads, smoked in hay and splashed with brown butter. Say no to more focaccia (difficult as it is) to save space for cannoli (worth the splurge). Officina translates to “workshop” — but also molto buona.


202-747-5222

Trattoria dinner daily, lunch Wednesday through Friday, brunch weekends; cafe lunch and dinner daily

Trattoria dinner $29 to $54; cafe $8 to $18

82 decibels / Extremely loud

2019
Top 10

Olivia

Rasika’s Ashok Bajaj refocuses the Penn Quarter restaurant on the Mediterranean.

Small plates $9 to $17, large plates $25 to $32

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Olivia showcases Morocco and more

Go for the bisteeya, one of Morocco’s great gifts to the world. The flaky pastry wrapped around braised chicken, egg and pistachios, finished with powdered sugar, is the star at this dashing Mediterranean restaurant from the prolific Ashok Bajaj. Not that there aren’t other reasons to find yourself in the former Nopa Kitchen + Bar in Penn Quarter. A light lunch could be made of the harissa-hot soup of shredded lamb and fried chickpeas, or creamy cod rillettes hooked up with crisp pickled vegetables. Enjoy them in the bar, where broad windows and a canopy of greenery let you pretend you’re grazing alfresco. Warm burrata slathered with with zhug — imagine herbs crossed with fire — is melted cheese for fashionistas, and if I’m not eating bisteeya for dinner, I’m probably grazing on braised lamb atop chickpea stew (but not the dull flatbreads). Roasted eggplant with pickled raisins has the vegetarians at my table smiling — and me asking for the plate back.


202-347-4667

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch Sunday

Small plates $9 to $17, large plates $25 to $32

75 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Osteria Costa

You can get a good meal at the MGM National Harbor restaurant, if you know what to avoid.

Dinner $22 to $46

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At Osteria Costa, the odds are even

The restaurant wants to conjure the Amalfi Coast with touches of blue and abundant seafood, but it’s a challenge to believe when I’m sipping a cloying Negroni and listening to the strains of an electric violin at MGM National Harbor. Still, I’m pleased to find that the breaded veal chop is the same crisp golden catcher’s mitt of meat topped with arugula I encountered on my maiden dinner, and that the creamy ricotta cheesecake remains the best ending. Wherever you settle — the bar, the kitchen counter, the faux patio, a high communal table — there’s something to catch your eye, be it a wall of Veuve Clicquot, a Vespa parked near the entrance or pizza paddles the size of movie posters. Speaking of pizza, don’t bite. The pies are flabby. But the meatballs, parked on whipped ricotta, are soft and tasty, and the fritto misto, mostly shrimp and fried zucchini coins, gets dispatched in a flash. Pastas are made in-house. Linguine with clams could use better seafood, but I like the heat that accompanies every bite, and with a little more cooking time, the cheese-stuffed ravioli with tangy tomatoes could win my affection. Service is friendly, although attendants check in so often, it’s as if they’re getting paid for the “fines” they collect. Too much of a gamble? Not if you know what to order.


301-971-6010

Dinner Wednesday through Sunday

Dinner $22 to $46

80 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Pappe

At his Indian restaurant on 14th Street NW, Sanjay Mandhaiya doesn’t shy away from spice.

Small plates $7 to $22, mains $12 to $38

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Pappe turns up the heat

The setting is as vivid and as varied as a thali, with a palette that suggests an Indian bazaar and a bar that makes a mean gimlet — with cardamom, naturally. The menu, by chef-owner Sanjay Mandhaiya, hits lots of the right buttons. Heat seekers are most favored patrons. “I don’t hold back on the spices,” says the chef, whose chicken tikka, fueled with Thai peppers, bears witness, as does goat in a cloak of what looks and tastes like lava. Northern Indian food is the focus, but not the sole attraction. The chef nods to the south of his homeland with uttapam, the savory pancake made from a batter of rice and lentils and crisp with a lattice of chopped herbs on its surface. Hate to make decisions? The kitchen comes to your rescue, with lunch-only sampler platters. Ask for the Maharaja thali: 10 tastes for $21.


202-888-8220

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Small plates $7 to $22, mains $12 to $38

81 decibels / Extremely loud

2019
Top 10

The Pembroke

Chef Marlon Rambaran creates plates to match the beautifully renovated Dupont Circle Hotel.

Dinner mains, $18 to $95

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The Pembroke shows a flair for the dramatic

Give a leading interior designer $5 million, and what you get, in the case of Swedish-born Martin Brudnizki at the Dupont Circle Hotel, is a space where coral couches and floor-to-ceiling windows help raise the bar for eating and drinking in the neighborhood. His equal in the kitchen is Trinidad native Marlon Rambaran, whose stint at Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia, among other impressive stops on his way to Washington, informs his work. The food is familiar but interesting; dinner hits include saffron risotto set off with a sheet of gold leaf, Dover sole best eaten with sauteed spinach, and a lamb tagine with preserved lemons and dried apricots that would taste at home in Morocco. Kudos to the chef for making his chicken soup, a lunch draw, with short noodles. Look, Ma, no stains from slurping! The enthusiasm of the staff rubs off on customers. “What would you like to drink?” asks a dapper man behind the handsome bar. “We have lovely cocktails, lovely wine, lovely bubbles.” Yes times three.


202-448-4302

Dinner daily, breakfast and lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner mains, $18 to $95

77 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Pisco y Nazca

The Peruvian food is solid, but be prepared to shout your order.

Dinner $12 to $44

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Pisco y Nazca puts the din in dinner

Proof of love-hate relationships is this downtown ode to Peruvian cooking. On the one hand, the empanadas are hot pockets of distinction, the ceviche tastes like you’re in Lima and the chicken stew benefits from a sauce that’s bright and teasing with aji amarillo peppers. Did I mention the service is attentive and the lomo saltado, stir-fried beef with hand-cut french fries, has improved since my last trip? What hasn’t changed is the assault on our ears. In a city of loud dining rooms, Pisco y Nazca ranks as the boomiest of boxes. “I can’t hear my wife,” a dining companion says about the woman seated across the table. If the intent is to get customers to eat faster and drink more, it’s working. We beg off dessert but not a second pisco sour. The cooking merits attention. Next visit, though, I’ll be reporting from the patio.


202-559-3726

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner $12 to $44

95 decibels / Extremely loud

2019
Top 10

Port-au-Prince

At Roberto Massillon’s Silver Spring restaurant, dinner may come with music or even a language class.

Dinner $10 to $22

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Port-au-Prince teaches some delectable lessons

Meet Silver Spring’s ambassador for Haitian hospitality: Roberto Massillon, a self-taught chef and U.S. Army veteran. “No matter where you’re from,” says the restaurateur, “you’ll find yourself in Haitian cuisine,” which is influenced by Spain, France, Africa and elsewhere. If his menu is short on choices, it has flavor in its favor. “Without garlic,” jokes Massillon, “we don’t cook.” My recipe for a good time starts with a stew of salt cod, onions and peppers served in crisp plantain “cups” and segues to rum-marinated fried goat that takes up to two days to make. Bean-stained rice and fiery pickled cabbage turn the entree into a rousing island feast. Launched as a pop-up, Port-au-Prince now occupies a high-ceilinged storefront dressed with animal masks and a mural depicting Haiti’s late National Palace. Bring patience; my last server left it to the bartender to do just about everything. Dinner comes with a side of music on Tuesday and Saturday; happy hour on Monday and Thursday is a chance for participants to learn Haitian Creole from Massillon, who’s also a language instructor for the Foreign Service Institute. Cheers to all that!


301-565-2006

Dinner Saturday through Thursday, brunch Sunday

Dinner $10 to $22

69 decibels / Conversation is easy

2019
Top 10

Rappahannock Oyster Bar

The bivalves aren’t the only draw at this Wharf watering hole.

Dinner $10 to $27, oysters $2.50

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Rappahannock Oyster Bar serves seafood with a side of history

Oysters — shucked to order at the bar or grilled or fried out of sight — are the obvious ask. But this neighbor to the Maine Avenue Fish Market on the Wharf turns out to be equally adept with cobia (crudo), shrimp (peel and eat) and crab, which the kitchen turns into a terrific dip with the help of cheese, jalapeño and roasted corn kernels. The sleeper on the menu is a whopper of a burger: two dry-aged patties that share their toasted bun with shredded lettuce, American cheese and a “special sauce” whipped up from (surprise!) melted remoulade. The oval bar is ringed by fewer than 30 seats, but warm weather finds a full-service patio and 90 more places to slurp and sip. The watering hole, brought to you by Virginia entrepreneurs Travis Croxton and his cousin Ryan Croxton, sits on historic real estate. In the early 1900s, this slice hosted the Lunch Room, geared to feeding workers on the Southwest Waterfront.


202-484-0572

Lunch and dinner daily

Dinner $10 to $27, oysters $2.50

75 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Reverie

Johnny Spero’s Georgetown restaurant features a spare setting and intriguing food.

Dinner $18 to $32

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Reverie dreams of the future

Spring has sprung, which means Johnny Spero is serving white asparagus in a black cloak (courtesy of garum, or fermented fish sauce). Such intrigue should come as no surprise, given the chef’s history. Before settling in Georgetown with a dining room that borrows from the minimalism and spare beauty of Japan and Denmark, the young chef worked at some of the most forward-thinking restaurants in the world, including Noma in Copenhagen, Mugaritz in Spain’s Basque region and Minibar by José Andrés in Washington. Compositions are described in just a few words. “Buttermilk/Dill/Dried Scallop” translates to soft slices of raw scallop and crisp panes of dried scallop on a pool of buttermilk tinted with fresh dill. The crudo is a keeper, as is Spero’s hamburger, an homage to multiple fast-food sources. Dishes “to share” are designed for the expense-account crowd. A plate of fanned duck, dusted with fennel pollen and served with shaved fennel strewn with marigolds, is lots to like, but also $100. Not every combination works, but you are likely to drink well — “The Business” is a refresher mixed from gin, honey and lemon — and the addition of an enclosed patio since winter means more space for more open minds.


202-808-2952

Dinner Tuesday through Sunday

Dinner $18 to $32

79 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

San Lorenzo

In a stylish setting, Massimo Fabbri serves spot-on pastas and more.

Dinner $19 to $48

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San Lorenzo brings Tuscan flair to Shaw

Massimo Fabbri loaded his debut restaurant in Shaw with sentiment, naming it not just for his young son, Lorenzo, but also for the Tuscan native’s favorite neighborhood in Florence; the patron saint chef of chefs; and a favorite Italian singer, Lorenzo Cherubini. Then the chef layered on style, in the form of turn-of-the-century photographs of his hometown and a chandelier made from olive branches. The food — crackling squash blossoms stuffed with tangy goat cheese, pork ribs that perfume fingers with sage and rosemary — makes you glad to be supping in Fabbri’s wood-beamed dining room. Pasta helped fill seats at fine-dining Tosca, the chef’s former roost, and continues to do so here; pappardelle in a drape of herbed rabbit ragu is first among equals. Life is short. Get both the apple cake with maple-walnut gelato and chocolate custard with Morello cherry sauce.


202-588-8954

Dinner daily

Dinner $19 to $48

76 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Scotts

The food is fine, but is that good enough with so much competition around?

Dinner $16 to $39

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Scotts could use a shot of energy

The British brasserie with a members-only club for Scotch fans opened with promise in November. Its charms extended to meat served on a trolley, carved tableside and offered with trimmings, Yorkshire pudding included. Then fatigue seemed to set in, and Scotts, while pleasing in grass-green and tangerine-orange, became Just Another Restaurant in a sea of choices. Oh, the Scotch egg is nice, the fish and chips are fine, and the sundae with candied almonds turns adults into kids. But other dishes do the work of Ambien and put me to sleep. I’m looking at you, tuna tartare. You, too, coq au vin. It doesn’t help when you can hear the cooks arguing in the exposed kitchen. Just saying.


202-628-7000

Dinner daily, brunch Sunday

Dinner $16 to $39

76 decibels / Must speak with raised voice

2019
Top 10

Urbano 116

The Alexandria restaurant hired a well-regarded Mexican chef, but too many dishes are a bust.

Dinner $17 to $28

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Urbano 116 tastes like a letdown

Food lovers could hardly wait to book a table at this newcomer, and who could blame them? Not only is chef Alam Méndez Florián from Oaxaca, revered for its cuisine, but he is the talent behind the admired Pasillo de Humo in Mexico City. Repeat visits left me scratching my head, however. If you sampled only the rockfish ceviche, bright with orange and sharp with onion, and a meaty taco, maybe carnitas, you might question my ultimate disappointment. But the few scores share the menu with a slew of washouts — a problem that continued after my initial critique, when I returned to find pork enchiladas cloaked in a mole that could have doubled as a dessert topping and beef tongue that gave my jaw a workout. (Margaritas help.) The kitchen can’t even do some basics right; the watery dip with the chips tastes as if liquid smoke were part of its DNA. Too bad you can’t eat the scenery. A sea of white leather chairs and a display of Mexican wrestling masks make for an arresting backdrop.


571-970-5148

Dinner daily, lunch weekdays, brunch weekends

Dinner $17 to $28

81 decibels / Extremely loud

Credit

Photos by Deb Lindsey, Scott Suchman, Dayna Smith and Dixie D. Vereen for The Washington Post; photo editing and production by Jennifer Beeson Gregory; design and development by Madison Walls.

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