A website devoted to eating in DC
Officina, 1120 Maine Ave SW, Washington DC (The Wharf) I should have been in a better mood when I left Officina after dinner last Friday night. I’d just eaten at one of the most anticipated restaurant openings of 2018 by one of DC’s top chefs, Nicholas Stefanelli of Masseria. Indeed “restaurant” is probably an inadequate word to describe what I’d ...READ MORE »
Call Your Mother – A Jew-ish Deli, 3301 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC (Parkview) Open Tuesday – Sunday, 8 am – 2 pm The much-anticipated Call Your Mother deli opened last Thursday in Parkview. On Friday, I was in line at 11 am for an early lunch. I know I told several of you that I’d wait to go with you ...READ MORE »
St. Anselm, 1250 5th St NE, Washington DC (near Union Market) St. Anselm has only been open a few weeks but it’s already made my short list of best new restaurants of 2018. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a joint venture between restaurateurs Joe Carroll, who own the original St. Anselm in Brooklyn, and the prolific Stephen Starr, who owns ...READ MORE »
Primrose, 3000 12th St NE, Washington DC Ellē, 3221 Mt. Pleasant St NW, Washington DC There may be nothing in the food world harder to pull off than a great neighborhood restaurant. So many pieces have to come together. First you need a great neighborhood, the more diverse the better, because that’s where you’re drawing from and a diverse crowd ...READ MORE »
Sababa, 3311 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC Israeli food is hot. I’ll bet a lot of you have at least one cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi sitting on your shelf as we speak. The American Ottolenghi, Michael Solomonov, runs the popular Zahav in Philadelphia and will soon release his second cookbook on Israeli cuisine. Then there’s Einat Admony at Manhattan’s Balaboosta ...READ MORE »
Unconventional Diner, 1207 9th St NW, Washington DC Bresca, 1906 14th St NW, Washington DC There’s no obvious reason to review these two restaurants together, other than the fact that I ate at them both in the past couple of weeks. One does elevated American comfort food, often with an international spin, while the other does “bistronomy,” a modern and ...READ MORE »
Momofuku CCDC, 1090 I St NW, Washington DC If you haven’t been to Momofuku lately, you haven’t been to Momofuku. You might remember when local-boy-turned-Manhattan-celebrity-chef David Chang announced he was opening an outpost of Momofuku in City Center in late 2015. It was bedlam. Chang was bringing his pork bao and ramen home to DC! And there’ll be a Milkbar too, with ...READ MORE »
If you had 2017 or early 2018 in the office pool predicting when the DC restaurant bubble would burst, sorry, you’re out of contention (but not as quickly as me for picking Virginia to get to the Final Four). The openings of ambitious new restaurants just keep coming. And while there are always some losses along the way, it’s hard ...READ MORE »
Rose’s Luxury, 717 8th Street SE, Washington DC I had dinner last Tuesday at Rose’s Luxury. But it felt more like the final scene from The Way We Were. It was poignant. It was wistful. If Rose’s had bangs, I would’ve lovingly swept them from its eyes before we had one last nostalgic hug. Sitting in that familiar space, I couldn’t help ...READ MORE »
Himitsu, 828 Upshur Street NW, Washington DC Himitsu means “secret” in Japanese, a bit of irony that seems funnier once you’re comfortably seated in this 24-seat jewel box than when you’re standing outside in twenty-degree weather hoping to snag a table when the doors open at 5 pm. Do yourself a favor and don’t show up with an incomplete party ...READ MORE »