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Welcome to Washingtonian’s Hot List! These are 10 restaurants our food team is particularly excited about right now. Every month, we’ll swap in and out new recommendations—old and new, fancy and casual—that we’ve visited recently and deserve your attention. While our 100 Very Best Restaurants ranking is still our ultimate guide to the DC area’s top dining destinations, this is a place where we’ll give you a real-time pulse check on the region’s eating and drinking scene.
Afro-Fusion • Petworth • 828 Upshur St., NW
Little Food Studio chef/owner Danielle Harris has taken over this snug revolving door of a space in Petworth that has boasted a litany of great, but short-lived restaurants (they include Himitsu, Magpie and the Tiger, and most recently, Little Vietnam). Here’s hoping Harris’s Afro-fusion concept sticks. Some daytime action might help: Harris and pastry chef Chinnell Watson are now running Little Food Studio here from morning through early afternoon, turning out superlative breakfast pastries (those cherry scones!), creative coffee drinks, and tasty sandwiches. At night, the focus shifts to Almeda’s shareable plates such as awaze-spiced ribs that you bundle into lettuce wraps, zesty jollof risotto, and tender jerk pork. Don’t skip the bookends: slices of crusty bread that you swipe through dollops of mascarpone, pumpkin puree, and pepitas, and a glorious coconut cake.
Mexican • Dupont Circle • 2002 P St., NW
Chef Christian Irabien starts by doing the simple things right: made-from-scratch tortillas, electric salsas, and hype-worthy beans. He builds from there with a menu of fruit-studded ceviches, cheffy-yet-unfussy tacos, and perhaps the best chile relleno around. Seafood in particular is a big focus here—from shellfish platters to fish chorizo for build-your-own sopesitos (corn cakes). A cool bonus: the restaurant also sells a lot of its ingredients, including fresh tortillas by the dozen, jars of salsas, and an impressive selection of pantry items with insects.
Italian • Bethesda • 4747 Bethesda Ave.
The first suburban foray for the group behind DC’s Red Hen and All-Purpose opened—after a two year delay— in February. And finally, restaurant-packed Bethesda has an actual dining destination. The casually swank room feels retro and new at the same time, the emerald-green-tiled bar turns out terrific spritzes and martinis, and chef Mike Friedman’s menu is full of easy-to-like dishes that are still interesting. Go for white-wine-braised artichokes, snail-shaped lumache pasta sticky with tomato and guanciale, ricotta tortellini with sunchoke puree, and, best of all, a heap of lamb ribs that are smoked, roasted, and crisped up in their own fat, then doused with honey/vinegar sauce and a ton of fresh mint and dill. Former Kinship pastry chef Anne Specker is behind the desserts, which include a lovely float of vanilla gelato, lemon granita, and juniper-scented soda.
Spanish • Downtown DC • 919 19th St., NW
There may be no greater exhibit showing the difference between a food court and a food hall than the Square. The sprawling emporium took over the K Street block that for decades held International Square’s food court, the dreary, subterranean home of a Panda Gourmet, a Five Guys, and…you get the gist. Now, folks show up for happy hour margs at Taqueria Xochi, destination sushi from Masaaki “Uchi” Uchino, and a seat at Casa Teresa, the dining room/bar that anchors one end of the hall. José Andrés acolyte and Square co-founder Ruben Garcia is behind the latter spot, which specializes in Spanish open-fire cooking served at a leisurely pace. The menu is big, and it’s tempting to go the set-menu route (a flurry of tapas, a huge family-style platter of grilled meat or fish, desserts, and a porron of Albarino for $105 a person), but the better move is to just grab a seat at the bar and kick back with a few classic tapas—a platter of build your own tomato bread, plates neatly fanned with jamon, and the creamiest croquetas you’ll find around the city.
Indian • Herndon, VA • 1050 Elden St.
This colorful Indian vegetarian street food spot in Herndon, with its Bollywood theme and the vibes of a family pizza parlor, has as many as 12 chaats at any given time on its chalkboard menu. Many of them are exemplary: yogurt-filled dahi puri, crisp and fragile as glass, must be eaten in one flavorful bite; Mumbai-style misal pav is fiery and rich. But the one snack you see on nearly every table is chole kulcha— soft, bready pillowcases overstuffed with thick chickpea curry, and blanketed with sliced onions. The masala-rich chickpeas are hearty and delicious, but the most alluring aspect is the texture of the kulcha itself: buttery, puffy, and a bit crisp, like a lightly toasted bao bun.
Vietnamese • Falls Church, VA • 6351 Columbia Pike
Spicy lemongrass beef noodle soup without the beef? Bún bò huế is one of the many beloved Vietnamese dishes that chef Lan Tran has managed to satisfyingly reinterpret without meat. Tran previously ran a catering business before opening this no-reservations Falls Church restaurant in December with her husband Thi Le, who credits her cooking for helping him lose 20 pounds and improve his health issues. She makes many of her own faux meats out of tofu and vegetables, including the proteins that join mushrooms and carrots in that best-selling bún bò huế. Soy-protein “shaky beef,” stir-fried with a sweet soy marinade, does an impressive job of mimicking its meaty counterpart, as does the chopped “clam” dip dressed in vegetarian fish sauce with rice crackers for scooping.
Japanese • Capitol Crossing • 200 Massachusetts Ave., NW
By now, you’ve probably heard about the wonders of Love, Makoto, DC’s all-Japanese food hall, which holds omakase destination Dear Sushi and the excellent yakiniku steakhouse Beloved Barbecue, which each landed on our 100 Very Best Restaurants list this year. But the place is great for an easier-on-the-wallet lunch or dinner, too. Its fast-casual arm—also available for takeout and delivery—lets you cobble together an order of, say, salmon-and-avocado maki with yuzu kosho mayo, a teriyaki glazed fried chicken sandwich, and gingery dumplings with black-vinegar sauce. There’s also ramen, udon, soba, and katsu with curry. The can’t miss dish, though, is the wagyu bread, which translates to a warm, savory doughnut spilling with ground-beef curry.
Mexican • Capitol Hill • 732 Maryland Ave., NE
Some of the city’s most magical Mexican cooking is coming from the wood-fired hearth at this Capitol Hill charmer led by the powerhouse chef couple behind Georgetown neo-bistro Lutèce. Start with guacamole dusted in charred onions and avocado leaf, which is served with a colorful array of salsas, pickles, smoked fruit, and housemade tostadas on a lazy susan. The menu is stacked with unexpected hits—from a parsnip tamal with white mole to a bowl of seasoned rice topped with salsa macha and uni—and culminates with larger platters like on-the-bone lamb neck barbacoa over ayocote beans with heirloom corn tortillas. Save room for such desserts as a crackly cinnamon-sugar-dusted buñuelo with chocolate and caramel sauce for drizzling.
Southeast Asian• Fairfax • 9530 Fairfax Blvd.
It’s hard to pick one representative plate at Southeast Impression, a comfortable new Fairfax eatery that serves Singaporean, Thai, and Malaysian dishes. But the sambal stir fry is a good place to start: a lively mix of shrimp, Chinese eggplant, and still-crisp okra tossed into a searing pan with fermented sambal. The stir-fry has the satisfying, smoky characteristics of Chinese wok cooking, but the funky, spicy undercurrent of sambal reminds you the flavors here are rooted in the Malay Peninsula. Ivea Restaurant Group, a fast-growing food empire in the DC area, tapped three of its chefs from Thailand and Malaysia—Michael Foo, Toh Hon Pin, and Arom Saduakdee—to cook their signature dishes. Hainanese chicken with rice, roti canai, and chili crab are also worth trying.
Sandwiches • Shaw • 1114 Ninth St., NW
We became fans of Paul Taylor and Sherra Kurtz’s sandwiches when they first started slinging them at cocktail bar Columbia Room during the thick of the pandemic. Now, they’ve got a permanent home in Shaw for favorites like the Mort & Mootz (a mortadella and mozzarella sub) and the Hot Nug (picture an oversized McDonald’s nugget with Nashville hot glaze). While there’s a takeout counter for to-go orders, it’s worth grabbing a seat at the bar under the glowing sandwich-themed stained glass artwork. There you’ll find geeky, nostalgic drinks like rum with clear cola, or a clarified orange cocktail that riffs on mall visits to Orange Julius.
