15 New Eating places within the DC Space We’re Excited About Proper Now

Acqua Bistecca

Chef Michael Mina’s Italian steak-and-­seafood place in City Ridge could be extra of a neighborhood spot than Bourbon Steak, his high-rolling restaurant in Georgetown’s Four Seasons, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a lot glitzy. Chargrilled steaks are brushed with Lambrusco butter—there’s even a gargantuan mozzarella stick topped with caviar, for goodness’ sake.

Bao Bei

A Rockville strip mall has been additional crowded since chef Kevin Hsieh discovered a everlasting house there in August for his widespread Taiwanese ghost kitchen. The squishy bao—steamed buns full of braised pork stomach or tofu—are hits right here, as are rice bowls topped with conventional braised pork or a sweet-and-salty fried hen cutlet dredged in sweet-potato flour.

Chai Pani

Asheville and the Atlanta suburb of Decatur love their outposts of Meher­wan Irani’s James Beard Award–profitable Indian street-food spot. In August, a 3rd location arrived within the Union Market District, with celebrated Mississippi chef Vishwesh “Vish” Bhatt on the helm. The colourful eating room serves vibrant road snacks, plus some Indian dishes that nod to the American South, akin to matchstick okra fries and a KFC (Kashmiri fried hen) sandwich.

Dawa

Eric Adjepong’s up to date Ghanaian spot, Elmina, was an thrilling arrival on 14th Street this yr, with a $135 tasting menu and a extra accessible à la carte possibility. Now the chef has launched a fast-casual takeout operation throughout the similar house—assume jollof rice topped with suya-crusted quick rib and a West African tackle ramen.

Dok Khao

The most fun of the brand new culinary choices within the towering new Chevy Chase Lake improvement is that this polished Thai eating room—a part of a sequence that features areas in Virginia and Columbia. It pairs elaborate cocktails and desserts with dishes like Phuket chili crab and lamb massaman curry.

El Mercat Bar de Tapas

The Rockville tapas bar from a former Boqueria chef sprouted a twin in Pentagon City in September. There are dozens of choices for tapas right here—past croquetas and patatas bravas—plus paellas made with bomba rice, Ibérico ham offered by the ounce, and loads of Rioja and sangria.

Eunoia

This idiosyncratic world restaurant close to Union Market is a collaboration between Iva and Alex Gotzev—who run a Bulgarian cafe and Pilates studio in Dupont Circle—and Mexico City–born chef Josa Maldonado. Their often shifting vegetable-­ahead menu incorporates housemade preserves, ferments, and a seaweed mole with components together with potato miso and coconut milk.

Florería Atlántico/Brasero Atlántico

It feels like a one-of-a-kind proposition: a flower store that hides a bar behind an unassuming fridge door. But this isn’t simply one other speakeasy—it’s a Northern Hemisphere location of Florería Atlántico, an Old World–type Buenos Aires cocktail bar that has ranked among the many world’s 50 greatest. Next door to the Georgetown spot is Brasero Atlántico, led by chef Manuela Carbone, the place you may order wood-fired steaks and small plates that characterize Argentina’s mélange of immigrant cuisines.

Hush Harbor

It would possibly come off as gimmicky, however this bar’s buzzy no-phones coverage (you retain the gadget with you, locked in a magnetic pouch) is simply meant to encourage the form of leisure and give attention to the second that smartphones typically steal from us. This is complemented by traditional cocktails and chef Rock Harper’s soulful Southern bar meals, together with shrimp rémoulade; purple beans and rice; and pimiento cheese.

Kayu

Chef Paolo Dungca’s Filipino tasting room on the H Street hall closed this summer season. He’s not too long ago relaunched it with a extra informal, pared-down iteration in Dupont Circle. Dungca’s cassava cake with crab fats, jamón Ibérico, and trout roe didn’t go wherever.

Maison Bar à Vins

The workforce behind Lutèce—amongst different lauded DC eating places—are skilled Francophiles, and their new Adams Morgan bar is a tribute to the form of place you’d be thrilled to wander into in Paris, the place ingenious small plates pair with glorious wine. Here which means issues like terrines, escargot-topped bone marrow, and brioche-stuffed hen.

Naja

Kirby Club, Rose Previte’s Mosaic District kebab spot, is now not. But her lieutenant, common supervisor Tariq Alaeddin, has remade the house right into a Lebanese restaurant of his personal. Find a garlicky Beirut-style hen wrap, beef kibbeh, and a full slate of kebabs.

Nuli

The first US location of Ada Osakwe’s Nigerian wholesome fast-casual chain landed within the Square, the downtown DC meals corridor, this summer season, serving up jollof-rice bowls and naan wraps. With menu sections for gluten-free, dairy-free, high-fiber, nut-free, and plant-based eating, it caters to all kinds of diets, too.

Tempo Shack

A takeout momo enterprise that started inside a Himalayan grocery in Ashburn now has a window simply off the H Street hall slinging Nepali barbecue and all method of momos—dumplings full of hen, water buffalo, or a vegan stuffing, all served steamed with tomato chutney, in broth, or fried in a chili sauce.

Upstate FTW

In Western New York, winters are bitter and soccer reigns supreme. The hearty, Super Bowl–pleasant native dishes—Buffalo wings, rubbish plates, beef-on-weck sandwiches—mirror that. Inside the U Street bar Sport & Social, upstate native (and Anju and Chiko co-chef/proprietor) Scott Drewno embraces all of those dishes, together with French-bread pizzas on a whole baguette and lesser-known delicacies akin to white hots and pork spiedies.

This article seems within the November 2025 subject of Washingtonian.