Best of Washington 2024: Where to Eat and Drink

Best New Food Hall

Love, Makoto

Food halls continue to open around town, but one emerges as the top new arrival: Love, Makoto. A collaboration between Eric Eden and chef David Deshaies–owners of L’Ardente and Unconventional Diner–and chef/restaurateur Makoto Okuwa, the sleek, 20,000-square-foot food hall delves deep into Japanese cooking. It’s home to Beloved Barbecue, a Japanese-style steakhouse that could stand alone as one of the city’s top eateries, as well as the new/old-school omakase spot Dear Sushi and the skewers restaurant Hiya Izakaya. A fast-casual kitchen serves easy lunch­es of ramen, soba bowls, and curry rice.

Best New Restaurant for Vegetarians

Chay

This Vietnamese spot serves standout renditions of spicy lemongrass beef noodle soup and clay-pot fish. The difference here? All the dishes are vegetarian or vegan. Chef Lan Tran makes many of her own faux meats out of tofu and vegetables at this Falls Church dining room, which she opened with her husband, Thi Le, late last year. Try banana-leaf-wrapped tapioca dumplings stuffed with carrots, mushrooms, and mung beans or the chopped “clam” dip dressed in vegetarian fish sauce. Just be sure not to miss that “beef” noodle soup, jam-packed with textures and a soulful broth.

Best New Restaurant for Meat Lovers

Ingle Korean Steakhouse

We love all-you-can-eat bulgogi as much as the next Korean-barbecue fan, but this Tysons restaurant and butcher shop offers a more upscale experience with a higher quality of beef. Go for the prix fixe, which includes four cuts of American Wag­yu served in a showy shroud of dry ice. The meal comes with a choice of prepared dishes–load up on spicy beef-and-seafood noodle soup or, at dinner, steak tartare–plus dessert. You can even order rib eyes or boneless short ribs to grill at home.

Best Restaurant If You Don’t Want to Do the Math

2 Amys

A tangle of new service fees and confusing expectations on tipping has turned paying the check into one big math and etiquette puzzle. For those who detest ending a meal with a calculator, head to 2 Amys in Cathedral Heights. Not only does the pizzeria bake some of DC’s best Neapolitan-style pies, it also bakes the entire cost of the meal into the menu price, no fees or tips. Its new sibling restaurant, Bar Del Monte in Mount Pleasant (3054 Mount Pleasant St., NW), does the same. Like many diners, owner Peter Pastan is baffled by the proliferation of fees. “It’s just an unwelcome surprise at the end of the meal,” he says. “Eating out is expensive, but moving the money around doesn’t make it any less expensive.”

Best Guacamole

Pascual

The Mexican newcomer in Capitol Hill from the team behind Georgetown neo-bistro Lutèce is already one of the hottest tables in town. The guacamole alone is a good reason why. The creamy avocado dip is fairly minimalist, with a dusting of charred onions and avocado leaf, but it comes with handmade tostadas, a trio of salsas (hoard that seedy salsa macha), smoked papaya, pickles, and other accoutrements–all served on a lazy Susan.

Best Omakase Deal

Kiyomi

Sushi omakase experiences are some of the priciest meals around, but they don’t have to be. Former Sushi Nakazawa chef Masaaki “Uchi” Uchino offers a $40 lunch deal at the 12-seat counter of Kiyomi inside downtown DC’s Square food hall. The 30-minute procession includes seven pieces of nigiri­–from flounder with lime zest to fatty tuna–a hand roll, and miso soup enriched by salmon stock. (A 15-course dinner is $100.) The quality of fish matches that of other top spots: Uchino sources from the same seafood purveyors he did at Nakazawa, where the omakase costs $190 a person.

Best Kids’ Menu

Ellie Bird

You know you can trust a children’s menu when the owners of a Michelin-starred restaurant and their toddlers have taste-tested and approved it. Carey and Yuan Tang, the couple behind the tasting-menu restaurant Rooster & Owl, offer a lot of sure bets for picky eaters–leveled up a bit–at their more family-friendly Falls Church spot. Chicken tenders are coat­ed with corn flakes and served with honey mustard, while butter noodles are handmade curly penne with Parm. And for the grazers, there’s a “char-cute-rie” board with seasonal fruit, veggies, Virginia ham, and cheese.

Best Restaurant for Nonalcoholic Cocktails

Rose’s Luxury

The days of glorified sodas masquerading as zero-proof cocktails are long gone: It’s not hard to find a creative boozeless drink on a menu anymore. How does the Capitol Hill dining room Rose’s Luxury–still a hot spot at ten years old–separate itself from the pack? Just take a sip of its fennel dirty martini. The drink–conjured from pineapple juice, fennel cordial, verjus, and olive brine and served with Greek-yogurt-stuffed olives–is as delicious and elegant-looking as the real thing.

Best Chocolate-Chip Cookies

AP Pizza Shop

Pastry talent Anne Specker–who recently left the French fine-dining rooms Kinship and Métier–is now behind the Italian-accented sweets at Bethesda hot spot Aventino and its tiny, adjacent pizza carryout. The latter is where you’ll find her chocolate-chip cookies, which are chewy, soft, and crispy in all the right places. No wonder–she’s been perfecting the back-pocket recipe for the past ten years.

Best Fancy Lunch Deal

Joon

The rose-petal-strewn sour-cherry rice at Joon, the Persian fine-dining spot in Tysons, could have an entry all its own on this list. But it’s just one of the treasures you’ll find on the restaurant’s $25 weekday lunch deal. Take a break in the chic, wood-and-brass room and you’ll also find lamb-and-pistachio meatballs on freshly baked flatbread and juicy chicken-thigh kebabs, plus minty yogurt and vibrant Shirazi salad.

Best New Restaurant Trend

Creative Martinis

The martini is classic, simple, and–let’s face it–sometimes boring. Lately, though, bar­tenders have been putting creative twists on the James Bond staple. (And no, we’re not talking espresso martinis.) At Italian American Caruso’s Grocery, an antipasti-inspired version combines tomato-distilled gin with olive and mozzarella brine. The Levantine hit Albi in Navy Yard infuses vodka with a za’atar spice blend, then drizzles it with olive oil. But one of our favorites comes from the sandwich shop Your Only Friend, where the combination of clarified olive brine and MSG tastes like a subtly funky blue cheese.

Best Fancy Bodega

Mae’s Market

There was a lot of chatter after the corner-store chain Foxtrot dramatically shut down all its locations, but the reality is the area is still teeming with great gourmet markets and bodegas. We’re partial to Mae’s Market in Old Town, which sells Maldon salt, specialty snacks, and other pantry goods as well as take-home meals and deli sandwiches. (Go for the Italian grinder–layered with soppressata, provolone, and hot peppers–or the fresh Green Goddess.) Owner Nicole Jones also runs the adjoining wine bar Virginia’s Darling.

Where to find great deals at all hours of the day.

For Martini Lovers

Cucina Morini

Chef Matt Adler’s Sicilian spot in Mount Vernon Triangle has one of DC’s best martini deals. Seven dollars unlocks a range of gin or vodka creations, including a caper-and-dill martini and an espresso variation. The deal is available Tuesday through Sunday in the lounge.

On a Budget

Last Call

These days, many happy hours cost the same as the full-price drinks of the recent past. But this Union Market dive takes the daily deal seriously with $3 “teeny tiny ‘tinis,’ ” $4 lagers, and $5 draft old-fashioneds.

For Fancy Snacks

Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab

Channel a late three-martini lunch near the White House every day from 2:30 to 6. You’ll find half-price classic cocktails and oysters on the half shell, plus discounts on French-dip sliders and lobster deviled eggs.

For Late Night

Death Punch Bar

Night owls can take ad­vantage of the two-hour all-you-can-drink bar for $20 from 10 pm to midnight or from midnight to 2 am. The deal covers no-frills draft beers and rail drinks in a chill environment–ideal for Adams Morgan revelers keeping the party going.

Our buildings may be short, but DC still has great roofs.

For Dinnertime Ambience

Perry’s

Strung with pretty twinkle lights, the rooftop at this Adams Morgan Japanese restaurant has remained a favorite for 40 summers. Since chef Masako Morishita took over the kitchen in 2022, the cooking is as thrilling as the neighborhood views.

For Waterfront Views

12 Stories

DC’s lack of skyscrapers means we don’t have some of the jaw-dropping vistas of taller cities, but this clubby cocktail bar (yes, there’s bottle service) atop the Wharf’s InterContinental hotel is about as close as you can get. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer almost 360-degree views of the Potomac River and monuments.

For a Group Picnic

Hi-Lawn

You’ll find a green escape above Union Market at this bar that feels more like a park. Stock up on provisions in the downstairs food hall or buy boozy juice boxes at the bar, then spread a blanket on the astroturf or grab a picnic table for a breezy get-together.

Best Bagel Bread Furst

Cookbook author Joan Nathan is the queen of Jewish food, having written 12 tomes on the topic, including the recent My Life in Recipes. When she’s craving a bagel, Nathan picks up the doughy rounds at Bread Furst, a bakery in Van Ness. “They are the closest to the ones I grew up with,” says Nathan. “They seem like the wood-burned Montreal bagels, except that [owner Mark Furstenberg’s] bagels include salt and sorghum molasses, so they are not as sweet.”

This article appears in the June 2024 issue of Washingtonian.