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Fusion cuisine became trendy back in the ’80s. People who weren’t even born when the first bok-choy-stuffed taco hit menus can now legally vote, drink, and pay taxes. So what makes Masa 14, a new Latin/Asian restaurant that opened its doors Monday, think it can make an impression?

Well, the neighborhood doesn’t hurt. The area around 14th and U streets, Northwest, which was being called “up-and-coming” only five years ago, is now one of the city’s liveliest. The Black Cat is there. So is Bar Pilar, Cork, Busboys and Poets, and Ben’s Chili Bowl. Not bad neighbors for a new restaurant courting a mix of young professionals and college students.

Trummer’s on Main aspires to bring big-time dining to Clifton. Photograph by Chris Leaman.

The people behind Trummer’s on Main, a new restaurant in Clifton, have serious foodie credentials: Stefan Trummer—a co-owner with his wife, Victoria—worked at Masa and Bouley, two of Manhattan’s best restaurants; executive chef Clayton Miller cooked at California’s revered French Laundry and at Daniel in Manhattan; and sommelier Tyler Packwood is a ten-year veteran of the Inn at Little Washington.

So it should come as no surprise that they’ve put together an ambitious offering: a restaurant with three levels, 210 seats, and a 4,000-bottle wine cellar. If there’s anything left of the building’s 140-year history—it was once the Clifton Hotel, then the Hermitage Inn—it’s the whisper of a farmhouse in the exposed beams of the dining room’s vaulted ceilings. The dark first-floor lounge, anchored by a marbled onyx bar, is more modern, just like Miller’s food.

His dishes are painterly compositions with striking colors—neon-red rhubarb shares a plate with a vivid spinach purée—but they sometimes result in a cacophony of textures and flavors. An appetizer of pine-nut-and-ricotta tortellini was complicated by the addition of lamb sausage, rock crab, Bing cherries, and a carrot/white-wine sauce. Offerings with the fewest ingredients—a bowl of spiced potato chips at the bar, a jar of warm brandade, coconut sorbet with a hibiscus foam—are the most rewarding.

DC’s posh Mandarin Oriental hotel might be an unlikely place to show off the sleepy, Southern side of Washington, but chef Eric Ziebold is seeking to do just that. His casual new restaurant, Sou’Wester, offers a Gone With the Wind vibe with gone-to-the-Eastern-Shore regional comfort food.

Occupying the former Café MoZU space, the restaurant invokes a distinctly different sense of time and place than Ziebold’s sleek destination dining room, CityZen. Diners catch their first whiff of Sou’Wester’s bucolic-chic seasoning in the lobby “sun porch,” where “country time” happy hour—with cocktails between $7 and $10—is served in wooden rocking chairs daily from 3 to 5. Inside, ceiling lamps covered in wicker resemble crab pots, sunflowers float in glass vases, and a spacious, breezy dining room looks out on houseboats bobbing on the Southwest waterfront.

“Sou’Wester is a moment back in time,” says Ziebold. “When creating it, we thought, ‘What is it that we’d like to eat in DC sitting on the waterfront? What represents the city?’ ”

It’s only fitting that leaves play a decorative role in chef Daniel Singhofen’s rustic Dupont Circle dining room, Eola. The foliage that twists around light fixtures and tabletop candles is right in line with the restaurant’s fresh-picked ethos and ever-changing menu. It’s a familiar formula: The restaurant works closely with local co-ops, and as the available produce shifts, so do Eola’s dishes.

France and Italy aren’t the best of neighbors. Although they share a fiery Latin lineage, stubborn nationalistic streaks, and a tendency to head-butt each other in World Cup finals, it’s the rare Frenchman who admits a love of anything Italian . . . except maybe Carla Bruni. So why would Stephane Lezla and Christopher Raynal, whose brains and recipes are behind one of Washington’s best French bistros, Montmartre, open SeventhHill—a pizzeria tucked between their other restaurant and Le Pain Quotidien along Eastern Market’s petit goût de France—which debuts today?

In the last couple of years, lots of celebrity chefs from all over the country have descended upon Washington. Last week, we heard that another big-name toque—Boston’s Michael Schlow—has our town in his sights. Adding fuel to the rumor: Schlow, who was a contestant on Top Chef Masters this summer, was recently spotted dining at Bibiana with PassionFood’s Jeff Tunks. Unlike many of the newly landed Washington chefs, Schlow doesn’t have restaurants all over the country—he’s best known for his restaurants in Boston, which include the French-accented Radius and the Italian Via Matta, as well as Alta Strada in Wellesley and at Connecticut casino Foxwoods. Could he be looking to add another eatery to his portfolio?

Restaurateur Ashok Bajaj has long been known for the Indian cuisine at dining rooms such as Rasika and the Bombay Club, and the Modern American cooking at the Oval Room and 701. So why open an Italian restaurant?

“Why not?” Bajaj responds.

His newest endeavor—downtown DC’s Bibiana—serves up rustic Italian dishes in a Milano-chic dining room. It’s Bajaj’s seventh restaurant in the area.