Ellie Bird

The more casual sibling to the DC tasting-menu spot Rooster & Owl is the rare place where you can have an elegant date night or a fun family outing. Chef Yuan Tang excels at cross-cultural mash-ups, such as a Vietnamese-pho-inspired French onion soup with braised oxtail or mochi waffles with fermented-banana crème anglaise at brunch. The three-course prix fixe dinner ($55) is an ideal route for sampling menu highlights. But good luck resisting a bite of your kid’s corn-flake-crusted chicken tendies.