100 Very Best 2014
Sure, San Francisco chef Michael Mina’s softly lit Four Seasons steakhouse offers what you’d expect—big-ticket cuts of Japanese Miyazaki and Angus beef, creamed spinach, a $10 baked potato—but it also flouts expectations. His deputy in Washington, John Critchley, has lent an Asian accent to much of the menu, and it results in some of a recent dinner’s best dishes. A beautiful confit leg of duck was perched atop udon noodles and paired with a Concord-grape-scented riff on naam prik, a Thai condiment. A side of meaty eggplant got a Chinese-inspired sweet-and-sour glaze, while perfectly seared cubes of bigeye tuna were streaked with Vietnamese-style caramel. For dessert, revert to American classics, in the form of a towering root-beer float or a dense brownie served with whiskey-filled sugar capsules. In the always bumping adjacent lounge, you’ll find some of the area’s best cheeseburgers and fries.
Open: Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday and Sunday for dinner.
Don’t Miss: Tuna tartare with Asian pear and mint; wedge salad with blue cheese and ranch dressing; charcuterie board; lamb burger; truffled mac and cheese; coco-bean cassoulet with goat; caramel apple with hibiscus; Grape Expectations cocktail, with Pisco and Concord grape.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
