About China Chilcano
José Andrés mines the cuisine of Peru, one of South America’s richest culinary plains, at this loud, flashbulb-bright dining room strewn with colorful pillows. As at pretty much every other place in José world, dishes have been distilled into small plates and are set off with inventive cocktails (try the Inca Sunrise, with rum, passionfruit, and muddled tomato). The menu can be tricky to navigate—it throws together Peruvian standards such as lomo saltado with dishes that bear a heavy Chinese or Japanese influence. Our advice: Get one of the excellent (and massive) fried-rice bowls and accent it with an array of dumplings, ceviches, and sushi rolls made with potato instead of rice. And feel free to get a little extra—dessert here is pretty skippable.
Don’t miss: shrimp-and-pork dumplings; lamb pot stickers; pork buns; eel and hamachi nigiri; California roll; tuna ceviche; shrimp Maestro Wong.
See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.