100 Very Best 2014Jeff Tunks’s Reston seafood palace has a shimmering new sibling inside a downtown Bethesda condo building. Few other restaurants in the area serve pescatarians so well, and the kitchens at both locations—overseen by longtime chef de cuisine Chris Clime—excel with a wide range of styles, including New England-inspired fry-ups, ceviche, and sushi. (In Bethesda, a dedicated sushi chef turns out terrific rolls.) The raw bar is a particular strength. The Big Daddy—a three-tiered tower overflowing with Wellfleet clams, oysters, jumbo-lump crab cocktail, and a whole lobster—is one of the best excuses there is to celebrate.
Don’t miss: Rock roll, with spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, and mango; Machu Picchu roll, with flounder, kampachi, and chipotle/lime; Kung Pao calamari; fried clams; fried oysters; Chinese-style smoked lobster; red-curry lobster; whole crispy flounder; mussels with limoncello cream; Key-lime tart.
See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.
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.
