Bon Appetit’s love affair with DC continues. The magazine, which just named Washington the Restaurant City of the Year, released its Hot 10 list of the best new eateries in America. Taking second place behind Atlanta’s Staplehouse: Bad Saint, the Filipino gem in Columbia Heights that draws nightly lines for its coveted 24 seats.
Restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton fell in love with chef Tom Cunanan’s freshwater shrimp fritters and clams with Chinese sausage, and dubbed co-owner Genevieve Villamora “the most gracious host I met all year.”
“Their food is personal, but it’s so much more than just dishes they ate as kids. Bad Saint is the kind of place I spend all year searching for,” writes Knowlton.
Bon Appetit’s Hot 10 list was chosen from a pool of 50 semifinalists across the US, which included the Dabney, Jeremiah Langhorne’s Mid-Atlantic restaurant in Shaw, and Tail Up Goat in Adams Morgan whose goat lasagna clinched Pasta of the Year. All three are stellar examples of the kind of “fearless” neighborhood restaurants that Knowlton credits with the rise of DC’s dining scene. We couldn’t agree more.
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.
