100 Very Best Restaurants 2017: Anxo Cidery & Pintxos Bar
Anxo Cidery & Pintxos Bar brings together an international array of hard ciders and Basque-style cuisine. Photograph by Farrah Skeiky
DC’s first cidery bills itself as a pintxos bar, but the Spanish menu goes much deeper than toothpick-size snacks. Anchor your meal with a perfectly medium-rare bone-in rib eye, sliced up so it’s easily shareable for two to four, and accompanied by a simple romaine salad in a sherry vinaigrette you’ll aspire to replicate. Then throw in a few snacks (preserved-tuna montaditos, garlic soup) and tapas (grilled green onions, caramelized-onion-stuffed squid). Of course, you can’t miss the cider. The Anxo team makes its own funky, Spanish-style varieties that run sour, but you can sample a spectrum of flavors through flights as well. Moderate.
Also great: Fried tiger mussels; crisp artichokes; fried pig ears; roasted quail; cider-poached octopus.
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Executive Food Editor/Critic
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.
Food Editor
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.
Food Editor
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
Articles Editor
Kristen Hinman has been editing Washingtonian’s features since 2014. She joined the magazine after editing politics & policy coverage for Bloomberg Businessweek and working as a staff writer for Voice Media Group/Riverfront Times.