Baker’s Daughter
1402 Okie St., NE
Michelin-starred Gravitas chef Matt Baker has branched out in Ivy City with a dressed down, all-day cafe and gourmet market. Mornings bring sweet and savory pastries, fresh-pressed juices, coffee drinks, and dishes that run the gamut from just-worked-out (acai bowls, avocado toast) to weekend items like a decadent short rib polenta bowl with a runny egg. Don’t forget to load up on homemade breads and other goodies for the next day.
Mah-Ze-Dahr
1201 Half St., SE
James Beard semifinalist Umber Ahmad opens her first venture outside NYC—a serene blue-and-white bakery near Nationals Park proffering La Colombe coffees, croissants, brioche doughnuts, dark chocolate brownies, and other confections, which have earned avid fans in Manhattan since the flagship Greenwich Village location’s debut in 2016. The DC branch is a collaboration with Knead Hospitality + Design (Mi Vida, Succotash, the Grill), and adjoins the hospitality group’s next big venture: Gatsby, an American diner slated to open this winter, where Ahmad will helm the pastry program.
Levain Bakery
3131 M St., NW
The massive cookies have landed. Smash hit Levain Bakery expands for the first time outside New York with a chic shop in Georgetown that opened this week. Expect the same cookies—craggy and crisp on the outside, dense and gooey on the inside—that earned a cult-like following. The bakery also turns out fresh sweet and savory breads, brioches, bomboloncini, and more. For the opening month, local pastry whiz Paola Velez devised a special cafe con leche-inspired cookie whose proceeds benefit Horton’s Kids.
Ghostline
2340 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Start the day with Ghost Dog Egg Man, the morning breakfast vendor at Glover Park’s new “ghost food hall.”* The lineup, exclusively available for takeout and delivery for now, includes a lengthy menu of coffees and teas, quiches, brioche breakfast sandwiches, and three styles of breakfast burritos (veggie, extra cheesy, and bacon-y). Look for sit down brunch down the line in the food hall’s rear garden patio.
Cameo Coffee
1401 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
After nearly three years in the works, The Roost—a huge food hall from Neighborhood Restaurant Group in Capitol Hill East—is ready to roll out. Among the first of ten concepts, opening over the course of the next few months, is this coffee shop helmed by Nazia Khan, formerly of The Wydown. Eco-conscious coffees and teas from around the world are the focus. Look for pastries from NRG’s main shop, Buzz Bakery, as well as Pluma. Forthcoming concepts at the “culinary clubhouse” include Hi/Fi Taco shop, all-day cafe Leni, and NYC-style Slice Joint.
Tatte
1200 New Hampshire Ave., NW
The first DC location of this popular Boston-based bakery chain recently opened in West End with Israeli-inspired pastries, all-day breakfast, and brunch designed by chef/owner Tzurit Or. Egg dishes abound, whether in sandwiches made with homemade croissants or in breads, tartines, and shakshuka. The airy, plant-filled space is inviting, but for now, seating is limited to an outdoor patio.
*Ghostline is owned by Spiegel’s brother-in-law, Aaron Gordon.
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.
