About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Upside on Moore. 1700 N Moore St., Arlington.
Despite the skyscrapers and dense development in Rosslyn, it’s not exactly a bustling destination on a Friday night. The team behind Upside on Moore, a new food hall opening today just above the Rosslyn metro, is hoping to gin up some excitement—and maybe even a bit of nightlife—in the chilly business district.
Upside on Moore features outposts of existing DC-area eateries—Ghostburger, Stellina Pizzeria, Laoban Dumplings, Lucky Danger, La Michoacana—and some newer eateries opening their first brick-and-mortar locations—Kam & 46, Lili’s, and Lightning Coffee Co.
The 30,000 square-foot space has plentiful bar seating, and comfortable lounge-like areas with lots of charging ports and fast wi-fi. Mothersauce, the restaurant group behind the food hall, intends it to be a one-stop shop for all-day meals, remote work, and nights out. For now, it’s open 7 AM to 9 PM every weekday, with weekends coming later.
“Rosslyn is not exactly known for being cool,” says Nick Freshman, Mothersauce’s founder. “But 12,000 people live within a six minute walk of this food hall. That is extraordinary density, except they just leave. They go to Georgetown or they go to Clarendon. Well, we want them to stay here.”
To accomplish that, Freshman says his team tried to improve on Assembly, the food hall that had previously occupied the space since 2021. Assembly’s restaurants were all run by the same team, and were created uniquely for the food hall. Mothersauce hopes to avoid that concept’s fate by tapping restaurateurs with existing name recognition and plenty of prior experience.
Many of the vendors have created special menus for the new space. Ghostburger, the Biden-Harris-approved burger and cheesesteak spot from Josh and Kelly Phillips, is serving some new items at its Upside location, including the Arlington Ripper, a hot dog topped with bacon, pimentos, and pickled red cabbage, and the Upside Smash, a burger topped with sweet chili garlic sauce and the same pickled cabbage.
Next door at Stellina Pizzeria, chef Matteo Venini has developed a new style of Roman-style pizza in teglia, a kind of pan pizza with a pre-baked fermented dough base. Cacio e pepe and zucchini-pistachio-pesto are among the topping choices.
Lili’s, which shares an extended bar seating area with Stellina, serves American bistro fare like steak frites, salads, and Old Bay wings. It’s the creation of Adam Stein, a partner at Mothersauce—which also helped open Thompson Italian in Falls Church, and runs other local businesses. The food hall’s bar has a cocktail program developed by Elli Benchimol of Georgetown Champagne-and-caviar bar Apéro.
Chef Tim Ma’s Lucky Danger counter serves classic Chinese-American takeout like beef lo mein, veggie spring rolls, and General Tso’s chicken, and the dumplings from his adjoining Laoban Dumplings come with fillings like ginger chicken and mala beef.
Kam & 46, a Hawaiian-Filipino food truck and pop-up, has mashups like kalua pork sisig nachos and chicken adobo musubi.
Freshman says he wants the food hall to be somewhere Rossyln-ites can post up to work, with comfortable seating, outlets everywhere, and an outdoor space that will open soon.
“Whenever you get hungry, just order something to your table, and work all day,” he says. “Being an amazing third place destination is something food halls can really be if they’re done right.”
