Neighborhood Guide: Things to Do in Southwest Waterfront

The Southwest Waterfront has gone from being the Forgotten Quadrant to becoming one of the liveliest places in DC. It continues to evolve with restaurants that transport you to international destinations and shops that satisfy your cravings. Here’s what to check out.

Food and Drink

Little Chicken

Chef-perfected chicken tenders and fried-chicken sandwiches are the name of the game at Little Chicken, a summery new addition to the Wharf from Casey Patten and Gerald Addison—the duo behind Grazie Grazie—plus chef Chris Morgan. The electric-pink, neon-lit “backyard bar” is a reincarnation of the former downtown Little Chicken, which the team has since turned into the loungey Grazie Mille. Cocktails, wings, and frozen custard round out the offerings.

Dōgon

Dōgon is set to mark celebrity chef Kwame Onwuachi’s triumphant return to DC sometime this year, after he won a James Beard Award, wrote two books, and left the District to open an exalted Manhattan restaurant. The Afro-Caribbean eatery in the Salamander hotel will be a high-concept paean to Benjamin Banneker, the Black cartographer who helped trace the District’s original borders.

Limani

The vast, swanky Limani touched down in a three-story space with commanding views of the Wharf’s marina last November. The food is high-end Greek maritime fare, with charcoal-broiled whole fish, grilled octopus, and mezze sides such as paper-thin fried eggplant and zucchini kolokithi. But Limani, which also has locations in New York, Philadelphia, and North Carolina, is as much about the luxurious vibe—yacht views, sound-dampening panels, capacious booths, and white tablecloths—as it is about the fish.

Zooz

When the Azzouz brothers opened Zooz in March, they wanted it to feel like a city they visit often: Dubai. The new spot—from the team that owns Penn Quarter’s Urban Roast—features ostentatious smoked and fancifully topped cocktails, bottle service, nightly DJs, and a glitzy Gulf-style interior with a starry ceiling.

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen, which opened last year, is a 14,000-square-foot tribute to the chef’s bellicose persona and his comparatively tame, British-inspired cuisine, including his signature: beef Wellington. Before opening his flagship, the TV personality had ventured into the Wharf in 2022 with Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips (665 Wharf St., SW), a casual chippy dishing up cod, fries, and chicken sandwiches just across the way.

Philippe Chow

If its initial New York location attracted Manhattan machers, celebrities, and wannabe celebrities, the Wharf outpost of Philippe Chow is looking to hook political power players. The Hong Kong–trained chef’s crowd-pleasing cooking—think spare ribs, chicken satay, stir-fries, and Peking duck—takes something of a backseat to the flashy finery of the dining room, a gilded 350-seat space with a patio and water views.

Lucky Buns

Chef Alex McCoy brought his double-patty burgers—some of the city’s best—to the Wharf last April with by far the most well-appointed and spacious location of Lucky Buns. McCoy’s juicy burgers come with distinctive toppings such as Hatch-chili relish, bacon XO jam, and Gouda. Your menu options go much further, too: crispy-chicken sandwiches, hot wings, Chesapeake-blue-crab rangoon, “go-go fries” with half-smoke chili, housemade ice creams, and frozen cocktails.

Jessie Taylor Seafood

While there’s still an empty spot where Captain White Seafood City once docked at the Wharf’s historic Municipal Fish Market—the country’s oldest continuously operating open-air fish market, dating to 1805—other fishmongers are staying afloat. Jessie Taylor Seafood, a fixture there for more than 80 years, recently signed a 20-year lease and even opened a carryout called Jessie’s Seafood Dinners in February. The spot, with high-top tables for dining, serves up platters of jumbo lump crabcakes and fried fish with classic sides like sweet-potato fries and coleslaw. Oh, and don’t pass on a towering slice of chocolate Smith Island layer cake.

Things to Do

Boat Tours

It’s hard to walk down Wharf Street without feeling an itch to get on the water. Luckily, there’s a boatload of new ways to do just that. For those who’d like to go for a dip at the same time, consider getting sudsy with Sea the City DC’s Hot Tub Boat. Launched last fall, the company’s custom-built watercraft is equipped with two massive hot tubs (each big enough to hold ten) for a bubbly, two-hour soak on the Potomac. Or cruise back in time by renting one of Sea Suite’s Retro Boats, a colorful fleet of vintage runabout boats, retrofitted with chrome touches and quieter electric motors, that set sail last summer. You might also channel your inner Barbie by climbing aboard one of Sloan’s Pink Boats. Launched in April, the service offers chartered tours aboard splashy pontoon boats, all decked out in—you guessed it—hot pink.

Circuit

Parking in this neighborhood is pricey, and it’s a healthy walk to the Wharf from the nearest Metro, leaving some to search for a better way. On-demand electric shuttles have been zipping people around the Southwest Waterfront and the Wharf since last summer—and for just two bucks a ride. The new vehicles come from Circuit, a micro-transit company known for its all-electric fleets. It partnered with the city’s Mobility Innovation District, created in 2022 to test out new transportation options and reduce congestion in the area. Want a lift? You’ll need to download the Circuit app, but for $2 you can choose where you’d like to be picked up and dropped off, as long as it’s within the Southwest service zone.

Shopping

Lip Lab

The workers behind the sleek marble bar at this new spot aren’t shaking up any drinks—they’re mixing custom shades of lipstick, balm, and gloss. Open since October, Lip Lab offers a DIY cosmetic experience, in which you work with a “color expert” to combine vegan and talc-free pigments until the result has reached your desired hue. As cosmetologist for the day, you can choose among the taste of vanilla, pomegranate, mango, or mint on your lips, along with a matte, satin, sheer, or balmy finish. Once done, dream up the perfect name—Cherry Blossom Charm? Potomac Shimmer?—for engraving onto the side of your color.

Kilwins

You can catch confectioners peddling Mackinac Island fudge and pulling caramels from a copper kettle at Kilwins. Just a few years after opening its first DC franchise in Navy Yard, the Michigan-born chain began slinging its handcrafted sweets at the Wharf last year. Expect the chocolatier’s usual array of temptations: giant caramel apples, chocolate Tuttles (Kilwins’ version of a turtle), truffles, and 24 flavors of ice cream, such as toasted coconut, “fudgie brownie,” and its summer offering, Georgia peach.

Pet Shoppe Boys

After noticing a lack of pet-supply stores in the neighborhood, Troy Englert and Patrick Dempsey—proud parents of two Bedlington terriers—opened the Pet Shoppe Boys in April 2023. The quaint store is dedicated to carrying premium dog and cat food, such as Dr. Marty’s Vital Essentials, Open Farm, and Fromm, along with an assortment of pet furniture, toys, and other accessories, including collars and harnesses. And yes, four-legged friends can shop there, too.

Local Chains

The footprints of two local businesses—Politics and Prose bookstore and Cordial at the Wharf—grew this past year after both relocated to larger spaces in the neighborhood. Pop in to visit the new Champagne wall at Cordial. The shop—known for its craft wines, beers, and spirits—moved into a bigger spot at 70 District Square in March. Then, after picking up a bottle of bubbly, peruse the expanded selection of books at Politics and Prose, which took over a larger storefront in September (and now shares a building with the Atlantic).

What’s Selling

The Southwest Waterfront neighborhood is a mix of midcentury-modern town-houses and co-ops as well as glitzy new condos and apartments. Here’s a sampling of what has sold recently.

This article appears in the June 2024 issue of Washingtonian.