20 New Restaurants Coming to DC This Spring and Summer

Alfie’s

Chef/restaurateur Alex McCoy is best known for his burgers and breakfast burritos at Lucky Buns. But he’s also a Thai-food obsessive: In 2016, he and chef Justin Ahn opened Alfie’s, dishing out Isaan-style Northern Thai cooking for six short months in Park View. Fans of the place—and there were many—will be happy to hear that Alfie’s will make a permanent return this summer in a 25-seat Georgetown space. McCoy will source ingredients for dishes like beef-rib khao soi from a farm on the Eastern Shore and serve natural wine and ice-cold beer alongside.

Barbouzard

The closure of Convivial last year was a major blow to Shaw’s restaurant scene. Now chef Cedric Maupillier is back with a beachy, DJ-soundtracked homage to the French Riviera. The downtown DC restaurant, coming this summer, will showcase Southern French Mediterranean fare such as bouillabaisse, salade niçoise, ratatouille, and tarte tropézienne. For those missing Convivial, Maupillier has promised to deliver his French on-ion soup, leeks vinaigrette, and duck cassoulet, too.

Bar Chinois

Bar Chinois, where French-inspired cocktails accompany fusion dim sum, is an industrial-chic anchor for the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood. In May, a sibling will arrive in a sizable space at Crystal City’s National Landing development. Wash down French-onion-soup-like gyoza de boeuf with martinis; at happy hour, dollar dumplings are a particular draw.

Bar Colline

Along with its Amazon-fueled development boom, Crystal City has seen an explosion of new restaurants in the past few years. Joining the party this summer are Eric and Ian Hilton, the bistro specialists behind Chez Billy Sud and Café Colline. Bar Colline, their new venture, will feature a French comfort menu oriented toward share plates and cocktail fare.

BirdSong

In early May, chef Kitima Boonmala will bring her spicy, noodle-focused Thai cooking to a neighborhood that could use the injection of flavor: Chevy Chase DC. After a series of BirdSong pop-ups, the first brick-and-mortar restaurant is a team effort with local restaurateur Aaron Gordon of Little Beast up the street. Expect serious Thai market fare, including tapioca dumplings and spicy-sour fish soup.

Breads Unlimited & Pizza

The doughnuts, challah, and hamantaschen from Breads Unlimited in Bethesda have had a loyal following for more than 40 years. This summer, the Molina family, who own the bakery as well as Edith’s Pizza next door, are planning their first-ever expansion. Breads Unlimited & Pizza combines the two family businesses in the same Kensington strip mall that houses Johnson’s garden center. If you’re used to grabbing a doughnut after a trip to Strosnider’s Hardware in Bethesda, now you can do the same after shopping at the plant store in Kensington.

Casamara and Reynold’s

Not one but two restaurants with Canadian roots are arriving in DC this month as part of the Sixty DC hotel, a luxurious new property just off Dupont Circle. So far, the dining spots from Toronto’s Scale Hospitality look like the kind of slick but comfortable international eateries that fit right in as hotel restaurants. Casamara is a Mediterranean place serving Ibérico pork chops and branzino crudo, while Reynold’s is the clubby martini bar in the lobby.

Chai Pani

In Asheville and Atlanta, Chai Pani has set itself apart as an Indian street-food destination, earning a James Beard Award for chef/restaurateur Meherwan Irani. This summer, he’ll travel north to open a Union Market location. Washingtonians are no strangers to great chaat, paneer tikka, and vada pav. But Irani and new executive chef Vishwesh Bhatt put their own vibrant spin on the genre with dishes like matchstick okra fries and a KFC (Kashmiri fried chicken) sandwich.

Daily Provisions

If you’ve ever been to Daily Provisions in New York—and had a bite of its maple cruller doughnut or bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich—you’ll understand the excitement around its upcoming expansion into the Dupont space that once housed Foxtrot. This is not your typical millennial coffee shop—the baked goods, sandwiches, and roast chicken are backed up by the culinary know-how of restaurateur Danny Meyer, who started Shake Shack and Union Square Cafe.

Electric Bull

This summer, Vienna is getting a “boutique steakhouse” courtesy of chef Victor Albisu, who used to own the South American grill Del Campo and has since helmed the Taco Bamba chain. Inspired by the parrilla restaurants of the Southern Cone—and by Albisu’s mother’s own Virginia butcher shop—Electric Bull will focus on cuts seldom seen in US steakhouses, including picaña and Albisu’s signature skirt steak, which is rolled with burnt onion, rosemary chimichurri, Dijon mustard, and Parmesan.

Fish Shop

This newly opened Wharf spot is the creation not of a typical restaurant group but of the hospitality arm of Hauser & Wirth, one of the world’s premier contemporary-art galleries. It is the second iteration of a Michelin-listed destination in the Scottish Highlands—near Balmoral Castle—that counts King Charles as a fan. The walls are decked out with tartan, but forget about mushy peas and chips: Crab crumpets, lobster pasta, and dry-aged local fish are more chef Ria Montes’s speed.

Gwenie’s and Lapu Lapu

The Fernandez family has single-handedly leveled up the Filipino food scene in Montgomery County with Gwenie’s Pastries, breakfast destination Lapu Lapu, and fast-casual hit Kuya Ja’s Lechon Belly. Stella Fernandez, one of the family scions, is soon bringing Gwenie’s and Lapu Lapu to Pentagon City. Expect plenty of baked goods tinted vibrant violet with ube, the Philippines’ favorite purple yam.

Karravaan

For his forthcoming Union Market restaurant, Sanjay Mandhaiya—also chef at Logan Circle’s Pappe—was inspired by proximity to the busy train tracks next door. Karravaan is meant to tell a culinary narrative about travel, specifically the movements of Persian, Portuguese, and Ottoman traders and migrants that are responsible for dishes like lamb biryani and pork vindaloo. Mandhaiya will riff on both and focus on large, shareable dishes.

Lucky Danger

Chef Tim Ma’s Lucky Danger concept has taken many forms—a pandemic takeout business, an Arlington carryout, a Nats Park stall—all embracing Americanized Chinese cooking and treating it as a worthy cuisine in itself. This summer, Ma will launch a full-service restaurant in Penn Quarter with refined sit-down-style dishes such as cured sea scallop with yuzu and Asian pear; Peking duck; and whole crispy flounder with ginger and scallion. Ma’s usual takeout offerings, like crab rangoon and lo mein, will be there, too.
 

Maison Bar à Vins

A Parisian-style wine bar from a star DC restaurant team—the Popal Group, also behind Lutèce and Pascual—is coming any day now to an Adams Morgan rowhouse across from their cozy Afghan spot, Lapis. Consider Maison an oenophilic spinoff of Lutèce, where chef Matt Conroy and his beverage team will focus on French wines made by small producers, plus the kind of stuff you’d snack on in the 11th arrondissement: eel croquettes, seasonal terrines, and brioche-stuffed chicken.

The Salty Donut

Miami-born Salty Donut already has a dozen outposts across Florida and the Southeast. This summer, it’s fanning across the Washington area—first at the Wharf and on Barracks Row, then in Georgetown and Fairfax’s Mosaic District. Doughnut flavors are wild and indulgent—cookie butter/banana cream pie, white chocolate/tres leches, and chocolate whoopie pie—and there are gluten-free options. Plus, as the name suggests, the Salty Donut always offers savory choices like everything-bagel cream-cheese puffs and flaky “cragels.”

Snow Crane

An ambitious, minimalist, distinctly Japanese ice-cream shop will make its home in Hyattsville later this year. Takeshi Nishikawa, former culinary director of Rose’s Luxury, has made a passion project of starting an ice-cream parlor “where culinary artistry meets cultural storytelling.” Nishikawa’s frozen creations, incorporating flavors like cherry leaf, Okinawan black sugar, hojicha (roasted green tea), and kinako (nutty soybean flour), look as inventive as some of his work at Rose’s. If you can’t wait, check Snow Crane’s Instagram for pop-ups at Gateway Farmers Market, Mess Hall, and elsewhere.

Uchi

The 20-year-old Austin restaurant Uchi has become the hottest sushi spot in cowboy country, with locations in Dallas, Denver, Houston, and Scottsdale. This fall, its James Beard Award–winning chef, Tyson Cole, will bring his distinctive oak-grilled escolar and Thai-chili-spiked yellowtail crudo to downtown DC. These are cavernous, slick eateries with plenty of options for omakase, hot and cold small plates, and tempura—it’s easy to imagine the place fitting in with the glassy 17XM development.

This article appears in the May 2025 issue of Washingtonian.