100 Very Best Restaurant 2016: Estadio

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Photo by Scott Suchman

About Estadio

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cuisines
Spanish

If you ever want to convince brunch-haters that there’s more to the scene than tepid Benedict and flat mimosas, take them to this tapas house. We can’t think of a happier way to start a morning than with its toasted country bread with honey butter and Maldon salt, or some of the creamiest scrambled eggs we’ve tasted. There’s plenty more at dinnertime, when the no-reservations-after-6 dining room fills up fast—tiny, crusty sandwiches filled with oil-slicked chorizo and nutty Idiazabal cheese, plancha-grilled calamari doused with lemon, a cheesecake made with Manchego, and, to go with it all, killer gin-and-tonics and seasonal “slushitos.”

Don’t miss: White-garlic soup; pork-belly sandwich with pickled peppers; ham croquetas; grilled chicken with green rice; sherry-steamed clams; hanger steak with blue cheese; sherry float.

See what other restaurants made our 100 Very Best Restaurants list. This article appears in our February 2016 issue of Washingtonian.


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.

Ann Limpert
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.