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Welcome to Washingtonian’s Hot List! These are 10 restaurants our food team is particularly excited about right now. Every month, we’ll swap in and out new recommendations—old and new, fancy and casual—that we’ve visited recently and deserve your attention. While our 100 Very Best Restaurants ranking is still our ultimate guide to the DC area’s top dining destinations, this is a place where we’ll give you a real-time pulse check on the region’s eating and drinking scene.
Chinese • Rockville • 5700 Fishers Ln., Rockville
Sichuan flavors entered the repertoire of DMV Chinese restaurants decades ago, but serious Sichuan eateries—the ones that serve dishes like spicy-and-numbing frog, fish-flavored eggplant, and ice-cold, prism-shaped liang fen (bean jelly)—are still few and far between. Chuan Tian Xia, which quietly opened in 2022 and is also known by the English name “Good Harvest,” is serious about these dishes. The kitchen also plays the hits wonderfully: rich mapo tofu, fiery Chongqing chicken, and its signature fish hot pot dishes.
Afro-Caribbean • Southwest • 1330 Maryland Ave., SW
In 2020, rising star chef Kwame Onwuachi closed his hit Wharf restaurant Kith and Kin and moved back to his native New York. In September, he returned to our city a legit star, having launched Tatiana, the Lincoln Center restaurant that in 2023 the New York Times crowned #1 in the city. Here, Onwuachi’s Afro-Caribbean dining room is darkly lit, sexy, and the kind of place you dress up for. It’s pretty impossible to get into right now, but make it past the curtain of gold chains at the entrance, and there are rich rewards. Buttery blue crab is served in its shell alongside tiny plantain hoecakes and a terrific green sauce inspired by DC’s Peruvian chicken joints. Charbroiled oysters arrive with a red stew jam you’ll want to keep around for the whole meal. And a platter of smoky wagyu short rib is beautifully arranged with pickles, sauces, and lettuce for wrapping. This is some of the most thrilling, delicious food we’ve eaten all year.
American • Fairfax • 10822 Fairfax Blvd., Fairfax
Jonathan Krinn—the chef who brought fine-dining energy to Fairfax County with restaurants like 2941 and Clarity—has a new place of his own: the tiny, elegant Elyse. The place feels a bit incongruous with its surroundings (its neighbors, which share the parking lot, include a Midas auto shop). But the snug, Champagne-hued dining room is sufficiently cozy and transportive. Krinn puts out a single five-course menu each month. Our winter dinner featured a fabulous kohlrabi soup with Perigord truffle and a lovely cut of venison crusted in ras al hanout. Consider yourself lucky if you can snag one of the 30 seats—or better yet, space at the wood bar, where you can watch the personable Krinn work his magic in the kitchen.
American • Adams Morgan • 2471 18th St., NW
Teleport back to the ’80s at this Adams Morgan bar—a microcosm of payphones, Absolut shots, and TVs with antennas. Best of all, you don’t have to eat a Hot Pocket while you hang. Mathew Ramsey, who once wrote a cookbook called Pornburger, then worked at restaurants like Pineapple & Pearls and Tail Up Goat, is behind the delightfully decadent menu. Load up on miso-butter-topped sliders on squishy buns, a kimchi-and-pimiento-cheese sandwich, and pickle-brined hot dogs. Don’t miss Ramsey’s riff on a PB&J made with foie butter.
American • Union Market • 1287 Fourth St., NE
NYC restaurateur Keith McNally’s long-awaited spinoff of his Greenwich Village tavern is finally here. And impressively, it feels like it’s been here for a very long time. Downstairs, there’s a bar and dining room with a checkerboard floor, bracing martinis, and the best onion soup in town. Also great: grilled oysters with chili butter and a Grand Marnier soufflé doused with more of the liqueur at the table. Upstairs is the quieter Lucy Mercer Bar, a cozy, phones-discouraged space that feels straight out of an Edith Wharton novel.
Palestinian • U St Corridor • 1624 U St., NW
At Nesrin Abaza’s new eatery—tucked next to El Secreto de Rosita, the Andean restaurant she runs with her husband Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld—she hews closely to Palestinian culinary tradition, serving a number of dishes that don’t often make their way onto Middle Eastern fusion menus. Along with hummus and falafel, there’s fattet jaj (a mixture of rice, chicken, garlicky yogurt, and crisp pita chips), baked chicken maqlouba with hearty freekeh, and molokhia, the pleasantly gelatinous Levantine staple in which chewy leaves of jute mallow glue themselves to hunks of chicken (you can substitute cauliflower at Nabiha). Finish your meal with Nablus-style knafeh, a cheesy pastry scented with orange blossom and sprinkled with smashed pistachios.
Italian • Georgetown • 3276 M St., NW
Few restaurants have generated as much buzz as this giant Georgetown dining room—a $16 million joint effort from restaurateur Stephen Starr and LA chef Nancy Silverton. That buzz reached a fever pitch over inauguration weekend when Jeff Bezos and Barack Obama were separately spotted. Not everything on the sizable menu is a winner, but there’s certainly enough to woo us here for more than just the scene. Silverton’s Caesar salad, buttery raviolo, and roast chicken on garlicky toast are three terrific carryover hits from the LA original. And don’t miss the focaccia di Recco—thin sheets of dough holding stretchy stracchino cheese. It’s the dish that inspired Starr to bring Mozza here in the first place.
Cocktail Bar • Dupont Circle • 1506 Nineteenth St., NW
This new cocktail lounge and record bar in Dupont Circle is the kind of place that makes you feel cool just by being there. An eclectic vinyl collection adds to the intimate vibe of the subterranean space and inspires the cocktail menu with its a la carte “track list” or curated “play list” tasting. The drinks are more sophisticated than showy, like dueling martinis—one with vodka and sake, another with gin and sherry—served side by side. And while the small izakaya-style food menu isn’t trying to be a main attraction, the maitake mushroom tempura and fancified bloomin’ onion (with optional caviar) are breakout stars nonetheless.
Pizza • Takoma Park • 7050 Carroll Ave., Takoma Park
Just as we have reached the era of the $20 cocktail and $17 sandwich, now we have the $30 pizza (that will feed a few, not a crowd). At this new shop from former Seylou Bakery alums Charbel Abrache and Andrea Alvarez, you get what you pay for. Locally milled flour and carefully procured ingredients, sure, but also, that crust! The slightly sour rectangle pizzas (also served by the slice) nod to both Roman and Sicilian styles, and their bases, crisped in an olive oil-slicked pan, are at once chewy and airy. The straight-up pepperoni pizza is excellent, but the pies also stand up to a bigger crowd of toppings, including eggplant, cherry tomatoes, olives, and parmesan cream. For dessert, there are creative soft serve flavors, such as fig-leaf-and-orange.
Middle Eastern/Levantine • Union Market • 417 Morse St., NE
Albi chef Michael Rafidi’s Levantine cafes are well-known daytime destinations for za’atar croissants and pita sandwiches, but evenings are equally worth a visit. The Georgetown location features pizzas with smoked feta and urfa chili crisp, while the newer Union Market outpost has launched its own dinner menu dubbed “All the Kebabs.” The fancy-fun, charcoal-grilled lineup includes octopus and duck breast with burnt orange honey, but pomegranate-glazed lamb kefta and black harissa chicken thighs are among our favorites. Make it a feast with mezze, butter rice with garlic crunchies, and hummus with crispy sunchokes or burnt ends.
