As a surge of Greek restaurants continue to open in D.C., Cava group’s contemporary ode to the idyllic Mediterranean country continues to impress Pike & Rose diners three years in. Aris Tsekouras helms its open kitchen after years cooking in upscale eateries in Greece, bringing a passion for homemade breads and tangy cheeses. A year-round bounty of fresh vegetables are celebrated on the table, as seen in a gem-hued beet salad accompanied by yogurt, pickled blackberries, smoked walnuts, carob, and basil. Other lunch and dinner highlights include slow-roasted lamb neck kleftiko, cheese pie, grilled octopus, beef tartare, stone crab bucatini, and portobello mushroom souvlaki. Kick off weekend brunch with a crowd-pleasing mezze plate of smoked salmon, soft-boiled organic eggs, sourdough koulouri, tarama cream, and smoked trout roe. A stucco interior framed with wooden beams augments the transportive meal.

Restaurateur Jerry Hollinger (the Daily Dish and the Dish & Dram) delivered to downtown Silver Spring an Art Deco-styled American chophouse and raw bar celebrating local farmers, watermen, and purveyors. A black truffle vinaigrette-dressed beet salad or shrimp and pork belly toast adorned with homemade kimchi are good ways to start; follow those with Rohan duck confit, homemade spinach ricotta ravioli, halibut filet atop summer succotash, or anything from the luxe lineup of steaks. Augment dishes with underwater add-ons like butter-poached crab, lobster, jumbo shrimp, and fried oysters. The throwback space near the Fillmore also has a robust bar program starring New York Sours and fig-sage rye cocktails.

The Takoma Park favorite for vegan-friendly Mexican fare since 2018 moved into stylish new digs up the street last year. Husband-and-wife owners David Perez and Carolina McCandless turn to hand-pressed tortillas made with nixtamalized heirloom corn to produce an array of sophisticated tacos, ahi tuna tostadas, and savory enchiladas with tres moles. Crunchy pepitas add a pleasantly surprising crunch to quesadillas that can be ordered with vegan cashew cheese. Besides fabulous margaritas, the chic bar sends out inventive mezcal and rum-based cocktails. Brunch calls for brioche French toast with mezcal mascarpone, chilaquiles rojo, and a nopales (cactus) scramble. Newly named chef de cuisine Rachel Bindle formerly cooked at Michelin-starred Gravitas. The team also flipped Cielo’s old space into San Francisco-styled San Pancho Burritos this year.

Owner/chef Candice Mensah’s roving West African venture Hedzole opened a permanent home in a small Northwest space that formerly housed Social Kitchen last year. A daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, Mensah was born in D.C., grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, and ultimately left a career in healthcare tech to cook her native cuisine. She quickly amassed a loyal following at farmers markets in Northern Virginia and D.C. Longtime favorites that made their way to the city include her take on stewed oxtail over Ghanaian waakye and groundnut (peanut) soup, red red with fried plantains, and coconut or jollof rice. Customizable bowls offer lots of room for vegans, too. The space is small: Hedzole can seat 12 inside and 20 across its patio, or go the delivery route.

Considered the standard-bearer for Lao cuisine in D.C., Thip Khao comes from mother-and-son chefs Seng Luangrath and Boby Pradachith. Their Columbia Heights standby continues to satisfy heat-seekers with a menu full of fermented fish sauce, a heavy dose of chiles, offal, and cured meats. Hit orders include crispy tamarind-glazed wings, grilled pork shoulder with lemongrass, and a fiery Lao papaya salad. Over in Shaw, the team just rebooted its 5-year-old space that formerly housed cocktail bar Hanumanh into a modern Southeast Asian eatery called Baan Mae. If you find yourself out in the suburbs, the family’s Northern Virginia staple Padaek recently settled into a new Arlington home.

The Washington Post called Purple Patch the 2023 Restaurant of the Year eight years after the Mount Pleasant spot debuted as one of D.C.’s first upscale local Filipino restaurants. The sizzling, spicy pork belly and pork shoulder sisig remains a favorite dish, along with such staples as longanisa (sweet garlic sausage) and tocino (sweet grilled pork). You also can’t leave without trying an ube-flavored dessert or the ube waffle with fried chicken marinated in soy sauce and vinegar at brunch. Owner Patrice Cleary, who was born in the Philippines, also opened casual Joia Burger a block away earlier this year, serving up wagyu beef smash burgers with chopped toppings and ube soft serve.

Perry’s has long been an under-the-radar reliable spot for sushi, and with Eater’s 2023 Chef of the Year (and 2024 James Beard Award winner for Rising Chef of the Year) Masako Morishita at the helm, the revitalized Adams Morgan restaurant is generating lots of attention for her flavorful Japanese creations. Standout starters included grilled broccoli rabe in a miso-garlic butter, a fiery Fuji apple salad with a kick from Korean gochujang, and garlic edamame dumplings hidden under a snowy blanket of parmesan. The deep-fried shrimp katsu burger with togarashi tartar is also not to miss. The sleek, wood-framed restaurant with a strong sake collection continues to host one of D.C.’s best drag brunches on weekends. Morishita recently introduced Japanese breakfast service on weekends and a newer unagi donabe rice special.

Local hospitality vets Juan and Manuel Olivera granted Adams Morgan a candle-lit getaway that pays homage to the brothers’ native Uruguay and its surrounding countries. Two-level Ceibo — the name refers to the flowering tree blooming at the bottom of the South American continent — captures the communal culture of asado, or preparing meats like beef, pork, and chorizo over an open flame. On the seafood side, highlights include oysters adorned with caviar farmed in Uruguay and Patagonian shrimp caught off the icy Atlantic coast of Argentina. Sweet potatoes, one of Uruguay’s biggest exports, play a prevalent part in the menu as savory starters, dessert, and inside drinks. A dimly lit downstairs bar spotlights South American wines, spirits, and other earthy ingredients and stays open until late on weekends. Ceibo recently added twice-a-month Tuesday tasting dinners featuring four courses and optional wine pairings — as well as a unique new Sunday service that tones down the noise level.

Chef Ryan Ratino’s buzzy bistro on lower 14th Street NW whips up dinners dreamed up by the ambitious chef, who’s among the youngest to have a restaurant earn a Michelin star (sample course: tuna crudo with Calabrian chile, wild fennel, makrut lime and foie gras gateau with pistachio, strawberry, celery, and anise). The restaurant pushes boundaries everywhere: The menu incorporates a vintage French duck press gifted by gourmet supplier D’Artagnan into a theatrical tableside offering, while the bar program spearheaded by beverage director Will Patton is also not to miss. Chef’s tasting menus ($158) can be augmented with seasonal delicacies like luxe truffles, and there’s now a la carte options available too. This fast-growing team, which is also behind two-Michelin-starred tasting room Jônt upstairs, recently opened a new restaurant in Fort Lauderdale and will soon expand to LA.

Situated between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan, Anju, which is from the restaurant group behind casual hit Chiko, serves Korean bar food with a refined touch. James Beard Award-nominated chef Angel Barreto leads a kitchen that plates up standouts ranging from pork and kimchi mandu (dumplings) and smoky gochujang-glazed fried chicken with white barbecue sauce to a seafood fried rice (bokkeumbap) and seared rib-eye galbi boards. Weekend brunches bring on breakfast sandwiches and a grit bowl that riffs on juk. Meanwhile, Chiko’s Capitol Hill flagship that started it all recently brought back its experimental tasting menu a few nights a week ($75 or $105). 

This family-run underground lounge landed in Dupont in spring 2022 with a star cast of Thai talent behind the wheel. Former sushi chef Billy Thammasathiti brings the heat with quail egg wontons, fiery papaya salads, boneless duck laap, and spicy beef or pork skewers, plus experimental orders like Parmesan-dusted egg noodles with tom yum herbs, bacon, and roasted chile jam or bite-sized calamari dressed with garlicky salt. Andy Thammasathiti of Baltimore’s Mayuree Thai Tavern whips up passionfruit daiquiris and Sichuan baijiu cocktails behind a racy, red-lit bar fit for Bangkok. Billy’s aunt Satang Ruangsangwatana, of Fat Nomads supper club fame, also contributes destination dishes like khao soi. The 50-seat lair swings open at 4 p.m.

This beloved Brooklyn import smashes the city’s stuffy steakhouse conventions with a menu that gives vegetables equal billing. Butter-packed biscuits with pimento cheese have become the stuff of legend, and a salmon collar practically melting under a butter-lemon bath has drawn a cult following over the past five years. Ax-handle rib-eyes and pork chops are priced by the ounce for communal feasts. Like sibling spot Le Diplomate, during the pandemic, St. Anselm built nifty dining nooks on the street in the Union Market District that are here to stay. Stephen Starr’s blockbuster NYC bistro Pastis and Mexico City-influenced El Presidente recently joined St. Anselm in the budding industrial complex.

D.C.’s century-old boutique hotel hideaway got a big 2023 menu makeover full of French-Southern flair under culinary partner Ian Boden, the James Beard-nominated chef behind The Shack in Staunton, Virginia. Overseeing the fine-tuned changes in the charming Dupont dining room is executive chef Matthew Zafrir, a fine dining vet who honors his Maryland roots with memorable meals marked by mid-Atlantic ingredients. Highlights include crab fritters, local oysters doused homemade hot sauce, honeynut squash, duck confit atop Carolina gold rice, and bone-in Berkshire pork chop with kohlrabi slaw, plus homemade doughnuts during brunch. Zafrir’s close ties to family-run farm Earth N Eats also pay off on the plate, where wonderfully unique veggies show up morning to night (as do herbs plucked from Tabard’s outdoor garden). The eclectic bar up front is the place to be for whiskey Wednesdays, when beverage director and Fabio Trabocchi alum Dominik Lenikowski pulls a rare bottle from the cellar to sip until it’s gone.

The team behind outer Arlington’s raw fish hit Yume Sushi sauntered into Georgetown last summer with the anticipated opening of a flashy flagship. Tucked inside the mixed-use cluster of Cady’s Alley, the striking sushi cave from executive chef Saran “Peter” Kannasute and co-owner Jeff King breathes fresh life into the old home of L2 lounge. Kannasute’s calling cards like truffle wasabi, monkfish liver, uni with torched wagyu, and widespread use of edible flowers show up across a lengthy list of rolls, and a full kitchen with a hood gives the Bangkok-born chef room to build upon his boundary-pushing menus and introduce hot izakaya offerings for the first time. Kannasute taps into his Thai roots this fall with the opening of Rimtang, a fast-casual street food spot in the nearby space that formerly housed Kintaro.

Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo’s follow-up to tropically appointed (and recently relocated) Seven Reasons gives the West End a fine dining venue for Mediterranean-Latin fusion full of surreal plating and modernist technique. Sturdy staples like a moussaka cigar — with crispy phyllo dough, smoked eggplant, ground lamb, and goat-manchego cream — and fried Spanish octopus with Amazonian chimichurri anchor the rotating dinner menu. Go a la carte or choose the omakase tasting experience at the chef’s counter (currently 16 to 22 bites) that has a Michelin star. A soaring white bar lined with cranberry-colored stools sends out sharply conceived cocktails with Mediterranean ingredients like Greek olives, truffle honey, and limoncello. The team expanded its West End portfolio last spring with the opening of Spanish-themed TheSaga in the Ritz-Carlton, followed up by its first foray into Virginia with avant-garde bistro Surreal near Amazon HQ2.

Partners Gerald Addison and Casey Patten (Grazie Grazie) brought hand-tossed pies and nostalgic Italian fare to Midtown Center in fall 2022. The red-sauced tribute to Patten’s nonna and her many Sunday suppers centers around pizzas, hearty bowls of pasta, and antipasti dishes like calamari, burrata, and arancini balls. A dreamy bar lined with family photos sends out Italian wines, elderflower spritzes, and Negronis three ways. An outdoor bar feels geared towards downtown’s 9-to-5 happy hour set, while glam lounge Grazie Mille arrived next door last year and added its own chandelier-lined patio this spring. Try its new Caesar for two, ribeye flambeed tableside, and decadent mac and cheese.

Spanish chef Rubén García’s flagship restaurant and tapas bar brought a lively new destination for live-fire cooking to the Square, downtown’s ambitious new food market spearheaded by García and fellow José Andrés Group veteran Richie Brandenburg. Casa Teresa, García’s first solo venture, revives ancestral recipes of the culinary matriarchs he grew up around in Terrassa, Spain and celebrates the time-honored cooking traditions of Basque Country and Catalonia through family-style feasts — think whole fish, local veggies, and pass-the-plate meats — all theatrically grilled over open flames and oak charcoal from a kitchen within diners’ view. The terracotta-toned dining room carves out space for a bar centered around gins, vermouth, and Spanish wines, plus an intimate “Teresa’s Table” that encourages chatty chef-guest interactions over tastings. A Saturday brunch full of vermouth and family recipes entered the fold this spring.

At this roomy Thai restaurant in Mt. Vernon Triangle, chef Jeeraporn Poksupthon has a kitchen worthy of her skill and ambition. Poksupthon led large catering kitchens in Thailand before she helped usher a wave of chile-fueled Northern and Northeastern cooking into D.C. at now-closed Baan Thai in Logan Circle. At Baan Siam, she’s playing the hits — creamy, crunchy, and complex khao soi; tapioca skin dumplings with ground chicken, peanuts, and sweet fermented radish; and all sorts of spicy-sweet salads — while exploring sour-leaning dishes from her home country’s interior and ultra-hot curries from the South. 

Nearly a decade in, chef Amy Brandwein’s polished osteria continues to shine in CityCenter DC. The five-time James Beard Award finalist goes all in on seasonal ingredients to construct a frequently changing Italian menu; for August, that currently includes melon-flanked snapper sashimi; peachy gazpacho; pristine pastas pumped up with purple broccoli and eggplant ragu; wood-fired mains like halibut and chanterelle mushrooms, lamb rib-eye, and pancetta-wrapped rabbit; and memorable desserts like an almond cake with fresh citrus, yuzu, and white chocolate. Tonari alum Mary Mendoza is the newly named executive pastry chef at both Centrolina and Piccolina, Brandwein’s all-day sibling cafe across the street.

Dante Datta and Suresh Sundas, a respective drink expert and chef who met while working together at Rasika West End, reunited under one roof with an Indian restaurant and cocktail bar at a corner just south of H Street NE. At Daru, which landed on New York Times’s coveted top 50 restaurants list in 2022, Sundas likes to combine Northern and Southern Indian cooking styles with some unorthodox touches. That includes za’atar olive naan, chicken tikka tacos, chimichurri chutneys, or grilled chicken reshmi kebabs with a hint of blue cheese. Datta and bar manager Tom Martinez, both alums of now-closed Columbia Room, collaborate on inventive riffs on classics. 

Tonari’s chef-partner Katsuya Fukushima — whose Daikaya Group portfolio includes essential ramen spot Daikaya next door, Bantam King nearby, and Haikan in Shaw — had to overcome his fear of dough to open this wafu (Japanese-style) Italian spot known for deep-dish pizza and pasta dishes. The result of Fukushima’s labors is a thick, square pie with a crust made out of Hokkaido wheat flour. All of the pizzas are topped with Wisconsin brick cheese and an array of toppings, including mentaiko (pollock roe) cream and kernels of canned corn, barbecue eel and dill labne, and sweet Italian chicken sausage and shishito peppers. Tonari also debuted a cafe menu last year that includes specialty coffees, ramens with Italian flavors like pesto and arrabbiata, and breakfast sandwiches for the weekends.

After closing at the Wharf last spring, James Beard-nominated chef Kevin Tien’s fine dining Vietnamese gem made a triumphant comeback to D.C. in January. With fresh Penn Quarter digs comes all-new dishes filled with his familiar contemporary touches. Highlights include koji-marinated cumin lamb, aromatic perilla leaves stuffed with beef wagyu, and impossibly soft dinner rolls from pastry chef and fellow James Beard Award finalist Susan Bae. Bar manager Thi Nguyen, a Punch finalist for bartender of the year, whips up a savory Out Of Dipping Sauce cocktail that makes creative use of Tien’s fermented fish sauce. Moon Rabbit 2.0 isn’t done yet, with plans to add a next-door cocktail room and Vietnamese bakery soon.

James Beard Award-winning chef Vikram Sunderam liberally plays with spicy chiles and sour fruits to make Rasika one of the most celebrated Indian restaurants in the country. His palak chaat — a fried baby spinach dish decorated with sweet yogurt, tamarind, and date chutney — has inspired imitators around town, while dal makhani is slowly simmered in a decadent, buttery gravy. Both the Penn Quarter flagship and its West End sibling are ideal venues for vegetarian diners, too.

Superstar chef and global humanitarian José Andrés fulfilled his decades-long dream of opening a restaurant inside downtown’s historic Old Post Office Pavilion last year. His Beverly Hills-born Bazaar checked into the newly minted Waldorf Astoria with a parade of avant-garde delights like “Jose” tacos topped with ibérico ham, gold leaf, and caviar; tortilla de papatas “new way” topped with potato foam; Chinese steamed buns with pork belly; and bite-sized “cotton candy foie gras” made famous in LA. Chesapeake Bay delicacies also show up in an artsy array of a la carte snacks and tapas. The two-level stunner puts a glossy jamón carving station on full display upon entry alongside dry-aged smoked fish and poultry.

This elegant Vietnamese restaurant off I-66 is a destination all in its own. Tucked inside Falls Church’s Founders Row development, the year-old sensation wows with openers that aren’t going anywhere: pappardelle with Vietnamese short rib ragu, coconut curry risotto dotted with Hokkaido scallops, and oysters decadently dressed with a creamy buttermilk vinaigrette. Chef Daniel Lê oversees a kitchen that draws many recipes from Happy Endings Hospitality partner Tuyêt Nhi Lê’s mom. Must-try highlights for spring include shareable lettuce wraps starring deboned fluke, generous herbs, and a pineapple fish sauce that begs to be bottled; meanwhile, a stack of tamarind and coconut-glazed ribs that fall off the bone get an unexpected sweetness via pickled lychee. Gorgeous pastel walls surrounding diners in the back interpret a famous 1930s portrait of a nude (“nue” in French) by Tuyêt Nhi Lê’s great-great-uncle and Vietnamese artist Lê Pho. A pretty bar up front sends out seriously sippable cocktails like a rum-fueled riff on mango sticky rice with eucalyptus bitters. A new weekday happy hour is the time to try top-selling starters like chile oil wontons for $12.

Matt Adler’s decidedly unmodern tribute to classic red sauce joints takes diners on a well-worn path that carefully steers clear of the contrived. Dishes heavy on nostalgia, quality ingredients, and technique are served in a red banquette-lined, vintage photo-laden dining room that buzzes with hospitality and delight. Tender chicken parm with a light breading gets tucked under a zingy marina, hunky garlic bread arrives with a bowl of four-cheese sauce for dipping, and shrimp scampi gets splashed with house-made limoncello. Drinks, like a Manhattan with an amaretto rinse and antipasti dirty martini, receive equally attentive treatment. Keeping with the theme, the menu is surprisingly affordable. Adler also runs a second location in Maryland’s Pike & Rose complex and is a partner in the newly opened Cucina Morini in Mt. Vernon Triangle.

The 2024 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Chef Michael Rafidi manipulates smoke with a master’s touch, sending out dishes from the wood-burning hearth at his high-end Levantine restaurant that have a way of commanding a diner’s full attention. The Maryland native’s Middle Eastern menu tweaks dishes to incorporate peak produce — see the coal-fired mushroom hummus — but the snack-sized lamb kefta kebabs speared on cinnamon sticks should never go out of style. Cocktails, desserts, and a lengthy wine list full of hard-to-find Eastern Mediterranean labels all rise to the occasion. An a la carte menu joins a multi-course option featuring lamb meat pie and swordfish dolma, pita with spreads, and larger plates like chermoula black bass. The feast is $145 for food; beverage pairings are priced at $65 or $95. For something more affordable, head to sibling cafe Yellow, which expanded to Georgetown with fiery pies at night, and added a Union Market locale with lively Levantine bar La’ Shukran up top.

Chef Reid Shilling puts mid-Atlantic ingredients on a pedestal at his 5-year-old Navy Yard restaurant and raw bar, devoting an entire menu page to credit the dairy, oyster, cattle, and produce purveyors helping build his seasonal dishes at any given time. A seven-course tasting option gives diners a front-row seat of the wood-burning action, with a la carte available too. Highlights include Chesapeake rockfish with Karma Farm carrots, squash blossoms dressed with basil from Shilling’s own on-site garden, and Autumn Olive pork rib-eye sweetened up with honey-poached apricots from Ridgeview Farms. Shilling puts his preservation skills on full display in clear glass jars around the dining room, and bobbing blueberries or blackberries may make their way into a dreamy dessert on any given night. Now there’s even more reason to visit: Shilling recently tapped Michelin-starred Minibar’s former lead chef Sarah Ravitz to lead the kitchen. Shilling’s popular Ampersandwich pop-up recently made a comeback with lip-smacking sandwiches like a Baltimore pit beef.