![]() Then move on to a thin pizza spread with onion cream, Brussels sprouts, and pomegranate, or a peppery carbonara. Spend lots of time in the wide-ranging menu’s antipasti section, where you’ll find leaves of grilled cabbage dotted with sweet-tart currants and trout roe silken eggplant with dates and plenty of mint and a first-rate Caesar salad. It’s worth the hype, sure, but there’s so much more to Unconventional Diner chef David Deshaies’s five-month-old Italian dining room than a pretty pasta. Perhaps you’ve seen the Instagram-famous 40-layer lasagna laced with truffled cheese. Save room for cheffy ice creams, particularly if olive oil with cocoa crumble is available. Sourdough pizzas and vegetable sides embrace whatever’s in season that week, while the “freak-a-burger,” made of freekeh grains and topped with skordalia, the Greek garlic-potato dip, rivals most beef patties. Happy Gyroįine-dining destination Komi has reimagined itself as a Greek-inspired, veg-centric carryout-one clearly still operated by a Michelin-starred chef. During the day, the kid-friendly place churns out cinnamon rolls and transforms that bird into a fabulous chicken-salad sandwich. Hang out over cranberry daiquiris and a parade of snacks (beautiful crudités with goat butter, crackly blue-cheese-stuffed dates), then dig into shareable mains such as an enviable roast chicken and a nicely seared butcher steak. The evening menu conjures a dinner party you never want to leave. This chicly homey dining room near Eastern Market is one of three pandemic-born places from former ThinkFoodGroup chief operating officer Hollis Silverman. To go with it all: excellent za’atar-crusted naan and Datta’s ace spice-accented cocktails. Sundas’s Indian cooking swings between comforting (smoky stewed eggplant, chicken makhani) and positively electric (potatoes with pomegranate and Szechuan pepper, a tandoori-chicken kebab with blue cheese and sour cherries). The pandemic both delayed the place and fundamentally changed the game plan-it opened in August as a full-on restaurant. This collaboration between Rasika alums Dante Datta and Suresh Sundas was planned as a cocktail bar with snacks. A six-course omakase menu ($98 per person) is primed for celebrations, but diners can also mini-splurge on the best lunch deal in town: a bento box ($38) with ever-changing treasures like venison yakitori, maitake-mushroom tempura, and shrimp-stuffed lettuce tacos.ĭaru chef/co-owner Suresh Sundas. Groups can dabble in seasonal plates such as oysters in bracing ponzu sauce, duck-rillettes-stuffed gyoza, and smoked-eel paella. But we’ve always spotted him in the open kitchen, plating exquisite dishes that speak to both his Spanish heritage and his career in Asia. With a restaurant in Singapore and roots in Barcelona, one might not expect chef Pepe Moncayo to be a regular presence here in Penn Quarter. And a dirty martini (a very retro ten bucks) comes sided with a toothpick of not just olives but mozzarella and a tomato, too. The secret to that best-in-class Caesar is Duke’s mayo. Still, Adler-who previously led the kitchen at Navy Yard’s venerable Osteria Morini-throws in a few surprises. Are those crinkle-cut carrots siding the lemony veal française? They are, but they’re far more buttery and delicious than anything you’d find in a freezer bag. Chef Matt Adler isn’t reinventing anything at his snug ode to Little Italy on Capitol Hill-and that’s what we love about it. Thai vermicelli with chili-peanut sauce and khao soi remain staples, but newer dishes such as tom yum fried rice with shrimp are also worth a try.Ĭhicken parm. ![]() What hasn’t changed is chef Jeeraporn “P’Boom” Poksupthong’s dedication to spicy, punchy flavors. Baan Siamīeloved Southeast Asian restaurant Baan Thai has relocated from Logan Circle to a sleeker setting in Mount Vernon Triangle with a patio and expanded bar (hello, frozen lychee cocktails). And with a few clever pairings from wine pro Brent Kroll, who also oversees the adjoining bar, Maxwell Park. The best way to experience them is through the laid-back sofra tasting menu. His gorgeously plated dishes-whether carrots spiced with sumac and sweetened with smoked-date honey hummus with ember-roasted mushrooms and black garlic or rustic skewers of charred lamb belly-traverse an array of Arabic and Mediterranean cuisines. The most thrilling restaurant to open in the last two years? The one we still tell all our friends to visit, stat? This Navy Yard dining room from Michael Rafidi, which opened just before the pandemic began. ![]()
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