Tribe - DC Dining

[NDallasRuss]

I know it's not on-par with NYC, SF, or Chicago, but DC at least has some places worth trying.

"...the esteemed Michelin Guide has given two new restaurants a coveted star, taking the number of D.C. restaurants with at least one Michelin star to 14."

Two stars:

Minibar by José Andés
855 E St. NW

Pineapple & Pearls
715 8th St. SE

The Inn at Little Washington
309 Middle St., Washington, Va.


One star:



Blue Duck Tavern
1201 24th St. NW

The Dabney
122 Blagden Alley, NW

Fiola
601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Komi
1509 17th St. NW

Kinship
1015 7th St. NW

Masseria
1340 4th St. SE

Métier
1015 7th St. NW

Plume
1200 16th St. NW

Rose's Luxury
717 8th St. SE

Sushi Taro
1503 17th St. NW

Tail Up Goat
1827 Adams Mill Rd. NW

And if you figure #Michelin-starred restaurants/population, then DC has a better ratio than NYC and Chicago.

http://dcist.com/2017/10/dc_scores_two_new_michelin_starred.php

 

[FSUTribe76]

I know it's not on-par with NYC, SF, or Chicago, but DC at least has some places worth trying.

"...the esteemed Michelin Guide has given two new restaurants a coveted star, taking the number of D.C. restaurants with at least one Michelin star to 14."

Two stars:

Minibar by José Andés
855 E St. NW

Pineapple & Pearls
715 8th St. SE

The Inn at Little Washington
309 Middle St., Washington, Va.


One star:



Blue Duck Tavern
1201 24th St. NW

The Dabney
122 Blagden Alley, NW

Fiola
601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Komi
1509 17th St. NW

Kinship
1015 7th St. NW

Masseria
1340 4th St. SE

Métier
1015 7th St. NW

Plume
1200 16th St. NW

Rose's Luxury
717 8th St. SE

Sushi Taro
1503 17th St. NW

Tail Up Goat
1827 Adams Mill Rd. NW

And if you figure #Michelin-starred restaurants/population, then DC has a better ratio than NYC and Chicago.

http://dcist.com/2017/10/dc_scores_two_new_michelin_starred.php

My complaint has never been with the high end “foodie food”/continental fusion cuisine. It’s the lack of food culture i.e. good, cheap food instantly recognisable as from that region. You get an oven broiled crab cake you think Baltimore. You get a blue tortilla enchilada in green hatch Chili sauce and you think Santa Fe. You get whole pulled smoked hog with vinegar and pepper and you think the coastal areas of North Carolina. You get a smoked brisket with no sauce or a little slightly tangy sauce and you think Austin. You get some crawfish gumbo and you think New Orleans. So on and so forth.

There’s nothing like that in DC other than maybe some coopted Ethiopian (and I think you said Honduran although I haven’t been back to try it).

 

[NDallasRuss]

My complaint has never been with the high end “foodie food”/continental fusion cuisine. It’s the lack of food culture i.e. good, cheap food instantly recognisable as from that region. You get an oven broiled crab cake you think Baltimore. You get a blue tortilla enchilada in green hatch Chili sauce and you think Santa Fe. You get whole pulled smoked hog with vinegar and pepper and you think the coastal areas of North Carolina. You get a smoked brisket with no sauce or a little slightly tangy sauce and you think Austin. You get some crawfish gumbo and you think New Orleans. So on and so forth.

There’s nothing like that in DC other than maybe some coopted Ethiopian (and I think you said Honduran although I haven’t been back to try it).

Mmm, Salvadoran!

It's interesting that you talk about DC "co-opting" Ethiopian food (from Ethiopia, I presume). DC has the largest population of Ethiopia-born residents in the US. Isn't this similar to New Orleans (and places like Charleston) co-opting food that was originally brought by people from other cultures?

Seems like the only difference is that several generations have passed in those Southern cities - enough where the original recipes have been bastardized and built-upon, whereas the influx of Ethiopians into DC is a more recent occurrence, so the original recipes largely remain unchanged (although you are beginning to see more "Ethiopian fusion" restaurants. It's completely possible that we're at the very precipice of what could become DC's signature cuisine: it's just too early to tell.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Mmm, Salvadoran!

It's interesting that you talk about DC "co-opting" Ethiopian food (from Ethiopia, I presume). DC has the largest population of Ethiopia-born residents in the US. Isn't this similar to New Orleans (and places like Charleston) co-opting food that was originally brought by people from other cultures?

Seems like the only difference is that several generations have passed in those Southern cities - enough where the original recipes have been bastardized and built-upon, whereas the influx of Ethiopians into DC is a more recent occurrence, so the original recipes largely remain unchanged (although you are beginning to see more "Ethiopian fusion" restaurants. It's completely possible that we're at the very precipice of what could become DC's signature cuisine: it's just too early to tell.

Yeah I wasn’t being negative about Ethiopian, I love it and in fact literally made two Ethiopian dishes this past week (Tibs one day and Mesir Wat later). I just meant that the Ethiopian seems to have been brought in unaltered for the most part and hasn’t been part of the overall food culture. You won’t see that until chefs (or at least cooks) start crossing from Ethiopian restaurants into other types and vice versa.

 

[Gonolz]

I used to love good D.C. dining when on the company dime. I know it has been a while, but there are only a few on that list I even recognize.

No Citronelle? Many of the hottest D.C. restaurants from back them seem to have closed. Little Inn at Washington is timeless (though hard to call a D.C. restaurant).

Washington doesn't have it's own signature food because of what it is, it is a melting pot (salad bowl?) of people from all different areas. There aren't really a lot of D.C. natives, everybody seems to be originally from somewhere else.

While you can't identify a food that is uniquely D.C. (unless you count Congressional pork), you can find good food of almost any variety or ethnicity. The beauty of D.C. dining is not that it has its own unique food style, it is that it adopts its foods from just about everywhere else into one place. Kind of like its people. The only type of food that I never found a great place for in D.C. is Cuban. I didn't even think of it or appreciate it until I moved to the Tampa Bay area.