Tasting Table Proclaims Florida Avenue Grill D.C.’s Best Classic Diner

In a nod to the breakfasts of champions dished out by neighborhood joints across America, Tasting Table has compiled a list of greasy spoons it believes are worthy of recognition by the dining masses.

“These 51 culinary institutions represent our ups and downs, our long nights and early mornings, our Saturday biscuits with Grandpa,” Tasting Table contributor Meredith Heil says of the coast-to-coast investigation into good, old-fashioned, stick-to-your-ribs sustenance. “No matter how fine the dining, no matter how many oysters we slurp or Champagne bottles we pop, those diners continue, as if stuck in time, to welcome us home.”

Florida Avenue Grill clinched top honors in the District. Oddly enough, the venerable soul food restaurant — which has been keeping D.C. denizens fat and happy since FDR occupied the Oval Office — remains embroiled in a fight over foreclosure proceedings with its landlord.

Other standouts in the region include Blue Moon Diner in Charlottesville, Va., and Papermoon Diner in Baltimore, Md.