D.C.’s 2019 Eater Award Winners

Today we announce the winners of the annual Eater Awards, celebrating the chefs and restaurants that made the largest impact on all 23 Eater cities over the past 12 months.

This fall, we opened up nominations to readers, then considered that feedback while whittling down our picks to four finalists in three categories per city. Here now are the people and places that have taken the D.C. food world by storm. Per Eater tradition, winners will receive custom tomato can trophies in the mail and get the feature treatment from Eater in the coming year.

For last year’s winners, go here.

Restaurant of the Year

Thamee

Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.

Tabletops patterned after tribal textiles fit Thamee to T. Customers being bombarded by Burmese flavor combinations for the first time might reasonably think they developed synesthesia when they look down at a portion of the dining surface done up in electric pink with braided lines of white, red, purple, and orange spiraling from top to bottom. If it were judged on the food alone, Thamee would still be special. Chef Jocelyn Law-Yone, a retired schoolteacher with a colorful lifetime of stories to tell on the plate, ensures that with salads, noodle dishes, and curries that pinball across Indian, Chinese, and Thai influences pervasive in her childhood home. Springy, white flower mushrooms mixed with ground chicken and blooming with citrus and fish sauce funk make for a salad that feels at once familiar and brand new to fans of larb. Asian pear relish and jalapenos have a way of disarming the chewy texture and mineral undertones in chicken gizzards. “Ma Jo’s” spicy tofu, a centerpiece for golden cubes of chickpea-based Burmese tofu, is a clever, meat-free manipulation of a Sichuan classic. “Thamee” means daughter, and Law-Yone is in business with hers. Both Simone Jacobson and her mother possess permanent smiles as they explain the history and cultural context of different dishes or cocktails, like an Inle Lake Negroni tinted purple with butterfly pea flower to reflect the flamboyant colors of its namesake. The presence of partner Eric Wang, whom Jacobson met on a first date that didn’t spark a romantic connection, reflects her penchant for collecting collaborators such as the artist who designed the tables and the fledgling chefs that take over the restaurant for supper clubs.

Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.

Finalists: Queen’s English; Rooster & Owl; Seven Reasons

Design of the Year

Punjab Grill

Rey Lopez/Eater DC

Rey Lopez/Eater DC

Rey Lopez/Eater DC

Considering the materials found throughout Punjab Grill, saying the Penn Quarter restaurant makes guests feel like royalty is more a statement of fact than an exaggeration. A treasure trove of individual parts were assembled in India and shipped to D.C. to fill the first U.S. location of a fine-dining brand that stretches from New Delhi to Bangkok to Singapore. From their perch in emerald green colored high chairs, visitors to the bar might take note of a white mother-of-pearl counter and siding made of glowing onyx. A 12,000-pound, 40-foot chunk of solid pink sandstone carved with intricate designs anchors a wall in one room. Another has booths featuring 200-pound tables with legs cut out of marble. The most dramatic touch is the Sheesh Mahal, a private dining room surrounded by 150,000 mirrors that took three months to install by hand. D.C. firm Grupo7 and India-based Incubis oversaw the project.

Finalists: Anju; The Eastern; Republic Cantina

Chef of the Year

Peter Prime, Cane

Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.

By assuming the mantle of restaurant owner for the first time, Peter Prime was already betting on himself when he and his sister, Jeanine, opened Cane. To stand out, Prime trusted that the dining public would be as interested in exploring his Trinidadian background as he was. The tiny, packed dining room on H Street that generates hours-long waits is a testament to Prime’s vision of cooking food found at street carts, rum shops, and Caribbean home kitchens. A French Culinary Institute grad who was once admonished by an instructor for pouring too much black pepper on a roast chicken, Prime dials up the spice wherever he pleases with flammable chutneys and pickled chiles that decorate his signature doubles — fry breads filled spiced chickpeas — and whole fried snapper escoveitch. With a few exceptions, like five-spice Trini-Asian drumsticks that are Frenched into plump poultry popsicles, Prime isn’t striving to apply many European techniques. He’s using pimento wood to smoke impeccable jerk wings, serving metal Tiffin boxes full of South Asian-influenced curries, and playing with soft serves based on goat milk or smoked coconut cream.

Finalists: Lisa Chang, Mama Chang; Robert Curtis, Hazel; Cagla Onal-Urel, Green Almond Pantry