D.C. restaurant vets Jackie Greenbaum and Gordon Banks (Little Coco’s, El Chucho, Bar Charley, Quarry House Tavern) debuted a modern American restaurant at Gaithersburg’s Rio Lakefront Mall last month. Longtime chef and partner Adam Harvey leads the kitchen with Little Coco’s chef de cuisine Russell Pike. Billed as a grown-up Bar Charley, Charley Prime Foods’ broadened menu will combine its love for steaks and homemade pastas (a la Little Coco’s). Located in the former Tara Thai space, the 90-seat restaurant can fit another 100 across its pretty waterfront patio.

Downtown Silver Spring’s cool new restaurant and music spot comes from Tsega Haile, who also owns Silver Spring and Clarendon coffee shop Kaldi’s Social House. Opening offerings include juicy smash burgers, grilled oysters, spicy harissa-glazed wings, wild mushroom pappardelle, fritto misto, and refreshing cocktails like a Basil & ‘Barb spritz (Chandon, Jin Jiji gin, Lillet, basic rhubarb syrup, and lemon). The 15,000-square-foot venue is outfitted with large flat-screen TVs, working fireplaces, and a lofted stage up top equipped with a high-tech sound system for DJs and bands. A ground-floor patio leads to a soaring dining room with a full-length bar. Chief chef consultant Jessica Shields and executive chef Ryan Hackney show lots of love for Maryland farms across the menu.

Owner/chef Candice Mensah’s roving West African venture Hedzole opened a permanent home in a small Northwest space that formerly housed Social Kitchen. A daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, Mensah was born in D.C. and grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. Hedzole debuted in 2019 and quickly amassed a loyal following at farmers markets in Northern Virginia and D.C. Longtime favorites making their way to D.C. include her take on stewed oxtail over Ghanaian waakye and groundnut (peanut) soup, red red with fried plantains, and coconut or jollof rice. The growing menu will add new dishes like goat curry and okra stews, plus South African wines and Black-owned labels in the U.S. Hedzole can seat 12 inside and 20 across its patio. 

Eater DC’s 2021 Bakery of the Year, known for its wildly popular colorful treats like mochi crullers covered in purple ube icing, finally has a brick-and-mortar location to call its own. Owner Rose Nguyen debuted her Asian-American bakery in downtown’s the Block food hall in spring 2020, and that location closed in January to shift attention to its 2,000-square-foot upper Northwest address. The sleek new Woodley Park digs in an old Dunkin’ Donuts offers more kitchen space to add sandwiches and espresso drinks to the equation. Walk-in hours are Wednesdays to Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon with an opening menu full of passion fruit and pandan doughnuts, black sesame swirl cookies, savory buns, ube lattes, and iced teas. 

Two-story Vera brought Ivy City a flavorful cross-section of Mexican and Lebanese cuisines, caffeinated cocktails, energetic music, and more. The industrial-chic restaurant and lounge is the brainchild of Nayef Issa, co-founder of Dupont’s buzzy Residents Café & Bar, and partner Nour Chaaban. Vera is named for Veracruz, Mexico’s historic port city that welcomed a huge wave of Lebanese immigrants back in the late 1800s. Top Mexico City-based design studio Sulkin Askenazi put together a vibrant look that speaks to similarities between the two coastal countries. Dinner and bar service runs Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Reserve a seat online. 

A dreamy Lebanese restaurant filled with flowers rose in Georgetown’s old Le Pain Quotidien space in April. The meze-style menu for M Street NW includes a parade of sharable small plates like baba ghanoush, hummus, dips, kibbeh nayyeh, fattoush, and tabbouleh. Gorgeous desserts made in-house follow age-old recipes from the northern region of Lebanon, and family-style weekend brunch is also not to miss.

Hotel Zena’s lobby-level dining destination Figleaf reopened in May as a brand new restaurant with a Mediterranean-leaning menu full of Latin influences. Highlights include pan de queso with South American fried cheese and tapioca puffs with a mascarpone-guava and oxtail with Yuca gnocchi alongside mushrooms and adobo brodo. Drink debuts include the “Love Drunk” with coconut rum, grapefruit, and mandarin vodka and a pumpkin spice negroni with vodka, Cocchi Americano, and tiki bitters. Executive chef James Gee, who leads the kitchen at year-old Dovetail in nearby sibling hotel Viceroy DC, now oversees both properties’ food and beverage programs.

The D.C. hospitality group behind a growing collection of Latin-rooted eateries (Seven Reasons, Imperfecto) added an all-day Spanish showpiece to its repertoire in early May. Seven Restaurant Group’s Michelin-starred chef Enrique Limardo and co-owner Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger transform the Ritz-Carlton Washington D.C. corner long occupied by Westend Bistro into TheSaga, an energetic destination for vibrantly colored rices, meaty mains, infused gins, and all sorts of complex and deconstructed spins on Spanish staples that speak to Limardo’s long culinary career.

Fueled by the success of its flashy flagship on the Wharf, followed by a summer 2022 opening in Logan Circle, Mexican hotspot Mi Vida tripled down in D.C. in late April with its largest location yet and menu full of familiar favorites like tequila drinks, tacos, enchiladas, and its top-selling guacamole. Mi Vida Penn Quarter opens right across from Capital One Arena in the cavernous space that formerly housed D.C.’s long-running Rosa Mexicano. The first Mi Vida landed on the Wharf in 2018, marking New York City restaurateur Roberto Santibañez’s first splash in D.C. Knead Hospitality + Design also runs Succotash Prime, The Grill, and Gatsby.

The chefs behind D.C.’s Michelin-starred tasting room Rooster & Owl hatched a family-friendly little sister in West Falls Church’s mixed-use Founder’s Row development this spring. Ellie Bird, named for owners Yuan and Carey Tang’s youngest daughter, is a 70-seat casual counterpart featuring some of the comfort foods the couple offered to go from Rooster & Owl when they altered their business model during the pandemic. Highlights include octopus ceviche, pillowy ricotta dumplings, kimchi bouillabaisse, homemade carrot garganelli pasta with feta crema, and Rooster & Owl’s best-selling pineapple buns. A kids’ menu is adorably dubbed “Little Birdies.” 

The Capitol Hill space that formerly housed tasting room Newland recently turned into a Ukrainian restaurant led by a Food Network star. Chef Dima Martseniuk, who formerly ran the kitchen at NYC’s legendary Ukrainian restaurant Veselka for 12 years, sends out vibrant bowls of borscht, lots of stuffed varenyky (pierogis), and entrees like chicken Kyiv with mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce.

Any Day Now, the brand-new Navy Yard eatery from tenured D.C. chef Tim Ma, puts all its eggs into one daytime sandwich to start. The opening menu stars scallion-pancake sandwiches stacked with steamed egg and American cheese. Options include homemade maple-sage sausage, cured bacon, or fermented kimchi. Virginia roaster Red Rooster Coffee plans to keep customers caffeinated from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. The sleek, 75-seat newcomer plans to add dinner service in July. Chef de cuisine and partner Matt Sperber is a trained butcher who most recently cooked at nearby Navy Yard standby Salt Line.

Local soul food chain Milk & Honey joined the Wharf in May with Louisiana classics served 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Thompson Hospitality’s most expansive Milk & Honey yet features blackened salmon BLTs, panko-crusted deviled eggs, Lowcountry gumbo, meaty mains, huge seafood salads, and decadent brunch bites like cheesecake-topped pancakes, shrimp and grits, and butter-glazed biscuits. ⁠⁠The 100-seat restaurant with a full bar and umbrella-covered patio out front features floor-to-ceiling windows and a sleek, modern interior.