Javier “Ja” Fernandez has fine-tuned a stellar Cebu-style pork belly lechon, but there’s more to the family-run Filipino restaurant outside of Rockville than the roast with crackly skin. Confit and fried wings come with a tamarind-pepper rub or spicy adobo glaze, long pork and shrimp lumpia (eggrolls) look like skinny cigarillos, and pork belly and head cheese sisig mingle with garlic fried rice inside a burrito. Bountiful “kinamot” feasts have been repackaged for limited releases while the shop sticks to takeout and delivery.

For D.C. residents, sampling the most tantalizing brisket inside the Beltway requires a drive into Riverdale Park. Fernando González and Debby Portillo, the couple that own and operate 2Fifty, pay homage to Central Texas by using oak smoke to develop a dark bark on fatty hunks of prime and American wagyu beef that jiggle on the chopping block.

Chef Christian Irabién started this Mexican pop-up in Upper Northwest to support relief efforts for refugee chefs and hungry hospitality workers. Now a permanent fixture, Muchas Gracais has amassed a steady following for its lunchtime burritos, full of braised short ribs or charred sweet potatoes, that pay homage to the filling lunches he ate growing up in Northern Mexico and West Texas. A dinner menu offers family-sized taco kits, sides of heirloom Mexican beans and rice, and tres leches cake for takeout and delivery. Brunch and prix fixe dinner reservations are available for an outdoor garden table.

Considered the standard-bearer for Lao cuisine in D.C., Thip Khao comes from mother-and-son chefs Seng Luangrath and Boby Pradachith. Their Columbia Heights standby continues to satisfy heat-seekers with a “jungle menu” full of fermented fish sauce, a heavy dose of chiles, offal, and cured meats. Hit orders include crispy chili glazed wings, grilled pork neck with lemongrass, and a fiery Lao papaya salad. Open Wednesday to Sunday (5 p.m. to 9 p.m.) with carryout, indoor dining, and outdoor service across a cozy tented patio (one-hour limit with a $20 deposit). The owners’ original Lao restaurant, Padaek, is in Falls Church.

At this Malaysian restaurant in Columbia Heights, chef James Wozniuk navigates a balance of pungent, spicy-sweet, and funky umami flavors that border on extreme but never veer out of control. Wozniuk’s condiments — sambal made from bird’s eye chiles, palm sugar, tamarind, and fried anchovies; appetite-piquing pickled limes with prune and golden raisin; peanut-based satay sauce — assert themselves while circling an array of rice and noodle dishes. Bar manager Colin Sugalski makes complex tropical cocktails, like a blackstrap rum and pineapple Jungle Bird, that vie for attention. Order takeout or delivery online. Tables are available in a breezy dining room or on a patio. 

One of Eater’s 16 best new restaurants in America in 2019, the “Jew-ish” deli in Park View has expanded quickly. Co-owners Andrew Dana and 2017 Eater Young Gun Daniela Moreira opened three new locations for its wood-fired bagels (Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Bethesda) during the pandemic, with another en route to North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose complex. Go for a pastrami, egg, and cheese, or a bagel with candied salmon, cream cheese, cucumbers, and crispy shallots. Doughnuts, a new addition, are here to stay. To navigate its notoriously long lines, there are social distancing markers and noncontact pickups before 2 p.m. daily.

Co-owners Jill Tyler, Jon Sybert, and Bill Jensen have turned their candle-lit pasta parlor and wine bar, one of 2020’s most exciting openings in the carefree days of January, into one of the more versatile operations around Adams Morgan. Dinner is still the main event indoors and out — the team annexed a lot behind a nearby condo building for an impromptu patio — but don’t skip lunchtime takeout (11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.). Customers who enter while the sun is still up can buy retail wine, sandwiches that put many delis to shame, and pints of creative gelatos (cinnamon toast, roasted fennel dulce de leche) from pastry chef Annie Coleman.

With a propensity to mix Asian, Italian, and Middle Eastern ingredients, Rooster & Owl navigates through traps that would trip up lesser restaurants. Chef Yuan Tang’s stunner has drawn a lot of notice in its first year, including a three-star review by the Washington Post and a James Beard Award semifinalist nod for Best New Restaurant. The 14th Street NW eatery reopened for on-site dining in March after a year-long hiatus, offering four-course feasts featuring dishes like Carolina-style barbecue carrots or “beet quaillington” with prosciutto, oyster mushroom, and curry. Reserve via Resy, with takeaway and delivery continuing on a limited basis through Tock.

Darren Norris has been preparing Japanese food for a long time, and it shows. The chef-owner at this versatile, basement-level shop — part of a three-piece project that includes a penthouse cocktail bar and a still-to-come shabu shabu operation — sends out smartly appointed sushi packages, succulent short rib skewers, donburi, and noodle bowls brimming with options like hot or cold dashi, or chopstick-thick udon versus matcha tea-green soba. Call for pickups, order delivery through third-party apps, or reserve a seat on Resy.

Maydan sets an Arabic table with communal plates like lamb hindshanks rubbed in basturma spices, ribeye with blue fenugreek, and lamb or chicken kebabs complemented by an array of condiments like toum, tahina sauce, and zhug. All of it comes off a theatrical wood-burning hearth. Desserts like chocolate knafeh or Champagne m’halabia come from decorated executive pastry chef Paola Velez. Maydan covered the alleyway leading to its doorway with patterned carpets that add an inviting touch to its outdoor setup. It’s also open for takeout and indoor dining.

Assembling takeout from chef Enrique Limardo’s trendy, expensive Latin American restaurant near the U Street corridor can feel like following a paint-by-numbers set. Every dish comes with printed instructions and multiple containers filled with brightly colored sauces. There’s a burnt orange puree of roasted squash and hearts of palm that’s meant to coat finely rendered slices of duck breast. A sweet black garlic paste is the yin to an off-white coconut sauce yang atop smashed plantain disks with macerated strawberries. The elaborate prep pushes customers to break out some nice plates for a special meal amid the endless monotony of another dinner at home. Seven Reasons has also been innovative in creating opportunities for its staff to run pop-ups, deliver food, and serve meals indoors or on its second-story patio. 

Situated between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan, Anju serves Korean bar food with a refined touch. Although the restaurant drew immediate accolades upon opening in the summer of 2019, executive chef Angel Barreto’s cooking feels more dialed-in now, even when the seafood fried rice with buttered kimchi arrives in a takeout box. Anju is open for takeout, delivery, and indoor dining. A small patio out front offers a four-course, $65 tasting menu.

Komi owners Johnny Monis and Anne Marler formed their pitch-perfect pivot nearly a full year before COVID-19 shut down much of the District. Happy Gyro, the mostly vegetarian pop-up that allows Monis to channel formative years he spent in his parents’ Greek-American pizza shop, first replaced the premium tasting menu at Komi in 2019. On and off since March, it’s given Monis and Marler a takeout operation where they can peddle quarantine-friendly goods such as crunchy thin pizzas with toppings that keep customers on their toes, ice cream and gelato fully worth the $15 price tag per pint, all kinds of wines and European ciders, and even a Happy Gyro pocket T. Delivery is available through Skip the Line.

This tiny, versatile restaurant in Logan Circle provides an essential service to homesick customers from throughout Central America. Telma Majano’s kitchen does justice to Honduran staples like plate-sized flour tortilla baleadas, full of refried beans and salty crema, or fried chicken drizzled with mayonnaise dressing, cabbage, pickled beets, and a mountainous portion of thick plantain chips. There are also Salvadoran pupusas and pan con pollo (stewed chicken subs with potato and boiled eggs) as well an impressive selection of Mexican dishes like a rich, porky white pozole, a rich chicken mole Poblano, and tacos served with sweat-inducing verde and habanero salsas. Call for takeout orders or walk in for limited indoor seating.

Clarity chef-owner Jon Krinn didn’t panic in the early stages of the pandemic; he adapted. His luxe Vienna gem turned into a takeout operation that sent out everything from pho to ribs from a new smoker to endless breads and pizzas made by his ophthalmologist-by-trade father. Now the business is back to its fine dining model, with some pandemic-era additions sprinkled in (Tuesdays star sourdough focaccia pizza and Thursdays are devoted to baguettes). A spacious parking lot outside the strip mall restaurant is the site of a covered patio where customers order from always-changing tasting menus or order a la carte veal sweetbreads. The glossy, wood-lined dining room is also seating customers again, this time with curtain partitions between each table. Book here.

Chef-owner Cedric Maupillier has left most modern American influences behind, pushing traditional French cooking at his 6-year-old Shaw bistro. Elegant eats include Muscovy duck paella à la Française, coq au vin, and chocolate mousse. More laid back options include a gruyere omelet topped with Parisian ham, a reliable cheeseburger, and shrimp and grits flanked with bacon, smoked cheddar, bell pepper, and lemon zest. Except for escargot, the full menu is available for takeout and delivery, with three-course pickup dinners for $45. Also open for happy hour, limited patio seating, and indoor dining for dinner seven days a week. 

At his convention center-adjacent restaurant full of pop art, chef David Deshaies plays with comfort food staples that call back to road meals he enjoyed with mentor Michel Richard. There are carefully developed versions of fried chicken and double cheeseburgers, and bite-size pot pie poppers. Daily brunch bites until 4 p.m. bring creative avocado toasts and “jam-edict” with bacon jam and breakfast potatoes to the table. Don’t skip out on the San Sebastian-style cheesecake from award-winning pastry chef Ana Deshaies. Takeout, delivery, and dine-in are available from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Friday and starting at 9 a.m. on weekends.

Since opening the first Swahili Village in suburban Maryland 11 years ago, chef-owner Kevin Onyona has been expanding the audience for his brand of Kenyan fine dining. The exacting char on each tender cube of beef nyama choma from the new luxury outpost downtown shows off Onyona’s technique. Pliant chapati flatbread, spinach sauteed in coconut milk, and kuku (chicken) curry display the Indian influence on the Eastern African cuisine. Go for indoor and limited outdoor dining or order delivery via third-party apps. Call for carryout and curbside pickup.

The end of winter signaled a return to special-occasion cooking for Reverie chef-owner Johnny Spero, who is happy to shut down a punky pizza pop-up and take a break from cheeseburgers. Reverie’s eight- to 10-course prixes — available for $125 per person inside the open-kitchen dining room or on a ventilated, covered patio in the back — showcase a strong relationship with a Maine seafood purveyor and an exorbitant combo of ingredients, techniques, and memories pulled from Nordic countries, Japan, Montreal, and Maryland. For example, Spanish turbot skin performs beautifully as a crunchy puffed cracklin’ snack, and the unctuous fish reappears as a main component accented with a shellfish cream and salted mandarin sauce.

At this roomy Thai restaurant in Mt. Vernon Triangle, chef Jeeraporn Poksupthon has a kitchen worthy of her skill, ambition, and work ethic. Poksupthon led large catering kitchens in Thailand before she helped usher a wave of chile-fueled Northern and Northeastern cooking into D.C. at now-closed Baan Thai in Logan Circle. At Baan Siam, she’s playing the hits — creamy, crunchy, and complex khao soi; tapioca skin dumplings with ground chicken, peanuts, and sweet fermented radish; all sorts of spicy-sweet salads — while exploring sour-leaning dishes from her home country’s interior and ultra-hot curries from the South. Order for pickup or in-house delivery here, or reserve a table for indoor or outdoor dining here.

Retired schoolteacher Jocelyn Law-Yone is enjoying a phenomenal second career as the chef at this Burmese spot on H Street NE that unites Indian, Thai, and Chinese flavors. At Eater D.C.’s 2019 Restaurant of the Year, Law-Yone’s edible curriculum includes lessons on traditional dishes like a turmeric-tinged mohinga curry, brimming with noodles and stewed catfish, or lahpet thoke, a pickled tea leaf salad interspersed with crunchy broad beans. Colorful cocktails match the food for flavor and ingenuity. Thamee isn’t seating diners inside during the COVID-19 crisis, but the small business is still taking preorders for dishes, drinks, meal kits and CSAs from Wednesday to Sunday.

A wood-burning oven imported from France is the workhorse inside chef-owner Amy Brandwein’s Italian cafe in CityCenter, an everyday alternative to Centrolina, her dressier osteria across the street. Brandwein and Co. pull ratatouille omelets out of long-handled frying pans that sizzle next to glowing red logs. The pandemic pushed her to add pizza, and the 10-layer eggplant Parmesan is a showstopper, but eating light is painless, too, with choices like a charred chicken and escarole salad. Order takeout online or get delivery via Caviar from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (closed Monday and Tuesday).

The whole point of Cane was to recreate the close quarters and lively atmosphere of a Trinidadian rum shop. By closing their cozy dining room during the COVID-19 crisis, chef Peter Prime and co-owner Jeanine Prime, his sister, had to deny customers the chance to bond over rum shots for their own good. Peter’s pimento-smoked jerk wings are just as tender out of a takeout box, and other signature dishes such as crispy kale, whole fried snapper escovitch, and cumin-rich geera pork belly with a packaged side of culantro sauce have proven surprisingly portable.

Since opening in 2002, José Andrés’s mega Mediterranean complex in Penn Quarter has amassed a devoted fan base for crispy Brussels sprouts with coriander seed and barberries, impressive kebabs, billowing pita breads, and Greek yogurt cheesecakes. With depleted foot traffic near Capitol One Arena, there’s limited dining on-site to go with takeout and delivery covering family-style feasts full of lamb, chicken, or smoked mushroom tagines. Chef Michael Costa offers a four-course meze brunch menu, too.

The flagship restaurant for Daikaya Group, D.C.’s foremost experts in bouncy ramen noodles imported from Sapporo, has put considerable thought into takeout and delivery. Customers can order par-cooked noodles for a quick nuke in the microwave or uncooked for those inclined to boil at home option. Chef Katsuya Fukushima has added a virtual mini mart full of Japanese beer and canned coffee or tea. As of early April, the entire restaurant was being used for the ramen menu and small plates, but the second-floor izakaya is expected to return.

Joancarlo Parkhurst’s Puerto Rican restaurant in Navy Yard bills itself as soulful, which is to say it packs in the type of heady garlic punch, affinity for pork fat, and deeply developed flavors associated with matriarchal kitchens across multiple cultures. The all-day cafe fills mornings with Ceremony coffee, flaky guava pastelillos (pastries), and breakfast sandwiches built on mallorcas, or sweet, spiraling rolls coated in powdered sugar. More substantial options include pressed tripleta sandwiches (roast pork, ham, ribeye), mashed plantain mofongo, whole-fried snapper, and a sous vide-then-fried chuleta kan-kan — a traditional cut of pork that includes chop and belly. Order takeout or delivery online, or use a QR code to pull up a menu on the patio.

Albi chef-owner Michael Rafidi manipulates smoke with a master’s touch, sending out arresting dishes from the wood-burning oven and hearth at his high-end Levantine restaurant in Navy Yard that have a way of ensnaring a taster’s full attention. The Maryland native’s Middle Eastern menu is full of dishes that change on a farmer’s whim — see the sweet fried yams served with shredded smoked duck atop a whirlwind of whipped hummus — but the snack-sized lamb kefta kebabs speared on cinnamon sticks should never go out of style. Wine, cocktails, and desserts all rise to the occasion, making Albi quite possibly the most exciting new restaurant in D.C. Order takeout on Tock or reserve a table indoors (or in a plastic igloo outside).

This New England-style seafood spot in Navy Yard is known for stuffed clams, lobster rolls, and rotating specials from chef Kyle Bailey that showcase sustainable fish plucked from nearby waters. Extra cheesy smash burgers are a crowd pleaser, too. A TSL To Go operation offers takeout and delivery, complete with a video tutorial on how to shuck oysters at home. The sprawling riverside patio right next to Nationals Park is now a year-round dining option thanks to lots of newly installed heaters.