For D.C. residents, sampling the most tantalizing brisket inside the Beltway requires a drive into Riverdale Park, Maryland. 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. Beef ribs, pulled pork, sliced turkey, and St. Louis-style ribs are all available, too. Daily specials like brisket tacos and barbecue pupusas give the kitchen a creative outlet. Sides such as red kidney beans braised with brisket, caramelized pineapple, and coleslaw interspersed with raisins nod to the owners’ Salvadoran heritage. Diners can preorder for pickup Wednesday through Sunday with the option to dine there or take it to go. In June, 2Fifty expanded into D.C. with a small stall inside Union Market.

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 Gracias 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 a mix of snacks like queso fundido with mezcal-flambéed Chihuahua cheese, seasonal specials like ramp enchiladas verdes, taco platters, and a standout tres leches cake covered in flowers and berries. Call or email to reserve outdoor tables positioned in the front and back.

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 menu full of fermented fish sauce, a heavy dose of chiles, offal, and cured meats. Hit orders include crispy tamarind glazed wings, grilled pork shoulder with lemongrass, and a fiery Lao papaya salad. The restaurant opens Wednesday to Sunday (5 p.m. to 10 p.m.) with carryout, indoor dining, and outdoor service across a cozy tented patio (90-minute limit with a $20 deposit charged via Tock).

This destination bakery and all-day cafe is housed inside the historic Heller’s Bakery building in sleepy Mount Pleasant. A takeout window operates from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week, offering regulars a chance to stop by for a coffee, pastrami breakfast sandwiches, a guava turnover, or a mini goat cheese cheesecake. The restaurant serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday, and reservations for indoor and strategy dining go live one month in advance. Chef Brad DeBoy is the fermenter-in-chief in charge of an ambitious cafe menu that offers rotating items beet ’nduja lettuce wraps, kimchi grilled cheese, and curry pickled cauliflower with koji-cured radish. Ellē owners Nick Pimentel and Lizzy Evelyn will soon expand across the city with a second all-day cafe inside Western Market food hall in Foggy Bottom. 

Inside a narrow, dark basement underneath an ice cream shop in Mount Pleasant, Martha Dear owners Tara Smith and Demetri Mechelis serve a style of Greek pizza that’s unlike anything else in D.C. Mechelis mans a domed oven that fires round, naturally leavened pies studded with salty Mediterranean cheeses; the white pizza boasts crumbly myzithra and hard kefalograviera, while Mechelis’s take on pantzarosalata dots the classic roasted beet and yogurt salad with candied hazelnuts and herbs. Slices of exceptionally soft chocolate olive oil cake bring brownie batter to mind, albeit one made with a first-press fat sourced from one of Mechelis’s uncles in Greece. There are patio tables out front.

In a city renowned for Ethiopian cuisine, Zenebech has survived as an annual favorite thanks to the sharp, fresh flavors overseen by its namesake matriarch, Zenebech Dessu. The restaurant relocated from Shaw to Adams Morgan in 2017, then temporarily closed after a devastating fire before reclaiming its place as the city’s gold standard for vegetarian combo platters and awaze tibs.

The final piece of chef Darren Norris’s three-part Japanese complex in Adams Morgan debuted in July with a focus on shabu shabu and kaiseki small plates that call back to his days running acclaimed izakaya Kushi. The middle floor, lined with large sake barrels and dragon artwork, invites seated customers to cook an assortment of top-notch meats like A7 Australian wagyu, local poultry, and sustainable seafoods in a bubbling dashi broth of choice (Norris suggests the duck bone collagen). There’s a $35 prix fixe lunch option, too. Reserve a seat on Resy. The versatile project also includes a penthouse cocktail bar (Death Punch) and walk-in Shibuya Eatery in the basement, where Norris sends out sushi starring North Pacific blue fin tuna and yellowtail, succulent short rib skewers grilled over binchotan charcoal, build-your-own bento boxes, and donburi bowls.

Maydan sets an Arabic table with communal plates like zucchini baba ghanoush, chicken shish taouk kebabs, and ribeye seasoned with blue fenugreek, all complemented by an array of condiments such as toum, tahina sauce, and zhug. In addition to a dining room built around a theatrical wood-burning hearth, Maydan covered the alleyway leading to its doorway with patterned carpets that add an inviting touch to its outdoor setup.

Situated between Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan, Anju serves Korean bar food with a refined touch from the restaurant group behind casual hit Chiko. Chef Angel Barreto leads a kitchen that plates up standouts ranging from pork and kimchi mandu (dumplings) and fried chicken with white barbecue sauce to a seafood fried rice bokum bap and seared ribeye galbi boards. Weekend brunches bring on breakfast sandwiches and a grit bowl that riffs on juk.

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 to sit in the small dining room.

At this casual, cozy “neo-bistro” in Georgetown, chef Matt Conroy adopts a French appreciation for market produce. The chef’s restraint exudes confidence in dishes made with a handful of ingredients, like the pillowy Parisian gnocchi that Lutèce offered with corn and poblano pepper on one visit, and with chanterelles and leeks on another. Reservations for a chef’s table menu ($65 per person) include four courses and a view of the kitchen.

Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley smashes the city’s stuffy steakhouse conventions with a menu at this Union Market tavern that gives vegetables equal billing. Her butter-packed biscuits with pimento cheese have become the stuff of legend, and a salmon collar practically melting under a butter-lemon bath has its own cult following. Ax-handle ribeyes and pork chops are priced by the ounce for communal feasts. Like sibling spot Le Diplomate, St. Anselm built nifty dining nooks on the street.

Jeremiah Langhorne’s focus on researching Mid-Atlantic recipes, deploying wood-fire cooking, and working with local purveyors has paid off with national accolades from Michelin and the James Beard Foundation. The Dabney ditched takeout earlier than many local hotspots, instead focusing on four-course prix fixe menus that require advanced planning for anyone hoping to snag a reservation in Shaw. Customers can expect to find dishes like Autumn Olive Farm pork with rutabaga, pear, black pepper, and whiskey; and sweet “Baked Virginia” with chocolate chess pie, peanut ice cream, and toasted meringue. Indoor and outdoor reservations are released in two-week blocks.

Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo’s follow-up to scene-y, tropically appointed Seven Reasons brings the West End a new fine dining venue for Mediterranean-Latin fusion full of surreal plating and modernist technique. Sturdy staples like a moussaka cigar — with crispy phyllo dough, smoked eggplant, ground lamb, and goat-manchego cream — and fried Spanish octopus with Amazonian chimichurri anchor the rotating dinner menu. Go a la carte or choose the 10-course, omakase tasting experience at the chef’s counter. A soaring white bar lined with soft cranberry stools sends out stylish cocktails with Mediterranean ingredients like Greek olives, truffle honey, and limoncello.

Rose Nguyen, owner of Eater DC’s 2021 Bakery of the Year, sends out spectacular sweet and savory pastries from a small stall in downtown food hall The Block. Her team solicits a frenzy of weekly online orders for rotating Asian-American delights like sweet potato brioche doughnuts stuffed with passion fruit curd, scallion pancake buns, and croissants stuffed with champorado (sweet chocolate rice pudding). One stall over at Pogiboy, former Bad Saint chefs Tom Cunanan and Paolo Dungca concoct their tribute to fast foods with a blend of Philippine and American comforts. Carryout-friendly dishes worth a try include a sweet pork tocino burger on an ube-purple steamed bun and a big bowl of spaghetti slathered in sweet hot dog bolognese.

Reverie chef and owner Johnny Spero draws inspiration and techniques from Nordic countries, Japan, and Maryland. Reverie’s 10 to 15-course prix fixes in the open-kitchen dining room or on a ventilated, covered patio in the back might include anything from Wellfleet oysters with whey and fig to Carolina gold rice with crab and egg to a pear granita with kombucha marshmallows. The menu changes based on availability. Next up for the well-traveled chef: Bar Spero, a lively tribute to the nightlife in Spain’s Basque country opening this spring in Capitol Crossing.

At this roomy Thai restaurant in Mt. Vernon Triangle, chef Jeeraporn Poksupthon has a kitchen worthy of her skill and ambition. 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. Law-Yone’s edible curriculum includes lessons on traditional dishes like a turmeric-tinged mohingar 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. As of early January, the restaurant is open for take-out and delivery only.

A wood-burning oven imported from France is the workhorse inside Amy Brandwein’s Italian cafe in CityCenter, an everyday alternative to Centrolina, her dressier osteria across the street. The chef and her crew pull ratatouille omelets out of long-handled frying pans that sizzle next to glowing red logs. There’s phenomenal focaccia here, and the 10-layer eggplant Parmesan is a showstopper, but eating light is painless, too, with choices like a charred chicken and escarole salad. Plus, Brandwein recently added wood-fired pizzas to the mix. Order takeout online or get delivery via Caviar from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (closed Monday and Tuesday). Brandwein just revealed plans to expand into the next-door space this summer.

Cane aims to recreate the close quarters and lively atmosphere of a Trinidadian rum shop, so last summer’s return to indoor dining marked a significant comeback. Pimento-smoked jerk wings from Eater DC’s 2019 Chef of the Year Peter Prime are a mandatory order. Customers at the narrow H Street NE space should also consider starting off meals with a plate of doubles, a street snack of fry bread topped with stewed chickpeas and spicy chutneys. Whole fried snapper escovitch and cumin-rich geera pork belly are ideal for sharing. Cane seats customers for walk-in dinner service only, but there’s also lunch and dinner available for takeout and delivery; order here.

Business lunchers, beware. Anyone who orders a Spanish gin and tonic will likely find themselves thirsty for an eminently refreshing refill. Chef Pepe Moncayo, a Spaniard who spent a large chunk of his career cooking in Singapore, oversees this Michelin-starred Iberian-Japanese melting pot that makes people feel welcome in many ways. There’s $38 bento boxes available weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. An omakase version handpicked by the chef is $55 (with a beverage pairing for $30). At dinner, opt for a six-course omakase for just under $100. Tapas range from patatas bravas to duck rillete gyozas, and a la carte large plates offer steamed mussels in sake or paella studded with smoked eel.

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. Chef Michael Costa offers family-style tasting menus for $45 a person. A “meze ora” (4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday) includes $5 pide and $8 cocktails. There’s a four-course meze brunch with rosé flights, too ($75 for two).

Tucked inside a historic bank building, Penn Quarter’s opulent, all-day hotel brasserie unveiled right before the pandemic has really hit its stride. Tourists and locals alike come for a consistently impressive raw bar selection, creative cocktails, and all-day omelettes engineered with beautifully buttery Vaughan Cheese. Decadent bar bites like puffy gougères or a bright bowl of caviar and cucumber with fresh potato chips are discounted during its weekday “Banker’s Hour”. Eater Young Gun Patrick Curran (‘16), who’s big on partnerships with local purveyors, also offers a three-course, family-style Sunday supper with whole roasted chicken. The stately space now extends outdoors onto a year-round patio garden terrace. Take a trip to the depths of the bank for martini service at Silver Lyan, the cocktail lair from world-famous bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana.

James Beard award-winning chef Vikram Sunderam plays liberally with spicy chiles and sour fruits to make Rasika one of the most celebrated Indian restaurants in the country. His palak chaat, a fried baby spinach dish decorated with sweet yogurt, tamarind, and date chutney, has inspired imitators around town. Dal makhani slowly simmered in a decadent, buttery gravy is another signature. Both the Penn Quarter flagship and its West End sibling are ideal venues for vegetarian diners, too.

When NYC-import Sushi Nakazawa opened in the Trump International Hotel right after José Andrés stormed out of a contract in the same location, it became the most controversial sushi bar in D.C. Less up for debate is the 20-course, nigiri-sushi omakase that stuns in the expert hands of “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” chef Masaaki Uchino. There’s no dinner menu, which leaves more time to linger over an impressive list of Japanese whiskey and sake. The most coveted seats are at the 10-seat sushi bar that offers the best view of the action. Fortunately for the restaurant, Trump International Hotel is in the hands of new owners who have stripped it of the Trump name.

Matt Adler’s decidedly unmodern tribute to classic red sauce joints takes diners on a well-worn path that carefully steers clear of the contrived. Dishes heavy on nostalgia, quality ingredients, and technique are served in a red banquette lined, vintage photo-laden dining room that buzzes with hospitality and delight. Tender chicken parm with a light breading gets tucked under a zingy marina, hunky garlic bread arrives with a bowl of four-cheese sauce for dipping, and shrimp scampi gets splashed with house-made limoncello. Drinks, like a Manhattan with an amaretto rinse, receive equally attentive treatment. Keeping with theme, the menu is surprisingly affordable.

Anyone who’s followed Kevin Tien’s career in D.C. restaurants should know well enough to order crudo and fried chicken wherever he’s cooking. At Moon Rabbit, like at short-lived Emilie’s and nationally regarded Himitsu, Tien delivers on those signatures with aplomb. At the modern Vietnamese restaurant inside a luxe hotel on the Southwest Waterfront, he serves thin slices of kombu-cured scallops in a lime and coconut tom kha broth. Mountainous portions of ga chien, an upscale riff on chicken wings sold by street vendors, stack crunchy legs and thighs dripping with a spicy-sticky coating of Virginia maple syrup, fish sauce, garlic, ginger, and three different chiles. On the lighter side, a green mango salad leans on other sweet fruits with a welcome addition of lychee and stone fruit.

Albi chef Michael Rafidi manipulates smoke with a master’s touch, sending out dishes from the wood-burning hearth at his high-end Levantine restaurant that have a way of commanding a diner’s full attention. The Maryland native’s Middle Eastern menu tweaks dishes to incorporate peak produce — see the smashed pumpkin labneh or apple and pear fattoush for fall — but the snack-sized lamb kefta kebabs speared on cinnamon sticks should never go out of style. A lengthy wine list full of hard-to-find Eastern Mediterranean labels, cocktails, and desserts all rise to the occasion. Albi recently added the title of one of Eater’s 11 Best New Restaurants in America to its growing accolades. For something more affordable, head next-door to sibling bakery and cafe, Yellow.