The question was never which ice cream shop President Joe Biden would first visit in D.C. The question was when Biden would make his way over to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. In fact, it was nearly a year-to-the-day from when the Columbus Monthly published Jeni’s and Joe Biden: A Love Story that Biden stopped in to the Barracks Row outpost of the Ohio-based chain for a scoop of chocolate with peanut butter flecks and a scoop of blackout chocolate cake in a waffle cone. Biden’s relationship with the ice cream company’s James Beard Award-winning founder Jeni Britton Bauer goes back at least to 2012. In 2016, the then-vice president even visited Jeni’s headquarters in Columbus, Ohio to hold a press conference about wages.

On Memorial Day 2021, the Bidens met Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff for lunch at Le Diplomate, the ever-busy French brasserie from restaurateur Stephen Starr with a reputation for catering to VIPs. Harris and Emhoff returned in the fall for a leisurely Sunday meal.

On Cinco de Mayo 2021, Las Gemelas co-owner Josh Phillips got to hear directly from the V.P. that Las Gemelas is the first restaurant in America to receive a Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant. Biden also ordered four tacos and two quesadillas in the process.

President Joe Biden just enjoyed a glamorous Friday night out at the West End’s acclaimed Mediterranean-Latin spot by chef Enrique Limardo. Biden and his family headed to its private dining room to feast on a prix-fixe lineup of lamb moussaka “cigars,” tuna tartare with shishito puree and trout caviar, slow-roasted suckling pig, and more, co-owner Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger tells Washingtonian.

The Bidens have been fans of Fabio Trabocchi’s swanky Italian seafood restaurant in Georgetown since at least 2014. A 2021 visit came with a side of controversy because the presidential couple were photographed walking through the restaurant without wearing protective face masks, a violation of D.C.’s public health mandates at the time.