Best restaurants in the D.C. area: Tom Sietsema's favorites in December 2022
My parting gift to you this year is a bevy of restaurants I look forward to continuing to follow in 2023, among them a longtime Maryland outpost known for its heaping helpings of comfort food, a polished new Korean steakhouse in Northern Virginia and several innovative dining draws in Washington.
Opal
Colin McClimans likes to name his restaurants after his kids. Note Nina May in Shaw. The problem with his latest place: “No more kids!” says the chef. Instead, he and business partner Danilo Simic thought about the old building they were taking over and “the special gem of a restaurant” they hoped to create in D.C.’s Chevy Chase neighborhood.
Opal, on the site of what once housed the Italian-themed Arucola, fit. The location is full of nostalgia for McClimans, who grew up nearby. Arucola, he says, “was the only place my parents took us to ever” as youngsters.
These days, at the same address, customers are introduced to a menu that’s “East Coast and West Coast and plant-forward,” a server informed my party not long ago. Whereas Nina May pays tribute to the Mid-Atlantic, Opal throws open the door of possibilities. “We can serve chanterelles from California if we want to,” says McClimans.
Or focaccia, baked in the wood-fired oven inherited from Arucola. Or ricotta dumplings, decked out with rings of roasted squash, fried sage and a crackling “crumble” of brown butter, one of several prizes on the menu. Saffron-colored tagliatelle scattered with clams and pulsing with garlic and chile keeps me coming back for more, too. Whole roast chicken, enjoyed after the restaurant set sail this fall, is but a memory. Here’s hoping the silky and juicy main course, dappled with chimichurri, makes a return.
Repeat visits reveal Opal to be a diamond in the rough; one night’s pork chop on squash puree prompted yawns all around, for instance. Stick with the above suggestions, and you’ll dine just fine.
There’s more than food to like. Simic is the reason you want to ease in with a cocktail at Opal, and general manager Nenad Simic (no relation) is the kind of host who treats you like a most honored guest after you’ve been in just once. Upstairs is a dining room that accepts overflow or private parties of up to two dozen people.
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Clearly, the neighborhood was hungry for another dining option. Let the nightly crowds be a lesson: Make a reservation.
5534 Connecticut Ave. 202-570-0289. opal-dc.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining. Entrees $26 to $35.
Ellington Park Bistro
French seems to be the flavor du jour right now, with restaurants including Ellington Park Bistro treating us to lots of Gallic crowd-pleasers. Part of the charm of this newcomer in the St. Gregory Hotel, named after jazz great Duke Ellington, is how many questions it solves for diners.
What’s quiet and doesn’t cost a fortune? The club room, up a flight of stairs from the lobby, is an oasis of calm where main courses average $34 — a bargain given the downtown location and the finesse on the plate.
What’s new and different? The menu, from veteran chef Frank Morales, marries time-honored French presentations with riffs on classics. Cordon bleu, for instance, finds the traditional filling of ham and cheese in a satchel of Swiss chard, making for tidier eating. Instead of breadcrumbs, the chef uses chicken skin, brushed with duck fat, to provide the signature crisp exterior. Escargots are freed from their shells, but not from gift wrap: peppery cheese puffs, a novel way to present absinthe-flavored snails. Fish, a strong suit here, includes Arctic char set atop lime-zapped Swiss chard and ringed with sauces that speak to the chef’s Asian interests.
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Did I mention there’s live music at brunch and a second dining room off the lobby with a lively bar? Ellington Park Bistro checks all sorts of delicious boxes.
2033 M St. NW. 202-888-2899. ellingtonparkbistro.com. Open for indoor dining. Dinner entrees $22 to $42.
Ingle Korean Steakhouse
Some restaurants grow on you over time. Others, like this marble-paved newcomer in Vienna, seduce you the moment you step inside. Ingle’s booths and banquettes are the color of toffee, its granite tables preset with crystal wine glasses. Rare amid the Korean competition, a greenery-topped bar mixes distinctive cocktails. Owner James Jang says he envisioned the restaurant as “a place I could bring my parents for a special occasion.”
Their good fortune is ours. The menu is brief, just a handful of shareable appetizers, four cuts of beef and three non-grilled entrees. But within that range are some memorable dishes and, in combination with the service and setting, plenty of bang for your buck.
Ingle’s steak tartare, topped with mustard seeds and batons of Asian pear, is terrific. But given the likelihood of grilled beef to follow, you might want to ease in with seafood: some of the best steamed mussels around, gathered in a butter-kissed broth, or folds of salmon sashimi hidden within a racy cabbage salad.
On with the show! All the tables are dressed with brass grills, which a server swabs with a chunk of tallow so the incoming meat doesn’t stick. A thick slice of radish goes next, creating a rest stop for the pieces of cooked beef, which a server keeps separate, so there’s no confusing, say, short ribs from rib fingers. For the sake of comparison, try both the plain and marinated kalbi, the latter of which crisps as the seasonings caramelize. The kitchen’s delicious dips are an opportunity to compare and contrast and graze the night away.
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The owner’s secret weapon is his sister, the everywhere Evelyn Jang, who comes to Ingle with a gilded résumé, having worked at some of the most hospitable restaurants in the United States and Seoul. She’s behind the wine list, the smart servers, the napkins folded just so and the door held open as you depart.
8369 Leesburg Pike, Vienna. 202-845-4966. inglekoreansteakhouse.com. Open for indoor dining. A la carte meat selections $36 to $46.
Joy by Seven Reasons
Restaurants know it helps to have to a gimmick, and this one, from Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo, features a whopper: two pounds of short ribs packed into what looks like a loaf of house-baked ciabatta. Staff lets you decide how to tackle it, although the beast comes with a knife stabbed into its center and black gloves to minimize the mess. Bite down and out gush smoked cheddar cheese, pickled onions and more. The point? “People having fun,” says executive chef Jose Ignacio Useche, a longtime associate of his boss.
Eating in this new dining draw, where yards of colorful fringe hang from the ceiling and a jungle of plants graces the bar, reveals Joy to be a chip off the block of Limardo’s ever-growing collection of restaurants, a brand that embraces Immigrant Food and Imperfecto. The links include service with a smile (and plenty of polish), drinks as clever as the cooking, and combinations that run busy but never boring.
Behold the most luxurious soup in town, a warm vichyssoise buoyed with pureed cauliflower and a hint of truffle oil. Scallops are lightly crusted with parmesan and cassava crumbs, then set on a puddle of guajillo oil in a scallop shell — a gift from Neptune. Roasted tomato is stuffed with rice mixed with green tomato mojo and encircled with a trio of contrasting sauces. Almond soft-serve arrives with a shower of chocolate pearls and caramelized pepitas in a waffle cone in a gold stand.
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Joy is pretty much what it says it is.
5471 Wisconsin Ave., Chevy Chase. 202-417-8968. joybysevenreasons.com. Open for indoor dining. Entrees $28 to $130 (for shareable 38-ounce tomahawk steak).
Monocacy Crossing
“It’s got almost anything you want!” says a dining companion as she reads a menu that lists duck nachos, steak salad, ahi tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes and fried chicken — among the nearly 40 (you read that right) snacks, apps, salads and main courses at what looks like a big house with a big bar near the Monocacy River.
The putty-colored dining room is loud, and the swinging kitchen door bears scuff marks from shoes kicking it open. That doesn’t stop the gravel parking lot from filling up or couples from filing in for date night. Chef and co-owner Rich Regan says “there’s no barrier to the theme” in the American restaurant he’s run with his wife since 2000.
He’s got that right. At a recent dinner, my posse started with spicy tuna meatballs, à l’orange pork cheeks served on cauliflower puree and a tumbleweed of onion rings rising from a bowl of beef broth — a curious but satisfying riff on French onion soup. Appetizers are sized like entrees, and main courses predict tomorrow’s lunch. I was more than happy to reheat the restaurant’s mustard-sauced salmon and jasmine rice. “It’s like a farm meal,” says a companion who knows farm food, as she tackles a spread of sliced pork tenderloin and scalloped potatoes nudged with a sage-flavored cider sauce.
“We’re the farthest thing from dinner and a show,” says Regan. “We feed people at Monocacy.” Sure enough, the buttermilk fried chicken shored up with mashed potatoes is portioned as if for linebackers — save perhaps for the crisp snow peas on its abundant plate.
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The entree is fueled with a splash of Tabasco, which “goes on everything in my restaurant,” jokes the chef. He remains grateful to the Louisiana maker of the hot sauce, the McIlhenny Company, that gifted him a scholarship back in the 1990s that kept him at the Culinary Institute of America. I can think of people who are glad he went on to cook — me included.
4424A Urbana Pike, Frederick. 301-846-4204. monocacycrossing.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining. Entrees $18 to $36.
Passage to India
Grand entrances are a given when the front door is inlaid with beautiful metal tiles, and the smile from behind the bar gives you the sense you’ll be in good hands for the length of your stay in this rich restaurant. A host leads you into a dining room dressed up with ornate carved screens, photos of India from yesteryear and spice jars behind a long banquette.
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Owner and veteran restaurateur Sudhir Seth died last year, but his wife, Sonali, who left her job at a doctor’s clinic to shepherd the restaurant, is on hand to make sure your passage to India is a smooth one.
“There’s more to India than chicken tikka,” she likes to say, and the menu demonstrates that. Pick a direction and there’s something to entice you on the list, which divides the riches of the subcontinent into four parts. A recent foray took me to the west, where I indulged in boiled chicken in a curtain of yogurt and sour cream made green and luscious with cilantro and mint, and to the south, where I feasted on tender morsels of lamb finished with coconut powder and curry leaves.
Any meal is better with a side of chopped onions and green chiles tossed with lime juice and red chili powder, just the joust you want with some of the richer dishes and the homey sort of combination you might find in a home in Seth’s native Mumbai. Vegetarian options abound; gently spiced three-bean cakes with comet tails of sauces make a nice start. Main courses are presented with a fragrant scoop of rice and a bright salad of chopped carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers — nice touches that extend a meal’s value.
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I’ve been eating here since shortly after the place opened in 2001 and appreciate the consistency of my visits, not to mention the relative hush compared with much of the competition. At Passage to India, dinner comes with a welcome side of tranquility.
4931 Cordell Ave., Bethesda. 301-656-3373. passagetoindia.info. Open for indoor dining and delivery. Dinner entrees $17 to $25.
Rooster & Owl
Half the reason I like coming here is for a tasting menu that forces tough decisions from a list that’s full of delicious novelty. Here’s the place for a Caesar salad reimagined with Brussels sprouts and cheddar cheese, or a panzanella of grilled sourdough croutons tossed with escovitch, or pickled, mussels.
“My creative process is kind of random,” says chef Yuan Tang, who co-owns Rooster & Owl with his wife and business partner, Carey. His usual strategy is to take something familiar and “go a half-step away from what’s traditional.”
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Sometimes a mile. In the case of the “Caesar” salad, roasted Brussels sprouts add a nice smokiness, Asian pear lends a fruity touch and aged cheddar provides a faint crackle, from salt crystals in the cheese. Tang’s “banh mi” is unlike anything you’d find in Eden Center. I’m here to vouch for the character of coriander aioli slathered on toasted house-baked bread to which sous vide bacon, sliced foie gras and pickled daikon are added.
Some dishes are simply sensational, like housemade pappardelle arranged with tangy roasted Roma tomatoes, a crumble of duck sausage and pinches of ricotta sweetened with honey. It’s as fine as any pasta now playing in D.C.
The other reason I enjoy a night here is the hospitality. Someone on staff always opens the door before I can, and last meal, a host let me know “life-giving water is on the way” after I was seated. Funny. The crew is also relaxed and informed. It helps that every dish gets presented for a group taste ahead of showtime, “a reminder of why we’re here,” says Carey, who oversees the hospitality. “We want to be stewards of that work” created by the kitchen.
There’s lots to look forward to in the new year: the handiwork of a just-hired pastry chef, Rachel Sherriffe, from her boss’s alma mater, the esteemed Jean-Georges in New York, and a more comfortable outdoor dining space. Season after season, Rooster & Owl keeps diners on their toes while giving them reasons to return.
2436 14th St. NW. 202-813-3976. roosterowl.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining. Four-course tasting menu $85.
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