Updated September 2026
Whether you’re ready to sup with senators or scoff a sandwich, here’s what and where to eat in Washington, DC in 2026, freshly updated with reopenings, newcomers and the old favourites that are still worth the trip.
I came for the monuments and museums. I left full… of half-smokes, oysters, coffee, crab and more than a few surprises. My first lesson? DC isn’t the buttoned-up bore it’s often made out to be. You see, while Washington, DC may wear its officialdom with pride, it’s also a town that eats with its hands, sips with intention and knows exactly how to let its culinary hair down. It’s a place where, in a moment, you can go from a power lunch in a room full of senators to chasing chilli down your chin at a counter seat sticky with history. Somewhere in between, the real DC shows up, and she is bold, generous and utterly unforgettable.
So, what to eat in Washington, DC? From Native American fry bread to Michelin-starred tasting menus, the city dishes up flavours as diverse as its people. Whether you’re slurping ramen or sipping rooftop cocktails above the Capitol, here’s our guide to eating your way through DC.
Washington, DC’s soulful street food
My first bite of DC comes wrapped in nostalgia and chilli. Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street is a city institution, slinging half-smokes (a local sausage, like a hot dog but bigger and spicier) since 1958. Beloved by locals, civil rights leaders, celebrities and presidents alike (even Obama can’t resist), this diner bears witness to decades of change. The original U Street location closed for nine months of renovations in 2025 and reopened in May 2026 with new plumbing, wiring and a new roof, though the Ali family kept the look and feel exactly as it’s always been. Don’t miss the half-smokes. Every messy, satisfying mouthful is a slice of Washington’s soul.
I’m not here just to nibble at the edges. I want to devour the full DC experience. So I venture to the buzzing Municipal Fish Market at The Wharf. As the oldest continuously operating open-air fish market in the United States, it’s a glorious celebration of East Coast bounty. Buckets of blue crabs click their claws as I pass, sea air mingling with the shout of fishmongers and the clink of oyster knives shucking briny oysters.
Surprisingly, the very best crab cakes I find to eat in Washington, DC aren’t by the riverside. Instead, I find them tucked away in Eastern Market at the Market Lunch stand. Forget breadcrumbs and filler, these are pure Maryland magic. Golden on the outside, sweet with wads of lump blue crab, and barely held together inside, these beauties land on a fluffy, fresh bun with a little salad, a squeeze of lemon and silence… because crab cakes this good demand reverence.
Then there’s Oki Bowl in Georgetown (relocated and renamed Oki Shōten since my visit), a ramen house that’s part gastronomic temple, part hallucination! With fairy lights, glowing toilets, shelves stacked with pop culture relics and neon-hued everything, it is kitsch, sure, but their Thai-inspired ramen, topped with seafood, is a revelation. My advice. Go. Just bring your sunglasses.
For something quicker and infinitely more shareable, DUCK into bumblebirds on Capitol Hill, the new fried chicken pop-in from Top Chef judge Carla Hall, tucked into the old Good Stuff Eatery spot. The OG Bumble, crispy fried chicken piled with black pepper ranch slaw and pickles on a soft brioche bun, is the kind of sandwich that requires both hands and zero regrets. Round it out with a nugget cone and a Southern biscuit on the side, and you’ve got a cheap, cheerful and darned tasty feed.
Over in Navy Yard, Canton Disco is doing something entirely different. It’s a Cantonese café by day, a neon-lit, 1970s Hong Kong nightclub by night. Gof or the char siu, finished on a Japanese charcoal grill until the edges go sticky and charred, and stay for the chow fun and a dance between courses.
And if you feel like a little refresher, duck into the new Pitango Gelato on 14th Street for a scoop of Sicilian pistachio, hand-churned on site with milk from grass-fed Maryland cows. It’s makes for a small, sweet full stop to an afternoon of walking and is infinitely better than anything from a chain.
Tasting tradition in Washington, DC
I find a different kind of nourishment at Mitsitam Native Foods Café, inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Since reopening under executive chef Alexandra Strong, the menu now spans four stations, Campfire Grill, Chef’s Table, The Four Corners and Woodlands and Coastlines. “Mitsitam” means “Let’s eat” in the languages of the Delaware and Piscataway peoples, so I do just that. I dive straight into fry bread stacked with chilli, refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, Jack cheese, jalapeños and sour cream, plus a generous scoop of Mitsitam’s signature bison chilli. It’s earthy and spiced just enough to bring heat without overpowering the meat’s robust flavour. One of the more unique things I find to eat in Washington, DC, it is rich and grounding, made heartier with a side of golden fry bread, puff, chewy and still warm from the griddle. To wash it down, I try a cup of what looks like milk but turns out to be a sweet Indigenous-style horchata, likely made from rice and gently spiced with cinnamon. More than lunch, it’s a quiet act of cultural storytelling, served with warmth and reverence.
But it’s Little Ethiopia that steals a piece of my heart and caffeinates my day. On a walking food tour through the neighbourhood, I meet the faces behind the flavours: grandmothers grinding spices, chefs slow-cooking berbere-rich stews, and baristas preparing the most sacred ritual of all, Ethiopian coffee. The Habesha coffee ceremony at Sidamo, which involves roasting beans over an open flame, grinding them by hand, and brewing in a clay jebena, isn’t just about caffeine. It’s a shared moment, a connection. The rhythm of the pour, the scent of incense in the air… it’s almost meditative. At least it is until the caffeine hits me like I’ve mainlined rocket fuel.
Later that day, still buzzing from the coffee, I find myself in Ethiopic Restaurant, one of DC’s most beloved Ethiopian restaurants. Seated in a cosy corner, I tear off pieces of tangy, spongy injera, scooping up lentil, collard greens, and berbere-laced lamb tibs (traditional sautéed meat). Earthy, unpretentious and deeply comforting, I could happily come back for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Polished plates
China Chicano Washington, DC © Aleney de Winter
When considering where and what to eat in Washington, DC, it is worth noting that the city has more than its fair share of polished eateries, where politics and power plays meet fancy plates. And, if you’re prepared to dip into your piggy bank (damn those AUD conversion rates!), you’ll come away poorer in pocket but richer in every other way.
Georgetown’s got history stacked in every doorway, but nowhere wears it quite like Martin’s Tavern. I duck into this creaky, wood-panelled corner spot on Wisconsin and N Street, the oldest family-owned restaurant in the whole city, running strong since 1933, and order a crab cake and a martini cold enough to fog the glass. Every president from Truman to George W. Bush has eaten here, but it’s Booth 3 everyone wants, a small brass plaque marking the exact spot where a young Senator John F. Kennedy proposed to Jackie in 1953. I like to imagine the nerves in that booth. Even Matt Damon clearly rates the place. He filmed an SNL cold open here in 2026, Supreme Court robe, gavel and all, ordering a “6-3 decision” like it was on the menu.
Just around the corner, tucked into a cobblestone alley across from Chaia Tacos, is Ox & Olive, the newest project from Michelin starred chef Ryan Ratino, of Bresca and Jônt fame, slotted into the old Reverie space. It’s a steakhouse, sort of, if steakhouses came with a beef sommelier in a scarlet suit wheeling round a silver trolley of aged cuts, and AC/DC turned up loud enough to rattle the martini glasses. I go for the mini brisket hot dogs and a slice of the carrot cake everyone’s talking about, though the steak tartare éclair, yes, that’s a real thing, is the one that gets me. Fun, a little theatrical, and somehow still down to earth.
Le Diplomate, a Parisian-style brasserie, draws everyone from Hollywood A-listers to Capitol Hill veterans with its steak frites and bougie brunches. Over at RPM Italian, sleek booths play host to senators and celebrities alike (yes, the Obamas have dined there). And for refined tasting menus that lean theatrical, Fiola, a Michelin-starred gem from chef Fabio Trabocchi, plates up contemporary Italian with Washington swagger.
Another Italian indulgence is Centrolina, where Chef Amy Brandwein, a six-time James Beard nominee, crafts elegant plates that celebrate the region’s bounty, such as Chesapeake soft-shell crab tangled in hand-rolled pasta or locally foraged mushrooms nestled into creamy risotto. My squid ink spaghetti, stacked with gulf shrimp, broccoli rabe, lemon, basil and chilli is sublime, and the accompanying artichoke salad a surprising showstopper.
Newest to this Italian run is Rosselli, restaurateur Ashok Bajaj’s reinvention of the old Modena space downtown, where chef Carlos Cardona, fresh off Michelin two-star NOI in Hong Kong, turns out an agnolotti del plin with sea urchin that’s already got people talking.
The Duck & The Peach, a sophisticated spot in Capitol Hill, is part of the women-led Eastern Point Collective. It’s helmed by a trio of formidable women: chef Kat Petonito, pastry chef Rochelle Cooper and sommelier Danya Degen, whose all-female wine list is as bold as it is beautiful. There, I dined on Jurgielewicz duck, slow-roasted in the restaurant’s French-made Rotisol gas rotisserie until the skin was lacquered and crisp. Amazing.
Newer to the scene is Isla, chef Lonie Murdock’s Caribbean fine dining debut in a striking 8,000 square foot downtown space. The menu wanders past the Caribbean into Japan and the Mediterranean, snapper crudo with passionfruit ponzu and culantro oil, lamb tartare with green seasoning and sweet potato crema, that kind of easy, confident mixing of cuisines. It’s already up for New Restaurant of the Year at this year’s RAMMYs, and the Obamas turned up within weeks of opening, so you’ll be in fine company.
But to truly understand how food becomes diplomacy in DC, you need to sit down at one of José Andrés’ temples of taste. The Spanish-American culinary visionary, humanitarian and Michelin magnet is behind some of the city’s most compelling restaurants. At China Chilcano, I dive into his stellar take on Chifa cuisine, the bold Chinese-Peruvian hybrid, with shiso-topped dumplings; ceviche Nikkei topped with ponzu, puffed quinoa, avocado, jicama, red onion and furikake; and a creamy custardy citrus dessert, Suspiro Limeña. I also acquaint myself with a couple of cocktails that feel part chemistry experiment.
Andrés is also behind Oyamel (modern Mexican small plates, guac theatrics included), Zaytinya (Eastern Mediterranean mezze), and the two-Michelin-starred Minibar, where dining is performance, innovation and indulgence in equal measure. But for me, it’s China Chilcano, and its unapologetic fusion and an atmosphere that is confident, curious and a little complex, like DC itself.
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Food tours worth booking
If you’d rather have someone else do the navigating (and the ordering), a few DC food tours are genuinely worth booking ahead.
DC Metro Food Tours’ Little Ethiopia Food Tour walks you through the same U Street and Shaw restaurants I stumbled into on my own, except with someone who actually knows which sambusas are worth the wait and can order you a coffee ceremony without the awkward hovering.
For the coffee obsessives, Georgetown’s Cobblestones and Croissants tour is a morning crawl through five or six local bakeries, roasters and gelato spots, the neighbourhood waking up around you as you go.
Secret Food Tours Washington DC runs a Georgetown walking tour that mixes six or so tasting stops with the neighbourhood’s stranger history, including the actual steps from The Exorcist, so you can process horror and hummus in the same afternoon.
And DrinkEatWalk’s neighbourhood food tour covers a wider net again: seafood sliders, pupusas, an Ethiopian platter and a surprise dessert across a couple of miles of actual neighbourhood rather than a tourist strip.
None of these are the polished, prix-fixe DC. They’re the DC that actually feeds itself, and having someone narrate it makes the whole thing land differently.
Raise a glass to the US Capital
In a city that whispers secrets through side doors and coded glances, it wouldn’t be DC without a speakeasy or six. So I slip down the stairs on K Street NW and find myself face-to-face with a full-length mirror. Push through, and I’m in The Mirror, a moody, low-lit hideaway humming with 1920s swagger and classic cocktails done right. I go for the Aviation (gin, lemon, maraschino and a waft of violette) and it lands smooth and sharp.
From down below to up and over, DC’s rooftop bars are where the city shakes off the day and slips into something a little more relaxed. At Smoke & Mirrors, perched atop the AC Hotel Capitol Hill Navy Yard, I’m eye-level with the Capitol Dome, catching the way the late sun paints it gold while I sip my Slay-Tini (Absolut Citron, elderflower, lemon, strawberry jalapeño, and a splash of fizzy prosecco).
Then there’s PubKey, DC’s answer to a Bitcoin bar, because of course that’s a category now, sprawled across two floors of the old Hill Country space in Penn Quarter. Think karaoke rooms, a podcast studio, elevated tavern food and a $100 cocktail you can only buy in satoshis, alongside normal, sensibly priced drinks for the rest of us. It’s part dive bar, part media company and part monetary policy debate club, which is a very DC thing to be.
Across town, Top of the Gate at the Watergate Hotel, named one of the ten best rooftop bars in the country, doesn’t disappoint. From up here, the Potomac sparkles, and the Key and Arlington bridges look like something out of a postcard. I soak it in with a glass of Veuve and half a dozen oysters that taste like they’re just plucked from the sea.
But if you’re after a real wildcard? Try Spyher’s Vintage Espionage. A wine tasting hosted by a real former intelligence officer turned sommelier. Known only as DECANTER/1, she now swaps dossiers for decanters. Her real name? Classified. But she’ll guide you through a blind tasting of old-world and new-world wines while casually dropping tales from a life in the shadows. Seduction, surveillance and sauvignon blanc. Only in DC.
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An award-winning travel writer and photographer, Aleney de Winter was fresh from school when she first set off to explore the far reaches of Australia with a two-man tent and a beaten-up Kingswood for company. Three decades, and two kids later, and she's still on the go, with her itchy-footed offspring in tow. 