Chef Daniel O’Brien turns out an ever-changing multicourse menu during the Wednesday-through-Saturday 12-seat dinners at this specialty pop-up market in the Shaw neighborhood.
Designed by Philip Johnson in 1963, this petite gallery is as captivating as the Impressionist and Modernist works it contains (paintings by Cézann, and Braque, plus sculptures by Calder and Rodin).
Now a museum, the hilltop mansion was Honest Abe's summer White House, where he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation and coordinated much of the North’s military deployment during the Civil War.
Easily the area’s best Indian restaurant and unlike any other in the crowded field. What to get: Ragda patties, potato cakes with tamarind-date-and-mint chutney; avocado and banana with date chutney.
Look for dishes with an Asian accent—such as tempura-fried turbot fin with yuzu vinaigrette—or with a regional American feel, such as pastrami-cured sweetbreads.
What to get: The tangy potato-and-chickpea salad called papri chaat; salmon sliders on miniature pancakes; lemony tandoori mackerel; Malabar shrimp curry; tandoori chicken; orange-scented gulab jamun.
Salads, such as a platter of shredded green papaya, explode with limey tang and chili-fueled heat, while bowls of pho are eminently soothing. Nibbles from the fryer make excellent shares.
Few family-run ethnic restaurants possess this degree of style. With lacquered tables, ceramic floors, and a tinkling fish pond, it’s ideal for a special occasion or a night of catching up w/ friends.
