DC’s dining scene is in a golden stretch — the city’s top-ranked restaurant is a Palestinian hearth in Navy Yard, a modern Vietnamese room in Penn Quarter is rewriting the canon, and Columbia Heights holds one of the country’s most important Lao kitchens.
Moon Rabbit is chef Kevin Tien’s contemporary Vietnamese restaurant in Penn Quarter, and the menu reads like Vietnamese food remixed with the Mid-Atlantic: tomato milk bread with lime-leaf butter, sweet-potato tapioca gnocchi with roasted crab fat and Maryland jumbo lump crab, bò lá lốt with wagyu and fermented honey. Bar director Thi Nguyen’s cocktails won Michelin’s Exceptional Cocktails Award in 2024. Note the 20% service fee — the tip line beyond it is optional.
Albi is Washingtonian’s No. 1 restaurant for 2026 — chef Michael Rafidi’s love letter to his Palestinian roots in Navy Yard, where nearly every dish passes through the wood-burning hearth. Go all in on the Sofra, the five-course chef-directed experience, or build your own meal around the wood-fired lamb pies and the hummus with smoked chanterelles and confit egg yolk. Dinner Wednesday through Saturday.
Thip Khao is chef Seng Luangrath’s Lao landmark in Columbia Heights — she’s a central figure in the Lao Food Movement, and the menu is a masterclass. The naem khao, a crispy coconut-rice salad with peanuts and lime you wrap in lettuce, is the essential order, alongside the sai oua herbal pork sausage and any of the laab. Book through OpenTable.
