The most celebrated restaurant in D.C.’s most celebrated dining neighborhood. Le Diplomate is a pitch-perfect French brasserie that has been full every night since it opened in 2013. The steak frites, moules marinières, and tarte tatin are exactly what they should be. Brunch on the weekend sidewalk terrace is one of the city’s great warm-weather experiences. Book well in advance.

From the team behind Maydan, Medina is an intimate neighborhood bar and restaurant tucked into a Logan Circle alleyway, drawing on the spirit of North African medinas and the warmth of Moroccan hospitality. The food, tagines, mezze, craft cocktails, is exceptional, the atmosphere is unlike anywhere else in D.C., and walk-ins are always welcome. If you loved the old Compass Rose, this is where that spirit lives now.

One of the most exciting restaurants to open in D.C. in the last decade and a James Beard finalist multiple times over. Maydan’s open-fire cooking, whole roasted lamb, flatbreads from the wood-burning oven, smoky eggplant, slow-cooked chickpeas, is organized around a central hearth that dominates the dramatic dining room. Go with a group and order widely. This is a destination restaurant in the fullest sense.

A Michelin-starred kitchen in the heart of Shaw built entirely around the mid-Atlantic region, its farms, forests, waterways, and food traditions. Chef Jeremiah Langhorne’s cooking is rooted in seasonal sourcing and wood-fire technique, and the result is some of the most distinctly D.C. food being made anywhere in the city. The dining room in a restored 19th-century carriage house is one of the most beautiful in Washington. A must for food-focused travelers.

José Andrés’ eastern Mediterranean mezze restaurant has been one of D.C.’s most consistently excellent dining experiences since 2002. The menu spans Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon in the form of small plates designed to be shared across a long, unhurried meal. The soaring dining room is beautiful, the location is convenient to the city’s major attractions, and the approach to hospitality sets the benchmark for D.C. dining.

The most visitor-friendly of D.C.’s consistently excellent restaurants, a farm-to-table American concept owned by a cooperative of American family farmers. Founding Farmers sources locally and serves a broad menu with excellent brunch, solid cocktails, and standout fried chicken and house-made charcuterie. Reliably excellent and quintessentially American, perfectly positioned near the White House and Kennedy Center.

Open since 1958 on U Street, Ben’s has survived urban renewal, riots, and gentrification to become one of the most beloved institutions in the city. Presidents, musicians, construction workers, and tourists have all eaten the same half-smoke with chili and mustard here for more than six decades. The half-smoke, a D.C.-specific sausage, grilled and served in a steamed bun, is the thing to order. Always open. Always the same. Always exactly right.

D.C. has one of the largest Ethiopian communities in the United States and its Ethiopian restaurant scene is among the finest outside Addis Ababa. Ethiopic is consistently regarded as the best of them, a warm space serving beautifully prepared wats, tibs, and injera that feels genuinely connected to the community it represents. The vegetarian platter is a revelation. Eating Ethiopian in D.C., tearing injera together around a shared platter, is one of the most distinctly local dining experiences the city offers.