The District of Columbia has neither the history of Boston, the sexiness of New York nor the cachet of Charleston. It is a manufactured city, born of compromise, and possessed (as JFK once remarked) of Northern charm and Southern efficiency. When it comes to restaurants, it may not be in New York's league (or even L A.'s), but I like to think of it as a large, provincial city with an inferiority complex, always trying to compete gastronomically with the big boys. Sort of like Chicago with better seafood.
    My own relationship with Washington D.C. goes way back and is a fraught one. Despite despising politics, I have been strangely drawn here for decades. So much so that I'm just as comfortable noshing around Georgetown, Penn Quarter or Dupont Circle as I am navigating the Las Vegas Strip.
    When I'm in the District (which has been every year for the past ten), I lean towards the tried and true. There's a whole trendy, ever-changing food scene with chef-driven restaurants aplenty. But when I'm there, I enjoy sliding into restaurants that fit like a well-worn blazer, run by decorated veterans who have honed their craft, like José Andrés and Fabio Trabocchi.
    Washington has come a long way since my days of dining at Kinkead's (closed 2012), Citronelle (2012), Galileo (2006), Duke Zeibert's (1994), and Jean-Louis Palladin's (left) namesake restaurant (1996). What used to be the power lunch crowd probably eats at their desks now, and the of-the-moment restaurants are casual gastro-pubs like Rose's Luxury (below) or The Dabney, where Instagram influencers are more important to the business model than media moguls, Senate staffers or well-connected lobbyists.   
    I have nothing against locavore-obsessed chefs and open-hearth cooking, but these things have become as cliché-ed as the snooty maître d's and tasseled menus of my youth. In the post-Covid, anything-goes era, the dining scene here can feel like any other big city in America – where Caribbean street food, Central Texas barbecue, and super-exclusive Japanese are but an Open Table click away. Trying to keep up with the latest in South American cooking, like Ceibo or multi-cultural mashups like Rooster & Owl can be exhausting, so I make no apologies for seeking out classic Spanish, upscale Italian, or the sort of bistro cooking that never goes out of style. Throw in a little envelope-pushing Filipino food, and you’ll get a taste of D.C. dining at its best.
    If you hang around Penn Quarter, you can eat very well and never leave the Andrés’orbit. Our last trip found us popping into Oyamel for some exemplary tacos (and mouth-searing aquachile) before we hit the National Gallery. Across the street is the amazing Asian-Peruvian mashup of China Chilcano  (the $70 Peruvian tasting menu is a steal) and down the same block you'll find the original Jaleo, which, despite its age (circa 1993), remains one of the best Spanish restaurants in America. Having eaten in all three multiple times, I can confidently state you can close your eyes and point to anything on the menu and still be seduced by what shows up on your plate ,  whether it's a soothing huitlacoche quesadilla at Oyamel, a bracing Peruvian ceviche at China Chilcano, or Jaleo’s liquefied olives  à la "Ferran Adrià." A remarkable triple threat of authentic, in-your-face-flavors mixed with enough panache to keep us coming back to this block for decades now.
    The most popular of all is just a couple of blocks north from where it all started:   Zaytinya,  Andrés' take on Greek, Turkish and Lebanese food, which, despite its age (2002), outdoor seating, and multi-levels, it has become one of the toughest tables in town. One bite of the hummus ma lahm (with ground lamb and pine nuts), soujouk pide (spicy sausage flat bread), kebab platter or smoked lamb shoulder will tell you why. When they open a branch in Las Vegas later this year, I expect it to be mobbed as well.
    I've never had a bad meal in a Fabio Trabocchi (below) restaurant; indeed, I've never had a bad bite. He's one of the best working chefs in America, and you could plan your D. C. visit around each of his eateries and be assured of cooking as polished as any in the country. Fiola - DC is his flagship, and takes a back seat to no Italian in the country, featuring menus  both traditional La Tradizione ($225) and more inventive Il Viaggio ("The Journey" $285). During the week (Tues-Thurs.), you can order à la carte and be assured that whatever appears, from the pappa al pomodoro to the mixed seafood pasta to the langoustine with stracciatella and limon will compete with the best version you have ever had. The wine list is a dream (and full of trophy bottles), and the waiters all look as good as the food. Snare a seat at the bar and you'll have a front-row seat for the parade of D.C.'s finest flocking in for the unforgettable Italian food.
    Moving to less formal waters, Trabocchi's  Italian seafood place,  Fiola Mare , sits right on the Potomac in Georgetown and wheels the catch of the day by every table for the discriminating to choose, while Del Mar is located directly south of the The Mall at the District Wharf is an eyeball-popping ode to jamon, tapas, sobrassada and Spanish seafood. (Historical footnote: this completely gentrified, now-bustling multi-use riverfront was where we learned to gorge on Maryland Shore seafood back in the early 1970s, at the long-defunct Hogate's.)
    Del Mar practically assaults your senses with its primary colors, seafood motif and an endless array of fish and shellfish, both cooked and raw. And its jamon and paella presentations are José Andrės-worthy. Both chefs now cast a wide net over the D.C. restaurant scene, and over the past 20 years have done as much anyone to bring our nation's capital into the big leagues as a dining destination.
    But man does not live by celebrity chefs alone, and D.C. remains the American capital of French bistros, even if their numbers have diminished over the years. One needn't look hard in the NW quadrant to find Gallic gastronomy faithful to the haute bourgeois cooking of Paris. Here it is at its imported best, with more venues ready to provide satiety when cravings strike for ris de veau, steak au poivre, and moules marinière. Three old favorites are Bistrot Du Coin a few blocks from Dupont Circle, where the champagne list is famous for its selection and modest prices; Le Diplomate  (above), a perfect facsimile of a Parisian brasserie, legendary for being packed at brunch) and the jewel box which is  Bistrot Lepic in upper Georgetown. Their menus are about as trendy as boeuf bourguignon, but when you step through the doors, the warm embrace of wine-infused cooking permeates the room, the food, and your soul.
    The oldest of our favorites,  La Chaumière ,  features a menu straight from 1976 and is none the worse for it. It has been almost forty years since I first ducked into the timbered dining room, and tucked into a quenelle de brochet sauce homard, but from my first bite, then and now, I was transported to the Left Bank of Paris. When you cut your teeth on a certain type of cuisine you never forget it, and dishes like those dumplings, torchon de foie gras, Dover sole and crême caramel are what made me fall in love with French food in the first place.
    As comforting as all of these are, even an old soul like yours truly occasionally looks for the unexpected. Which is how, at the urging of a Filipino foodie friend, we happened upon the Purple Patch. To say we were skeptical at first is an understatement. Fried, heavy and greasy, Filipino fare has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of Asian cuisines––a mélange of regional foods (from over 7,000 separate islands), neither complex nor refined, and usually about as subtle as a Manny Paquiao  right cross.   
    None of which applies to the dishes Filipino-American chef Patrice Cleary (right)  is whipping up these days in the rapidly gentrifying Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, invoking  precise levels of technique and presentation not normally associated with this cooking.
    One taste of her vegetable slaw, crisp lumpia, or hauntingly savory pancit announces that you have left the land of steam tables and oil-soaked fried fish, and entered a new realm of sticky-rich lechon, lightly-fried tofu, and sweet-sour snapper, which command attention for their careful cooking, vivid flavors and balanced textures.
    The restaurant itself is a confusing hoot: a tri-level maze of warrens, hallways, and rooms carved out of a Mt. Pleasant townhouse. None of which matters when the platters of the shockingly fresh food start appearing. We’ve been twice now in two years, to what is certainly one of the best Filipino restaurants in America