The Top 100 Places to Eat Near The Ashby Inn & Restaurant

1. Northern Virgina Magazine #3 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

A wine bar in Middleburg horse country with over 70 pours by the glass, though the food holds its own against the list. Snacks lean indulgent, and the bigger plates, duck confit, lobster curry, hanger steak au poivre, are serious enough that calling this a wine bar starts to feel like underselling it. The chef's cocktail policy runs "no fru fru," which apparently still leaves room for mezcal, Chartreuse, and Aperol in one glass.

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. Washingtonian #55 · 100 Very Best Restaurants
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic · Jarad Slipp

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
2. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

Patrick O'Connell's maximalist dining room in a tiny Virginia village has held two Michelin stars, a Forbes Five Star, and AAA Five Diamonds long enough that the town itself seems to exist around it. Fine dining from another era, in the best possible sense: roaming bread and cheese carts, stately grandeur, and a menu that takes its time. The kind of dinner where you dress up and mean it.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

1. Washingtonian Neighborhood Guide: Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg
2. Washingtonian Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg

1. Washingtonian Neighborhood Guide: Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg
2. Washingtonian Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg

1. Washingtonian Neighborhood Guide: Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg
2. Washingtonian Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg

1. Washingtonian Neighborhood Guide: Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg
2. Washingtonian Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg

1. Washingtonian 9 Great Pubs for a Full Irish Breakfast Around DC

Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington running a casual cafe and bakery in a converted garage is either very charming or very on-brand, and it turns out to be both. The space has a marble bar, wood tables, and a stone fireplace doing a lot of work to warm what is essentially a very pretty lunch spot. The menu leans French country, the pastry case is serious, and the whole thing is far too polished to feel accidental.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Scott Drewno and Danny Lee - The Fried Rice Collective
2. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Scott Drewno and Danny Lee - Fried Rice Collective

1. Northern Virgina Magazine #9 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Southeast · Mary Ellen Diaz

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · United States' Best Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds

The onion soup follows Julia Child's recipe and nobody has touched it, which tells you something about the kitchen's instincts. This casually elegant French bistro in Sterling plays with the classics just enough, turning tuna tartare into something that reads like steak, serving Brie crispy, while leaving the soul of the thing intact. The Washingtonian named that tartare one of their favorite DC-area dishes of the year.

1. Washingtonian Tuna Tartare · Our Favorite Dishes of the Year in the DC Area
2. Washingtonian #91 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

The benne dosa here folds like a quesadilla rather than rolling into a cylinder, which tells you this is Bangalorean, not generic Indian. It's a casual dosa counter in a Herndon strip mall that somehow has the quiet confidence of a place that doesn't need to explain itself. The butter-lacquered exterior crisps up hard while the inside stays soft with masala potatoes and podi, a coarse spice mix that the Washingtonian named among its favorite dishes of the year.

1. Washingtonian Podi Masala Dosa · Our Favorite Dishes of the Year in the DC Area
2. Washingtonian #78 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

The polished metal trays arrive loaded with banchan, and the arrangement shifts every time, which is half the point. Baek ban is the format, a Korean rice-set meal with a main and a rotating cast of small dishes, and at this Chantilly spot the lineup might include cubed radish kimchi, sesame-glossed glass noodles, or a perilla-leaf omelet. The smoky-sweet bulgogi landed on the Washingtonian's favorite dishes list, so that one is worth keeping an eye out for.

1. Washingtonian Bulgogi Baek Ban · Our Favorite Dishes of the Year in the DC Area

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine #10 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

An Alsatian-style cottage tucked into the woods of Great Falls that has been on the Washingtonian's 100 Very Best Restaurants list longer than most of its readers have been alive. The upstairs dining room runs classic French, foie gras and Grand Marnier soufflé and all, while downstairs at Jacques' the mood loosens around a proper choucroute garni. Folksy French knickknacks everywhere, zero apologies for any of it.

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia
2. Washingtonian #86 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

Peter Chang has quietly turned the D.C. suburbs into a Sichuan outpost, and Mama Chang is his tribute to the women of his family who actually did the cooking. The warm-wood dining room is upscale-casual Chinese, the kind where dry-fried cauliflower seems to land on every table without anyone admitting they ordered it. The New York Times and The Washington Post have both put it on their D.C. essentials lists, which for a Fairfax strip mall is a flex.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now
2. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants Around D.C.

1. Washingtonian The Hot List: 10 Restaurants Around DC We’re Loving Right Now

The line forms before the doors open, which tells you something about a strip-mall pizzeria in suburban Maryland. Tony Conte left fine dining to make neo-Neapolitan pies here, and the blistered crusts show it. A James Beard nominee and a spot on 50 Top Pizza USA, the place punches well past its zip code. The roasted potato and onion pizza, fragrant with rosemary, was named one of the DC area's favorite dishes of 2025.

1. 50 Top Pizza #20 · 50 Top Pizza USA
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic · Tony Conte
3. Washingtonian Roasted-Potato-and-Onion Pizza · Our Favorite Dishes of the Year in the DC Area

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List

1. Washingtonian 9 Great Pubs for a Full Irish Breakfast Around DC

The rice alone explains why the New York Times put this upscale Persian restaurant on its 2024 restaurant list: the tadig comes out with a shattering crust, and the fluffy sour-cherry version beside it is its own argument. Classic stews anchor the menu, with duck fessenjoon and beef with dried lime doing the heavy lifting. The room is relaxed enough for families, polished enough for a proper date.

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. Washingtonian #35 · 100 Very Best Restaurants
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants Around D.C.

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
3. Northern Virgina Magazine #1 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Washingtonian Best Coffee Shops in DC
2. Time Out The 20 Best Coffee Shops and Cafés in Washington, DC

1. Washingtonian Best Coffee Shops in DC
2. Time Out The 20 Best Coffee Shops and Cafés in Washington, DC

The steak tartare comes dressed with Thai papaya salad and malt-vinegar chips, which tells you everything about how the kitchen thinks. Ellie Bird is a casual New American restaurant in Falls Church where Yuan Tang, of Rooster & Owl, runs global mash-ups alongside rigatoni Bolognese and kimchi-rice brunch bowls. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list and Washingtonian ranked it among the DC area's favorites, so the room fills accordingly.

1. The Rammys Finalist · Pastry Chef or Baker of the Year · Rachel Sherriffe
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Washingtonian Thai Papaya Salad Steak Tartare · Our Favorite Dishes of the Year in the DC Area

1. The Rammys Finalist · Upscale Casual Restaurant of the Year
2. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Washingtonian The Hot List: 10 Restaurants Around DC We’re Loving Right Now
2. Northern Virgina Magazine #6 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

A strip mall in Fairfax with walls of actual greenery sets the scene for this casual Southeast Asian restaurant covering Thai, Malaysian, and Singaporean ground with real range. Chili crab comes with soft-shells in a red sauce and sweet buns for mopping, and a fried rice pyramid topped with lump crab closes the loop nicely. The pandan castella cake keeps dessert from being an afterthought.

1. Washingtonian #88 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants Around D.C.
3. Washingtonian #95 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

A few steps below street level on MacArthur Boulevard, this intimate counter seats you facing the sunken kitchen where the team runs an eight-course Wagyu omakase. The style is Kappo, meaning the chef works in full view and the pacing feels personal rather than performative. Wagyu anchors almost every course, with seafood woven through, and the meal closes with Wagyu miso soup and rice that lands like the best part of coming home.

1. The Rammys Finalist · Formal Fine Dining Restaurant of the Year
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater The Best Tasting Menus in D.C. Right Now

1. Eater The 15 Best Coffee Shops Around D.C.
2. Washingtonian Best Coffee Shops in DC

1. Time Out The 20 Best Coffee Shops and Cafés in Washington, DC
2. Washingtonian Best Coffee Shops in DC

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Eater The Best Bakeries Around D.C.
2. Washingtonian 9 Delicious Doughnut Shops Around DC

The dining room is swathed in impressionist pastels and fresh florals, which sets expectations that the kitchen then quietly meets. This is a modern Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church serving dishes that take the cuisine somewhere more composed, think pho-spiced chicken-liver mousse or handmade pappardelle with a lemongrass short-rib ragu that borrows from Vietnamese beef stew. The cocktails lean dramatic and photogenic, and the crowd arrives dressed accordingly.

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia
2. Washingtonian #79 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Peter Chang

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.
2. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. The Rammys Finalist · Casual Restaurant of the Year

An emerald-green bar anchors this clubby Roman-inspired dining room in downtown Bethesda, the kind of place where an Aperol spritz arrives before you've settled into your seat. The chef behind D.C.'s Red Hen runs the kitchen, and pasta is the main event, though the snacky bar bites and a lunchtime cheeseburger that has no business being this good keep things interesting. Upscale Italian without the starch.

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants Around D.C.
2. Washingtonian #60 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Peter Chang

1. US Coffee Championships #14 · U.S. Brewers Cup · Steve Kim

1. The Rammys Finalist · Chef of the Year · Matt Adler

1. Washingtonian 9 Delicious Doughnut Shops Around DC

1. The Rammys Finalist · Hottest Sandwich Spot of the Year

1. The Rammys Finalist · Beer Program of the Year

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.

1. Baltimore Magazine Best Restaurants
2. Baltimore Magazine 2025 · Destination Dining · Best of Baltimore
3. Baltimore Magazine The Shrimp and Grits Cocktail · Best Baltimore Bites

1. Washingtonian The French dip/French onion soup mashup · 7 Delicious French Onion Soups to Keep You Cozy All Day Long

Pho Thin is a pho shop whose signature move is wok-searing ribeye in garlic before it ever meets the bowl. The broth leans savory rather than the sweet, star-anise-heavy style common around DC, and the noodles are wide and chewy instead of threadlike. The Falls Church outpost of a Hanoi institution, it arrived already pulling crowds. Order the pickled raw garlic that comes to the table and don't leave it untouched.

1. Washingtonian The Hot List: 10 Restaurants Around DC We’re Loving Right Now

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. Bon Appétit The Very Best Bagels in the US (Yes, Outside New York)

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.

Part fish market, part seafood restaurant, BlackSalt sits in a quiet MacArthur Boulevard corner and does more with both halves than most places do with one. The menu pulls from coasts and continents without losing focus, and the shellfish in particular tends to stop conversation. A Provençal stew arrives fragrant with saffron and stocked with whatever the market yielded that morning. The key lime pie, finished with blueberry compote and whipped cream, is a genuinely strange idea that works.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A Neapolitan pizza restaurant a few miles from Arlington Cemetery, run by the same Sicilian family for close to half a century. The pies follow STG rules, meaning a pillowy, charred crust, properly melty cheese, and a lot of the ingredients shipped over from Italy. The room skews elegant for a pizza place, and the menu stretches well past pizza into pastas and starters, with a wine list that takes itself seriously.

1. 50 Top Pizza #37 · 50 Top Pizza USA

1. Washingtonian 9 Delicious Doughnut Shops Around DC

Fava beans, not chickpeas, go into the falafel here, which tells you something about how seriously this Falls Church spot takes its Egyptian identity. It's a warmly informal, homestyle restaurant where the owner greets everyone like a relative and the menu runs deep, from lamb shank with roasted potatoes to beef moussaka with pine nuts. The kind of room that smells like someone has been cooking since morning, because someone has.

1. Washingtonian #87 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. Washingtonian The suburban find · 7 Delicious French Onion Soups to Keep You Cozy All Day Long

1. Bon Appétit The Very Best Bagels in the US (Yes, Outside New York)

1. Northern Virgina Magazine The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

Spicy tuna on crispy rice is the opening argument at this Japanese restaurant tucked into a strip mall in Potomac, the hot, crackly squares doing more work than most entire menus. The kitchen runs through rolls and nigiri alongside small plates, with an Old Bay roll that leans fully into its Maryland zip code. The room skews industrial-chic, which is a fun choice for a shopping center, but the fish keeps the conversation going.

1. Washingtonian #96 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now

Seng Luangrath is widely credited with bringing Laotian food to the DC dining conversation, and this Falls Church strip-mall restaurant is where that reputation took root. The menu leans into bright, lime-forward salads, fragrant soups, and banana-leaf-wrapped fish, with a crispy coconut-rice salad that regulars treat as non-negotiable. Homestyle Laotian cooking in a room that's casual enough for a weeknight but specific enough to feel like a find.

1. Washingtonian #42 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. Washingtonian The Hot List: 10 Restaurants Around DC We’re Loving Right Now

The "clam" dip is made from tofu, the fried fish contains no fish, and somehow none of that feels like a compromise. This vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church is where the chef makes her own faux meats and seafoods from scratch, turning lemongrass noodle soup and papaya salad into fully convincing arguments that the meat was never the point. Devout carnivores tend to figure this out about halfway through the meal.

1. Washingtonian #41 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.

A taco trailer parked at a Shell station in Rockville, where the chef mills his own masa on-site and builds the whole menu around it. Tacos, tostadas, and triangular tetelas stuffed with refried beans come out of an operation this small with a focus you'd expect from somewhere twice the size. The chef trained in Oaxaca, grew up in Montgomery County, and clearly has something to prove about corn.

1. Washingtonian The Hot List: 10 Restaurants Around DC We’re Loving Right Now

Tucked deep inside the Eden Center mall, this Vietnamese restaurant operates on the assumption that you came ready to work for it. The staff speaks limited English and menu descriptions don't give much away, but the rice-cake and tapioca-dumpling appetizers, some banana-leaf-wrapped, some chicharrón-crusted with tiny shell-on shrimp, make the ordering process forgiving. The spicy lemongrass noodle soup with rustic meatballs in a rich beef broth is what regulars are usually after.

1. Washingtonian #94 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. Washingtonian 9 Great Pubs for a Full Irish Breakfast Around DC

1. Eater The Best Restaurants in Richmond, Virginia

1. Washingtonian #52 · 100 Very Best Restaurants

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants Around D.C.

1. Northern Virgina Magazine #7 · The 50 Best Restaurants in Northern Virginia

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C., Right Now

1. Washingtonian Best Coffee Shops in DC

1. The Washington Post The 40 Best Restaurants In and Around D.C.

1. Washingtonian 9 Delicious Doughnut Shops Around DC

1. Washingtonian #92 · 100 Very Best Restaurants