Field & Main
Marshall / American / $$$
On your way past the small city of outdoor cabanas, you encounter a staffer picking blueberries from the bush out front. He offers you one. It tastes like a distillation of every fresh, sun-warmed berry you’ve ever had. Welcome to Field & Main.
Many restaurants claim to be farm-to-table. Here, chef-owner Neal Wavra uses his close community ties to craft menus to suit whatever comes in from his friends in the field each day. This extends to the wine program, with a list that features local grapes, but not to the point of overlooking great glasses from Europe, New Zealand, and elsewhere in the U.S.
The best way to experience Wavra’s wares is with a tasting. The Present Menu is true to its title—a collection of dishes that have captured the fancy of the chef and his team that day. If you shrink at the idea of tiny servings, this is the tasting menu for you. It usually includes a full-sized steak, like a recent rib-eye from Ovoka Farm in nearby Paris. It’s a meal that will leave you full in both stomach and spirit.
See this: Sit in one of the nooks and crannies of this charming old house, relax in the elegant central dining room, or take advantage of one of the outdoor cabanas.
Eat this: The Present Menu, a five-course tasting
Service: Hit or miss, but the finest staffers know the suppliers and techniques so intimately, you’d think they worked in the kitchen.
When to dine here: You’re planning to celebrate a major accomplishment—and the season.
Incheon Restaurant
Annandale / Fusion / $$$$*
For decades, Annandale has been K-Town, home to Korean restaurants that range from the traditional spots for a kimchi jjigae to new-school entries with fusion dishes like bulgogi pizza. But one thing that I never expected to pop up was the kind of tasting menu restaurant one might find in a far larger city.
Thank chef Justin Ahn and co-owner Brandon Kim for their boldness in trying something utterly unexpected in Annandale—a $60 round of fusion plates, along with cool cocktails and interesting wines and beers.
Though Ahn kicked off the menu with Korean fusion, he says that he’ll cook more from other traditions as the restaurant progresses. Look to dishes on his initial menus for a preview of what that might mean. For example, a Korean steamed-egg dish is showered with prik nam pla, a chile-filled Thai sauce.
You never know exactly what will spring from Ahn’s mind to your plate. But chances are, it will be something new that you wish you could have again.
See this: Faux plants above diners’ heads add a little bit of green to the pragmatic setting.
Eat this: Trust the chef that the tasting will be something to remember.
Service: Often, chef Justin Ahn will personally deliver your dish and describe how he created it.
When to dine here: You and your other half want to keep it casual for a meal full of gustatory surprises.
L’Auberge Chez François
Great Falls / French / $$$$*
Don’t let sticker shock get you down. Though entrées at L’Auberge Chez François are labeled as costing between $94 and $99 (or up to $198 for the Châteaubriand de L’Auberge, sized for two), that actually gains diners entry to an exclusive club. For that price, guests of the Haeringer family are treated to course after course of culinary history.
Current chef-proprietor Jacques Haeringer inherited the mantle from his father, François. He opened his restaurant in DC in 1954 and moved it to Great Falls in 1976. Since then, it’s been one of the region’s great treasures, an experience noted as much for its ambience of gardens and fountains outside as it is for its Alsatian cuisine.
This is the kind of place with an amuse-bouche that comes straight from the garden, perhaps a shot of gazpacho in tomato season. The salad course and your entrée are divided by a housemade sorbet that will ready the palate for fireworks to come. And after you inhale a raspberry soufflé, there are still chocolate truffles waiting to complete your meal. Long-lasting memories are guaranteed—and that is priceless.
See this: As soon as you turn into the driveway, you enter the Alsatian countryside, complete with kitchen gardens on 6 acres of land.
Eat this: Crêpe à la ciboulette, Les Deux Tournedos, raspberry soufflé
Service: A team of expert servers attends to your every whim.
When to dine: City-style French fare won’t do for your group.
Maple Ave Restaurant
Vienna / Modern European / $$$$*
Romance on the menu? Your first thought is likely one of the spots on this list known for a gorgeous dining room with lots of atmosphere. But you’re more creative than that. You realize that seduction can come in the form of celebrity-worthy service, multiple courses that are ripe for sharing, and, yes, an intimate, but not showy, setting. And that calls for Maple Ave Restaurant.
Since reopening in August, the Vienna restaurant has been focused on four-course tasting menus featuring chef and co-owner Justė Židelytė’s greatest hits. Even if you’ve had some of the dishes before, you’ve never tried them quite like this. The long pandemic closure, during which she hosted private parties and did takeout, allowed Židelytė to further hone her craft. Thank her when you pass by as she tends to the herbs surrounding the restaurant.
They appear in a cast of colorful plates that draw inspiration from Japan to Latin America to Židelytė’s native Lithuania. They’re also inspired by the seasons—the menu changes monthly and uses ingredients like local maple syrup to dress a bowl of crisp, hot apple-cider doughnut holes. To a romantic food-lover, this restaurant’s return deserves a warm welcome.
See this: The petite, no-frills dining room just makes the vibrant plates stand out more.
Eat this: Mushroom-truffle risotto, pork confit steak, bittersweet chocolate mousse
Service: General manager and co-owner Ricardo Teves takes care of everything himself, so service is deeply personal.
When to dine here: You’re ready for a casual date night full of gustatory surprises.
Yume Sushi
Arlington / Japanese / $$$$
A meal at the sushi counter passes like a luxe fantasy covered in gold leaf, a maximalist reverie of wagyu and otoro. In short, this is not traditional omakase. The restaurant is aptly named for the Japanese word that means “dream,” after all.
Yes, there are spicy tuna rolls and individual pieces of nigiri, but that’s not the point. The reason to visit Yume Sushi is to indulge. Chef Saran Kannasute presides over a kitchen stocked with some of the most expensive ingredients you’ll find. If you aren’t enamored with the silky, sweetly briny melt of fresh Hokkaido-harvested sea urchin, his oeuvre probably isn’t for you.
In a seven-course tasting, uni first appears in the form of a pasta dish, with lobes of the shellfish reposing over skinny noodles dressed in garlic butter. Globes of gleaming orange ikura and a small shower of French caviar sit on top, ready to be mixed in with the noodles, popping with each bite. You’ll see it again in at least one other application, perhaps over a torchon of monkfish liver, the foie gras of the sea. But as the word omakase, which means “I shall leave it up to you,” suggests, it is best to simply sink into a meal here and lap up the decadence.
See this: Sit at the sushi bar for the best view of both the chefs at work and the graffiti-style mural behind them.
Eat this: Uni pasta, A5-wagyu-foie-gras nigiri, The Winner
Service: Though not as sleek as the kitchen operation, the team gets the job done.
When to dine here: You’ve got a date who’s wowed by the finer things.
Feature image by Rey Lopez
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