Ellie Bird, the new fast casual restaurant in Falls Church, made The New York Times list of the top 50 restaurants its critics, editors, and reporters are most excited about.
Half of the restaurants on the third annual list are new, like Ellie Bird, and have opened since 2022. Ellie Bird opened in April.
Here’s what Nikita Richardson of the Times had to say about Ellie Bird on “The Restaurant List 2023:”
“Yuan and Carey Tang, the husband and wife behind Ellie Bird, cut their teeth working in fine-dining restaurants in Washington, D.C., where they opened their critically acclaimed tasting-menu restaurant Rooster & Owl. Their second project, in the affluent bedroom community Falls Church, where the couple grew up, is decidedly homier. There, they’re proving that suburbanites are as hungry for imaginative cooking as any city denizen. Think Vietnamese French onion soup with braised oxtail, cacio e pepe crossed with elote, and fried oyster larb gai. It’s well worth the short trip outside the District, even if you have to wait a little longer for an Uber driver willing to cross the Potomac.”
Rooster & Owl, the other restaurant the Tangs own, has one Michelin star.
Ellie Bird, which is named for the Tangs’ daughter, is the only Virginia restaurant on the list. No DC restaurants are on the list, and the only Maryland restaurant listed is Little Donna’s in Baltimore. 125 Founders Ave., Falls Church
Read Northern Virginia Magazine’s review of Ellie Bird, which first appeared in the September issue.
Feature image of Ellie Bird’s Amish chicken dinner by Albert Ting
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