Ashok Bajaj’s newest endeavor brings rotisserie chicken and daily specials to Van Ness. The Knightsbridge Restaurant Group founder hopes that the Rosedale becomes “a special neighborhood gathering place” centered around a large U-shaped bar and lots of cozy corner booths. The plant-covered, dark blue Rosedale is inspired by the Rosedale Farmhouse that was built in 1793 in nearby Cleveland Park, and features fun farmhouse-themed decorations like miniature tractors and a large modernist farm painting. Chef Frank Ruta oversees the new American-style menu full of sourdough pizzas from a decades-old starter and seasonal small plates like grilled squid in a ginger wine sauce.

From al pastor tacos made on the traditional spit with pineapple to roasted flying ants topping tacos, ceviche, and even cocktails, this Mexican eatery is known for serving traditional street foods and small plates in a fine dining setting. Chicatana opened in a new, even larger restaurant just a few doors down from its original location in August. An expanded menu still showcases tacos like lengua (beef tongue) and Chapulines (grasshoppers), an array of margarita flavors made from scratch, along with some surprising new menu items. 

Trini Vybez got its start in 2020 as a food truck slinging Trinidadian street foods all over town. For its latest iteration as a brick-and-mortar restaurant, founder Natalia Kalloo expands her menu with a selection of roti platters, rum punches, seasoned sides served in carved-out coconuts, stewed meats by the skillet, and doubles — a Caribbean mainstay featuring fried dough stuffed with curried chickpeas and sauces. At Trini Vybez, the typically vegan dish can be tweaked with shrimp, chicken, or goat.

Landing in the sunny, glass-enclosed penthouse level of Space Lounge between 13th and 14th Streets NW, Yalla — meaning “let’s go!” in Arabic — serves family-style plates in a party-starting setting. Chef Marcel Chehaieb splits the family-style spread into four parts: cold, hot, grilled, and sweets. First, he whips up three types of hummus: classic, “Beirute” with tomato and herbs, and an umami-rich duck confit variety. Cooked plates include seared sheep’s halloumi over puckery pickled rhubarb, phyllo-wrapped sweet-and-sour shrimp, and jibnet rolls — crispy sheep feta-mozzarella and za’atar sticks with a harissa apricot coulis. 

This fresh Southern spot took over the former space of modern American pioneer Birch & Barley, serving up remixed mashups of Southern comfort foods from chef Hamilton Johnson. Opening items include an elegant plate of shrimp and grits topped with smoked pork, piquillo peppers, and shellfish broth; wild-caught blue catfish with poached oysters, corn, and smoked trout roe; and Berkshire pork trotters. Duck dishes and foie gras naturally makes lots of appearances at Mallard; Johnson sources the namesake ingredient from family-run La Belle Farms in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

Drawing influence from a land known for its convergence of cultures, La’ Shukran in Union Market is a confluence of bar, bistro, and back-alley neighborhood joint. Award-winning chef Michael Rafidi digs deep into his bag of Levantine tricks to produce a vibrant space tinged with nostalgia, disco, and pops of color. The beverage program showcases lots of Levantine wines and arak, a popular Middle Eastern distilled spirit with cooling notes of anise and licorice. The opening menu features “end-of-summer” melon with whipped tahini, spicy chilis, and smoked feta; a lamb tartare with shittah and seeded lavash bread; and smashed eggplant.

The latest restaurant from Yume Hospitality Group brings Thai street foods to Georgetown. A love letter to executive chef and co-owner Saran “Peter” Kannasute’s roots in Thailand, Rimtang is a true family affair. Kannasute’s mother, Prapit La Femina, will lead kitchen as head chef and is responsible for much of the restaurant’s recipe development. The pair are serving up a seafood-heavy menu, featuring more specialty Thai dishes, like the stir-fried clams with chili paste, sweetened with condensed milk and served over jasmine rice. Stir-fried broken bucket noodles are Kannasute and La Femina’s take on pad kee mao (or drunken noodles), with flat rice noodles, egg, chives, and tofu served with ground peanuts, chilis, and lime.

The award-winning team behind Philadelphia’s a.kitchen and a.bar, one of the city’s hottest dual dining destinations, planted roots in Foggy Bottom in September. Nestled at the base of the sleek new Hotel AKA Washington Circle, a.kitchen+bar imports super-seasonal American dishes the beloved brand is known for. D.C.’s a la carte menu ($16-$45) features familiar Philly favorites filled with French touches. Openers include gougères; a chicken liver tart adorned with a truffle honey glaze and apple mustard; and bavette steak dressed with peanut romesco and vibrant purplette onions. Weekend brunch kicks off on Saturday, November 9.

Top Chef star Kwame Onwuachi made a hotly anticipated return to D.C.’s dining scene this fall with an Afro-Caribbean restaurant situated at the foot of the 373-room Salamander Washington DC. Dōgon pays homage to D.C.’s late-1700s land surveyor Benjamin Banneker and his ties to the West African Dōgon tribe. Onwuachi’s menu explores his own Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole heritage, including barbecue greens with candied Cipollini onions, roasted garlic, and beef bacon; carrot tigua (pickled onion, peanut crustacean stew, burnt carrots); and “H Street” chicken and rice with Ethiopian berbere spices, jollof rice, and herbs. A newly added chef’s counter called Sirius offers off-menu courses to four diners at a time.

Chef Jonathan Krinn rolled out his “out of the box,” five-course tasting menu to the general public in September. The tenured chef already has a baked-in customer base in Northern Virginia, where he’s operated restaurants around the region for a quarter-century. Situated in a tiny standalone building off Lee Highway, Elyse only has 30 seats, including eight at a bar wrapped around an open kitchen. Elyse, which is Krinn’s daughter’s middle name, will have a flexible schedule, operating for dinner four days a week and three days a week during the slower season. The restaurant also adopts a relaxed structure for dinner service, with only one seating a night that allows guest to sit back and enjoy the hybrid tasting menu ($125) for as long as they like.