Washingtonian 2025: DC's Massively Overrated

Life is too short to eat overpriced food, marginal quality, and icky bathrooms.

This section is my palate's analysis of what the Washingtonian massively screwed up. I have no proof anyone paid anyone off, but some of these rankings certainly inspire a healthy imagination. I expect hate mail over a few of these. That's fine. I can take it. Reasonable people can disagree, and occasionally they can even be wrong.  

Most of these restaurants aren't bad. That's what makes this category so frustrating. They're simply nowhere near good enough to justify the hype, rankings, breathless praise, and reservation drama surrounding them.  Actually, some of them are really bad.  What are you people thinking and how haven’t they been shut down from just nasty.

The number next to each restaurant is the Washingtonian ranking. I'll be at Rose's Luxury while you explain why I'm wrong. Just try not to touch anything in the bathroom at some of these places.

#13 Lutèce: C+

Washingtonian Rank #13 | Would Return: No

Lutèce may be the single biggest gap between reputation and reality on the entire Washingtonian list. I walked in expecting one of the city's best restaurants and left wondering whether I had accidentally reviewed a different menu than everyone else.

The menu was tiny, inflexible, and packed with enough non-mainstream ingredients to make even adventurous diners start negotiating with themselves. Normally I enjoy chefs taking risks. Here, it felt like complexity for the sake of complexity. The portions were small, the bartenders were snooty, and nothing that arrived at the table justified either the hype or the ranking.

The champagne was excellent. Fortunately, there are less expensive ways to drink champagne in Washington.

Verdict: Overhyped, underwhelming, and nowhere near worthy of a Top 15 ranking. I left confused more than disappointed.

#17 Tail Up Goat: B- (C at Michelin Expectations)

Washingtonian Rank #17 | Would Return: No

I wanted to like Tail Up Goat. The hostess was delightful. The room was pleasant. The cauliflower was genuinely excellent. Unfortunately, dinner followed.

For a restaurant carrying this much acclaim, the food felt surprisingly ordinary. Not bad. Not offensive. Not memorable. Just ordinary. At neighborhood restaurant prices, that's fine. At Michelin-level expectations and a Top 20 ranking, ordinary becomes a problem.

Nothing on the menu justified the praise surrounding it. Course after course arrived and generated little more than a shrug. Add difficult parking and a meal that never found its footing, and I left wondering whether I had somehow attended a completely different restaurant than the people writing the reviews.

Update: The restaurant closed. I do not consider this a major loss to the Washington dining scene.

Verdict: Great cauliflower. Lovely hostess. The rest remains one of the more confusing restaurant reputations I've encountered.

#37 Elle: B-

Washingtonian Rank #37 | Would Return: Probably Not. I didn't hate you, but we are on a break.

Elle feels like a neighborhood café that accidentally wandered onto a Top 100 list and then decided not to correct all of their mistakes.

The ingredients showed promise, and several dishes hinted at what the restaurant could become, but the execution never quite followed through. Service was underwhelming, flavors lacked punch, and the overall experience felt more like a pleasant local café than a destination restaurant.

The biggest offense was one of my personal pet peeves: wildly inaccurate spice warnings. If you tell me something is mildly spicy and my face begins melting off, we've entered a trust exercise I did not agree to. I enjoy spice. I do not enjoy surprises.

Nothing was terrible. Nothing was exciting. If I lived around the corner, I could see myself stopping in occasionally because I ran out of Ramen Noodles. Asking people to travel across Washington for it feels harder to justify.

Verdict: A perfectly acceptable neighborhood café. A questionable Top 100 restaurant.

#39 Chicatana: C-

Washingtonian Rank #39 | Would Return: No. Yuckville.

Shock value is not a cuisine. Chicatana leans heavily into ants, grasshoppers, and novelty ingredients that generate conversation but rarely generate cravings. I appreciate creativity. I appreciate trying new things. I do not appreciate eating bugs simply because someone decided bugs would make for an interesting press release.

The margarita was fine. The cheese dip was fine. Admittedly, those are two things that are difficult to completely ruin. The rest of the meal felt gimmicky rather than delicious, and by the end of dinner I was struggling to separate what was supposed to be interesting from what was actually enjoyable.

Add some questionable cleanliness concerns, and there simply wasn't enough here to justify the hype.

Verdict: If your primary goal is telling people you ate bugs, mission accomplished. Personally, I can do that in my backyard.

#74 Izakaya Seki: F

Washingtonian Rank #74 | Would Return: Absolutely Not

Cleanliness is non-negotiable. I watched enough bare-handed food handling to immediately put me on edge. Raw and cooked foods appeared to be handled carelessly, fish sauce overwhelmed nearly everything, and the sushi itself felt mishandled. The bathroom did absolutely nothing to restore my confidence.

I can forgive a disappointing dish. I can forgive a menu choice I don't agree with. I have a much harder time forgiving a restaurant that makes me question food safety.  And, I am still burping fish sauce.  Sexy.

I rarely hand out failing grades. This earned one.

Verdict: The bathroom alone should make you run. The food may give you the runs.

#79 Cucina Morini: B-

Washingtonian Rank #79 | Would Return: No

The crudo was good. Unfortunately, that's where most of my enthusiasm ended.

The pasta was perfectly competent but forgettable, the menu lacked distinction, and the overall experience felt overshadowed by numerous better Italian restaurants already operating in Washington. Nothing was actively bad. Nothing offended me. Nothing made me want to come back.

Italian is a difficult category because the competition is fierce. If you're going to earn a spot on a "best of" list, you need to give diners a reason to choose you over the dozens of other Italian restaurants in town. I never found that reason here.

Verdict: I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying I can name several better Italian restaurants before the check arrives.

#91 Rice Paper: D

Washingtonian Rank #91 | Would Return: Never

Rice Paper committed one of the great sins of dining: making me question whether my food had been properly rinsed. Several dishes carried an unmistakably soapy quality that overwhelmed everything else on the table. Whether it was cleaning residue, an ingredient issue, or something else entirely became irrelevant. Once trust disappears, dinner becomes an investigation, and that is not the kind of culinary adventure I am seeking.

Even setting the soap problem aside, nothing else compelled a return visit. The menu felt geared toward people who genuinely love traditional Vietnamese cuisine, which is perfectly fine. I simply found myself wishing I were eating somewhere else.

Verdict: Not enough MSG exists to get me back on this horse.

#93 Chez Billy Sud & Café Colline: C+

Washingtonian Rank #93 | Would Return: No

French food should feel charming, romantic, comforting, and maybe just a little magical. These meals felt careless.

The service disappointed. The food lacked distinction. Nothing on the table justified why either restaurant should appear on a list celebrating Washington's best dining. What made the experience particularly frustrating was that French cuisine starts with such a strong foundation. Butter, sauces, bread, wine, and centuries of culinary tradition should give you a head start. Somehow both restaurants still managed to feel forgettable.

Neither meal was terrible. That may actually be the problem. They were simply uninspiring. In a city with this many excellent restaurants, forgettable is often worse than bad.

Verdict: Skip them both and spend your money elsewhere. Life is too short for mediocre French food.