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Populations exploded and neighborhoods expanded

It’s growth like this that prompted the Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema to include 52 restaurants in the 2016 Fall Dining Guide, the “most expansive” since he became the critic in 2000.īut why 2016? What led to this being the year that DC broke? The capital’s food and beverage titans certainly had a few answers. That’s despite the fact that the city’s muggiest season historically marks a slowdown in basically all forms of activity. “DC is truly leading the way as a culinary capital.”Įater DC counted 85 new restaurant openings this summer alone, and only about 40 closings.

“2016 has been a huge year for DC area restaurants, with local chefs opening new concepts and local restaurant groups expanding around the country,” says Kathy Hollinger, the president and CEO of The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. That’s pretty impressive, considering the 10 contenders ahead of DC are all states with populations ranging from 1.6 to 39.1 million people, compared to DC’s scrappy 672,000. The NRA also projected that DC’s restaurant sales growth in 2016 would rank in the top 11 in the country. That’s actually higher than New York City’s rate of 237.1 per 100K. To get a true sense of where DC stacks up on the national dining scene, the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) put the city’s restaurant saturation at a whopping 332.2 restaurants per 100,000 people.

Shaw bijou one of dc most expensive restaurants