Where a James Beard Chef Actually Eats in DC (Hint: It’s Not His Own Restaurant)

Michael Rafidi has a Michelin star and a James Beard trophy. The three DC spots he actually recommends: a wood-fired hearth, a family bakery, and breakfast tacos that would make Texas nervous.

Michael Rafidi has a Michelin star at Albi in Navy Yard and a 2024 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef trophy on the shelf. He also runs Yellow, his Levantine spot in Union Market. When someone with that resume tells you where he actually eats, it’s worth writing down — and his picks skip the tasting menus and liquid nitrogen entirely. A wood-fired hearth, a family bakery, and a taco shop that’s out-Texas-ing Texas.

The Dabney

Blagden Alley, Shaw. Chef-owner Jeremiah Langhorne opened it in 2015 to do Mid-Atlantic cooking properly, and it’s had a Michelin star every single year since 2017, which is the kind of consistency most restaurants would sell a kidney for.

The whole kitchen is built around a ten-foot wood-burning hearth you can watch from the dining room, so the flex is baked into the architecture. Farmhouse-chic dining room, exposed brick, an actual patio. This is the fine-dining pick on the list, and it earns it.

Z&Z Manoushe Bakery

Rockville, Maryland (suburb of DC). Brothers Danny and Johnny Dubbaneh ran a family spice company before opening this, which explains why the za’atar situation here is no joke.

Manoushe flatbreads, made fresh, including the Lebanese bride (za’atar, tomato, cucumber, mint) and the Jibneh, which is three cheeses under a blanket of za’atar. It’s the kind of place a chef picks not because it’s impressive but because it’s correct — and honestly, that’s the highest compliment.

La Tejana

Mt. Pleasant. This one’s Rio Grande Valley-style breakfast tacos, co-founded by a Rio Grande Valley native and a DC native, which is the only pairing that should be allowed to open a breakfast taco shop outside of Texas. Every tortilla is house-made. The eggs are cracked and scrambled fresh, not from a carton, which apparently still needs to be said out loud in 2026.

It’s earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand and reportedly won over actual Texans, which is the taco equivalent of getting your mom to admit your cooking is better than hers. Try the Tio Willie if you want the full bacon-egg-potato-queso experience, or the Super Migas if you’re pretending to be virtuous.

What I like about this list is that it’s not a “best of DC” ranking — it’s one very accomplished person’s honest answer to the question: where to eat. A wood-fired hearth, a family bakery, and a taco shop. That’s a chef’s-eye view of a city.

If you’re headed to DC, this is the itinerary. Fine dining for one night, manoushe for lunch, tacos to fix whatever the fine dining did to your bank account.