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Washington DC, USA: The best new restaurants in the US capital
By By Alex Spillius for The Telegraph
August 31, 2012
It is election year in Washington, and among those probably hoping for another Barack Obama victory are the city’s restaurant owners.
They might never admit to any bias, but such is the enthusiasm for eating out of the modish couple currently occupying the White House that few in the trade would want to see them go. A local foodie website has estimated that no fewer than 30 restaurants or diners in the capital have been visited by the President or his wife, Michelle, since his inauguration in January 2009. The manager of Eatonville, a modern Southern-cuisine venue and favourite of the First Lady, reported that for several weeks after her first visit, customers requested reservations in the very seat she graced.
The Source, Wolfgang Puck’s classy new American restaurant at the Newseum (dedicated to the history of popular media), issued a special menu based on Michelle’s choices after the ultimate power pairing dined there for her 47th birthday last year, which demonstrated not only their rather refined palettes but how nothing stays secret in Washington for long. Both Obamas chose the Source’s signature starter: spicy tuna tartar in sesame-miso “ice cream” cones; she then selected the wok-fired lobster with Chinese garlic sauce; he the prime filet with smoked onion chilli sauce.
