Hello all!

One of my favorite yearly DC events to beat the winter blues is January Restaurant Week! All participating restaurants have lunch and brunch for $25 and dinners at either $40 or $55 with some including additional drink pairings. DC is a huge foodie city, so everyone really goes all out for Restaurant Week (RW)!

If you’ve been following along on my Instagram stories, you’ll see I’ve been having safe but fun DC Winter Restaurant Week. With the increase in DC’s covid cases, many restaurant have additional precautions in place to ensure diners and staff are safe and offer takeout meals. While I typically go all out for Restaurant Week, this year I only went to three restaurants – one new, one classic, and one I haven’t returned to in years – and made sure to go at off times, only go with fellow vaccinated friends, and space ourselves out. I think I successfully did RW in way that was safe and still had a blast!

The Lyle

I’d visited The Lyle once last fall and absolutely adored the decor! This hotel located near Dupont Circle is easy to get to via metro and has a fabulous restaurant by the same name. I had never eaten here before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was blown away by the delicious food and great, attentive service. The restaurant is also very spacious so all guests were distributed away from each other. I was very pleased with how safe my first night of RW felt.

What we had: Complimentary cornbread with flavored butter, two delicious cocktails, a winter delicata squash salad, mushroom bucatini (for me), soy-ginger salmon (for Sanae), and we split the banana bread and pineapple- tahitian vanilla swirl soft serve for dessert!

Rasika

Rasika is a DC RW classic! I always make a point to visit Rasika – not only because it’s conveniently located near my apartment, but because they have delicious Indian food and a vegetarian entrée that’s a sampling of multiple dishes! I always get so much great food there every RW!

What I had: palak chaat (spinach , yogurt, tamarind, and date chutney), Vegetable Thali with Paneer Makhani / Baingan Achari / Malai Palak / Dal Dhungaree (four different delicious samplings), and date toffee pudding for dessert!

Succotash

This Southern-fusion cuisine restaurant is one I haven’t been to in years. Located in the heart of DC near CityCenter and the National Portrait Gallery, this restaurant is perfect for a pre-theater dinner or a brunch before museum-hopping. I ate there a few times before the pandemic and was happy to revisit this old favorite! I was delighted to find that their brunch offering for RW was served family style – it was perfect for brunch with the gals so everyone could pick their favorite dishes!

What we ordered: cocktails and mocktails all around with Belle’s Punch, deviled eggs and fried green tomato salad to start, then had shrimp and grits (they accommodated a veggie version for me), then had chicken and waffles/citrus salad/veggie cobb salad, and ended the meal with delicious pecan sticky buns.

I had so much fun trying out new restaurants and revisiting old faves during this Restaurant Week. I hope this inspires you to check out these restaurants in DC!

XOXO

Parisa