2026 Best of Washington

Some of the region's most celebrated restaurants are coming together for Washingtonians 2026 Best of Washington. More than 80 participating residents restaurants are going to be serving signature bites and drinks this week at the Anthem in Southwest DC. So let's find out more about it. Washingtonian food editor Jessica Sinman joins us for a live preview now along with the executive chef Matt Conroy and Isabel Cost of Pascual. Folks thanks for being with us this morning. Jessica I want to start with you. Best of Washington has become you know one of the signature food events of the summer. So what can this year's attendees expect you know in what is really for a lot of folks a very unique experience. Yeah absolutely thanks for having me on. If you like we have a long long list of restaurants you want to try this is a great event because we're going to have as you said more than 80 restaurants that you can sample bites and drinks from. I think it's actually the biggest lineup we've ever had everything from Michelin star restaurants to underrated gems. You know some of my personal favorite restaurants like Lutece and Pascual. We've got 250 barbecue. And you has great Korean food cruises grocery which is the destination for an Italian American and then there's an open bar giveaways the DJ the theme is rock and roll. So it's just a really fun party as well. Yeah this sounds like you know the advice we give to anybody who went to dinner at my Italian mother's house which was go hungry because there's gonna be a lot of food. Yeah so Matt and Isabel you're bringing a crab pasta dish to the event. This is reflective of you know your cuisine Mexican Lutece which is French. Tell folks about this dish and what inspired you to create this and at Pascual what kind of food will people discover when they come to the restaurant. It's gonna be a party that's all I can say first but Matt you want to talk about the dish? Yeah I'll talk about the dish so we kind of we're doing a collab between the two restaurants. So one is French one is Mexican and so Pascual is doing the heirloom tostadas. So we grind all the corn in house that will be the base of it and then Lutece is doing a salad part which is a dish we have on the menu right now. So crab coming from Maryland a little induja so spicy and then some beautiful heirloom tomatoes which is what I can't get enough of right now. So I'm really excited about it. You're never going to go wrong in the DMV choosing a crab dish because it's a really you know the local favorite. Your menu probably has a lot of different stuff so how did you choose this you know when you had so many choices of things you could have featured? I mean I think it's like something that's important for us is what's seasonal and what's what we're getting and we're excited to be cooking right now and then you know something that's easy to you know it's it's a quick little you know you're getting two bites and you got so much more food to try so something you can grab and keep moving and try all the food and drinks and and everything else and keep keep uh keep keep seeing everybody else that's uh cooking amazing food at the event. We also wanted to combine both of the ideas of the restaurant Pascual is Mexican in Capitol Hill it's like more casual and then you have Lutece in Georgetown a little more like fancy you know a little more like it's tiny beautiful you know like a little like a heart Georgetown heart. So we wanted to combine both of them in one dish so you get both of the restaurants. We've never done that before actually so we're excited. Isabel I was wondering how do you make that for so many people because this thing's going to be packed. We're been prepping we started prepping yesterday so I know it's Thursday but we started prepping yesterday all the tostadas the tostadas like the corn that we're grinding house we're getting the corn from Mexico so we gotta start early because we want to be ready and we don't want to run out of food we want you that if you want to have you know more you have plenty of but yeah it's literally taking at least uh six hands in between both restaurants you know six people in between restaurants to help us do it and that day we're going to have at least like three people to help us like serve like a drink and also serve the food so it definitely takes some people but you know there's a lot of heart and love put on it. Jessica we're about out of time tell people again uh how they can find out more about this. Absolutely if you go to washingtonian.com slash b-o-w for best of Washington you can buy there's running low but there's still tickets left and your viewers can get 20% off with the promo code uh b-o-w again best of Washington uh portion of the proceeds goes to World Central Kitchen so see you there. World Central Kitchen a very worthy organization all right we thank all three of you for joining us this morning it sounds like a really fun a great event.