100 Very Best 2014
Tom Power’s quiet and understated Shaw restaurant stands out the same way a well-tailored jacket does. If his Modern American menu seldom changes, it’s because he’d rather win you over with consistency than with novelty.
His red-snapper bisque has such a deep, lingering flavor, it seems wrong to call it soup. His rendition of lumpia, a Filipino spring roll, might be the best fried food you’ll eat all year, if it weren’t for the fact that you might segue from that to the stellar soft-shell crabs. Wine reductions have disappeared from many menus, but Power reminds us what we’re missing when we drag a slice of crisped duck breast through one of his lustrously rich sauces. Note to the budget-minded: You can dine on the three-course prix fixe menu at the upstairs bar for $30—a steal.
Open: Monday through Saturday for dinner.
Don’t miss: Tuna tartare; tuna with sushi rice; roast and confit guinea hen; chocolate tart with banana; baked chocolate sabayon.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
