About Tico
A graffiti-scrawled pan-Latin dining room is not the first place we’d have expected to find one of the best all-American cookie plates we’ve eaten (oh, that peanut-butter-sandwich cookie!). Then again, Boston chef Michael Schlow doesn’t play by many rules at his first DC restaurant.
The sprawling small-plates menu, which swings all over South and Central America, and even through Spain, can be tricky to navigate. Our advice? Load up on veggie dishes—especially the salsa-verde-sauced cabbage salad and the roasted cauliflower with fava beans. Ceviches show an uncommon knack for creating layers of texture, and the excellent scallop version is by turns crunchy (thanks to crispy brown rice) and creamy (a smooth avocado purée). Finish with a round of tacos—and don’t forget that cookie plate.
Don’t miss:
- Mac and cheese
- Beets with spiced yogurt
- Pressed chicken
- Duck, edamame, and two-texture beef tacos
- Caju caipirinha
Try Tico’s Chef Recipes
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Michael Schlow’s Fried-Chicken Tacos
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Tico’s Roasted Beets with Pistachios and Spicy Yogurt
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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.
