100 Very Best Restaurants 2017: Vin 909 Winecafé
Crab on brioche toast is one of the many hits at Vin 909 Winecafé. Photograph by Scott Suchman
Fans of chef Justin Moore regularly queue up outside his restaurant some 30 minutes before opening time, and it’s easy to see why. For one thing, the setting—a Sears Roebuck house in Annapolis’s Eastport neighborhood—couldn’t feel homier. Then there’s the approachable wine list and Moore’s crisped-to-perfection brick-oven pizzas topped with phenomenal house-made mozzarella. But the real stars of this otherwise unassuming restaurant are its “bigger than appetizers, slightly smaller than entrées” plates. Try as many as your appetite demands, but you’ll be truly sorry to miss the crab roll on brioche, served with a ramekin of shrimp bisque for dunking. Moderate.
Also great: Squid-ink pasta with sea-urchin butter; clam-and-pumpkin curry; “Saint Nick” pizza (speck, apple, goat cheese, honey); “Williamsburg” pizza (onion, roasted-garlic ricotta, sesame seeds, arugula); butterscotch pudding.
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Executive Food Editor/Critic
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.
Food Editor
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.
Food Editor
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
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Kristen Hinman has been editing Washingtonian’s features since 2014. She joined the magazine after editing politics & policy coverage for Bloomberg Businessweek and working as a staff writer for Voice Media Group/Riverfront Times.