Caviar used to be a luxury found only in the highest echelons of fine dining, but now the black gold is glamming up everything everywhere all at once. Here’s a ranking of notable fish-roe creations–from the extraneous to the enthralling.
6
Chicken Nuggets
The Rihanna-inspired six-pack of nuggs at this Latin/Mediterranean lounge forgoes barbecue and honey-mustard sauces and instead uses crème fraîche, gold flakes, and osetra caviar as accessories. At $60, it’s the most unnecessarily expensive Happy Meal you’ll ever eat.
Find them at: Gaia, 1025 Vermont Ave., NW
5
Giant Mozzarella Stick
Servers at Michael Mina’s lat-est steakhouse use scissors to snip apart this eight-inch-long mozza monstrosity, finished off with basil-accented ricotta and Italian caviar. Yet it still manages to feel naked without a side of marinara for dunking.
Find it at: Acqua Bistecca, 14 Ridge Sq., NW
4
Crab Tarts
Tiny two-bite tartlets at this Riviera-inspired restaurant are brimming with confit fennel and peekytoe crab and bedazzled with a glittering mound of American hackleback caviar.
Find them at: Barbouzard, 1700 K St., NW
3
Twinkie
Michael Mina’s other steakhouse, in Georgetown, serves a golden cornbread riff on the Hostess confection that’s packed with yuzu crème fraîche and finished with a jumble of Petrossian caviar.
Find it at: Bourbon Steak, 2800 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
2
Banana-and-Hazelnut Dessert
Proving that caviar isn’t just for savory dishes, the polvorón dessert at José Andrés’s maximalist Waldorf Astoria hotel restaurant features buttery shortbread paired with hazelnut praline, banana sorbet, and osetra, which gives it a satisfying smack of saltiness.
Find it at: The Bazaar, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
1
Fancy Tots
This Georgetown bistro’s over-size tater tots are fried in duck fat, dolloped with crème fraîche, and mounded with black pearls of osetra caviar with dill and chives. Decadence never tasted so good.
Find them at: Lutèce, 1522 Wisconsin Ave., NW
This article appears in the January 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
Nevin Martell is a food, travel, and foraging writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Men’s Journal, Fortune, Travel + Leisure, The Daily Beast, BBC, and many other publications. He is author of eight books, including Red Truck Bakery Cookbook: Gold-Standard Recipes from America’s Favorite Rural Bakery, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip, and The Founding Farmers Cookbook: 100 Recipes From the Restaurant Owned by American Family Farmers. When he isn’t working, he loves spending time with his son, foraging for wild foods, and traveling.
