About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Café Unido. 2099 1st St., SW.
Café Unido is known for its Panamanian coffee, including its Geisha variety, among the most prized and expensive in the wold. At its newest location in Buzzard Point, you’ll be able to try a flight of Geisha coffees, known for their vibrant, floral flavors, for $40, and buy the beans to make it at home. You’ll also find more affordable drip coffees and a full menu of creative lattes. New at this location is a retail section, where you can purchase cheeses, charcuterie, specialty chocolates, and more.
Café Unido started out as what CEO Alejandro Carvallo refers to as the “Starbucks of Panama,” a country that has always been known for its coffee, but for years lacked typical cafes where guests could sit to enjoy their drinks. The coffee house came to DC in 2019 with a stall at La Cosecha in Union Market—it upgraded to a larger space last year—and later opened a Shaw outpost in 2022.
Café Unido’s coffee comes exclusively from the volcanic soil of Panama, and the drink menu includes signatures like the Orange Raspadura Latte made with panela (cane sugar) and orange peel-infused syrup as well as a Coco Americano with organic coconut water espresso over ice.
Whatever they put on the menu, “someone took the time to analyze it, to curate it, to make sure that it’s the best we can offer at that price point,” Carvallo says.
Traditional Panamanian dishes include carimañolas (yucca fritters) and fried rice with pork belly, onion, and concolón crispy rice. The menu also includes cheese-filled tequeños with mumbo sauce as well mumbo wings. Other American-style dishes range from a chicken caesar wrap to chicken tenders.
The new location does not currently offer a cocktail menu like Union Market and Shaw, but Carvallo said he hopes that will come by the end of the summer.
The 700 square-foot space at The Stacks, a residential and retail building just blocks away from Audi Field and Nationals Park, will offer indoor and outdoor seating and will look out at the building’s retail promenade. Carvallo says the chain is also in the process of securing several more leases to expand their footprint in DC.
“It’s a place where you can just go every day,” Carvallo says. “And we want to keep it that place that’s unique to the neighborhood, and then you can go in the morning, in the afternoon, at night.”
