Even in the most tweezer-mad kitchens, nostalgia is always hovering somewhere—I can’t think of many restaurants without at least one dish inspired by, say, a doting grandma or a feast-making dad or an afterschool snack.
Lately though, restaurants have been leaning especially hard on a different type of nostalgia, and a more transportive one. Gone is the food scene’s post-pandemic obsession with Gatsby-like excess. (Caviar-topped chicken nuggets, I will not miss you.) Instead, the energy this past chaotic year has shifted toward a more earnest version of the way things were.
Eebee’s, the hottest opening in recent memory, draws lines in Shaw not just for its thick burger or club sandwich but also because it feels like a portal to the analog ’90s, with brick walls papered in Playbills and dark, almost cinematic lighting. The new 14th Street bar Frank’s Wild Years has a cigarette machine, and it actually works. On the fancier side, two more throwback places arrived this summer. Here’s a look.
The Oak Room
There are oil paintings—pastoral landscapes, stolid portraits, tiny still lifes—everywhere you turn at Georgetown’s latest fine-dining hot spot, even in the women’s bathroom stalls. Downstairs, the place feels like a set piece from the 1985 movie Clue, with tufted burgundy leather chairs and table lights so dim they’re basically a middle finger to Instagram. Upstairs is a sultry piano lounge called Bernadette’s. It’s all meant to evoke a turn-of-the-century private club.
Improbably, the restaurant was created by the group behind the Union Market bar Desert 5 Spot, home of DC’s first mechanical bull. The Oak Room tapped chef Tim Hollingsworth—the youngest chef de cuisine at California’s French Laundry—who smartly tightropes the line between staying true to American standards and not making them taste like every other version you’ve had. There’s an excellent, maximalist Caesar with craggy lettuce and abundant Parmesan, pepper, and croutons. A coupe glass of seafood cocktail conjures ceviche with its lime-and-Clamato marinade and is sided with saltine-like crackers. The prime rib, rubbed with koji and pepper and served with cooling horseradish crème fraîche, is just about perfect. A long filet of Dover sole is beautifully prepared, sizzling with capers and butter.
Those successes made an off-tasting steak tartare—which the server didn’t ask about when he whisked away the barely touched $32 appetizer—and an order of dry Parker House rolls all the more puzzling. Also befuddling: a big slice of honeydew melon teetering on the rim of my Thai-basil margarita. My advice: Stick with the smooth martinis and vespers, splurge on the $98 “queen’s cut” of the prime rib, and marvel at the alluring—and very crowded—room that already feels like it’s been around far longer than a couple months.
location_on1218 Wisconsin Ave., NW
languageWebsite
Open Tuesday through Friday for dinner, Saturday and Sunday for brunch and dinner.
Neighborhood: Georgetown.
Dress: You’ll see a lot of guys in collared shirts and girls in backless slip dresses.
Noise level: Loud at peak times—you’ll have to lean in to hear your tablemate.
Best dishes: Caesar salad; seafood cocktail; prime rib; Dover sole; onion rings.
Price range: Starters $12 to $34, entrées $26 to $268.
Bottom line: A swank hot spot with some standout takes on classic dishes.
The Riggsby
In 2015, Boston celebrity chef Michael Schlow debuted the Riggsby, a ’70s-cocktail-party-inspired American restaurant, in a Dupont Circle hotel. It was an immediate hit but closed in 2019 when the hotel was sold. Now he’s revived the concept in another Dupont hotel, the Royal Sonesta.
Despite a $6 million build-out, the dining room doesn’t have quite the level of timeless charm as the original, which felt like a cooler version of the Regal Beagle from Three’s Company. The wine list and dessert menus are still office-paper printouts. That said, fans of the original will find a lot to like, not least the wonderfully personable, attentive service.
There’s a great wedge salad and a not-so-secret off-menu bar burger that’s worth a visit in its own right (the kitchen makes just 12 a night). While Schlow has resurrected a few old Riggsby dishes, some were better as memories. Now the chopped salad drowns in Thousand Island dressing and the veal schnitzel leans dry. Swedish meatballs in mushroom sauce taste as boring as they look.
Instead, the move is to focus on the dishes that hint at Schlow’s background in Italian cooking. I appreciated that our server one night nudged us from the lobster ravioli (“It’s been having problems”) toward a bowl of pure comfort: truffle-heavy fettuccine Alfredo with housemade pasta. The al dente rigatoni in creamy vodka sauce turned out to be even better. A plate of grilled, rare tuna over white beans and fennel was simple and lovely. But it was “Ned’s most favorite double-cut pork chop,” blanketed in fiery chilies, crisp potatoes, and fennel sausage and spritzed with grilled lemon, that stole the show. No surprise, it’s named after Schlow’s dad.
location_on2121 P St., NW
languageWebsite
Open daily for breakfast and dinner.
Neighborhood: Dupont Circle.
Dress: Because it’s a hotel, casual is okay. Still, the space calls for a little spiffiness.
Noise level: Relatively quiet but not staid.
Best dishes: Wedge salad; rigatoni; fettuccine Alfredo; cheeseburger; tuna with white beans; double-cut pork chop.
Price range: Starters $12 to $35, entrées $34 to $64.
Bottom line: At the 2.0 version of Schlow’s restaurant, the biggest draw is the Italian side of the menu.
This article appears in the September 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
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.
