"Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo’s follow-up to tropically appointed (and recently relocated) Seven Reasons gives the West End a fine dining venue for Mediterranean-Latin fusion full of surreal plating and modernist technique. Sturdy staples like a moussaka cigar — with crispy phyllo dough, smoked eggplant, ground lamb, and goat-manchego cream — and fried Spanish octopus with Amazonian chimichurri anchor the rotating dinner menu. Go a la carte or choose the omakase tasting experience at the chef’s counter (currently 16 to 22 bites) that has a Michelin star. A soaring white bar lined with cranberry-colored stools sends out sharply conceived cocktails with Mediterranean ingredients like Greek olives, truffle honey, and limoncello. The team expanded its West End portfolio last spring with the opening of Spanish-themed TheSaga in the Ritz-Carlton, followed up by its first foray into Virginia with avant-garde bistro Surreal near Amazon HQ2." - Tierney Plumb, Emily Venezky
