The 14 Best New Restaurants in America in 2024 - Eater
"Past a sophisticated green facade in a residential part of Capitol Hill, chef Isabel Coss — among the best Mexican chefs in the country — has put together her most personal restaurant yet: Pascual, a polished celebration of her hometown, Mexico City. The restaurant’s dramatic, open-fire hearth takes center stage in a smallish dining room furnished with sleek wooden tables and a stark white bar lined with colorful bowls of fruit and mezcal bottles. And while the soulful fire-fed meats like lamb neck barbacoa and smoked chicken served with salsa morita will be seared into long-term memory, every dish on the compact, one-page menu reflects the diversity of Coss and her co-chef and husband Matt Conroy’s culinary backgrounds. A meal may start with pickled jalapeño-flecked guacamole and salsas spinning around a lazy Susan. Moles come topped with caviar, and a masa-based roux nods to the French sauces they’ve mastered at D.C. sibling Lutèce. Coss, who got her start baking bread at Mexico City’s iconic Pujol at age 17 before going on to train at contemporary Mexican spots Empellón and Cosme in New York, flexes her pastry muscles with a grand finale of cinnamon sugar-dusted buñuelos. Each ingredient comes with a backstory, and the duo collaborates with local farmers to dress plates with Mexican specialties. Hoja santa leaves, grown on a local farm specifically for the restaurant, show up as a vessel for rice with salsa macha, in a garbanzo dish, and even in a creamy vanilla flan, adding an herbal kick to the classic dessert. Named for San Pasqual, the patron saint of cooks and kitchens, Pascual is the culmination of not just the four years the team spent conceptualizing it, but the sum of Coss and Conroy’s combined years of experience and inherent talents. Given the long lines that begin to form well before the first seating, D.C. is thanking San Pasqual that they landed here. — Tierney Plumb, Eater DC editor" - Eater Staff
