Pascual
Restaurant · Capitol Hill
732 Maryland Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002
Highlights
Critically acclaimed Mexican restaurant with hearth-focused menu & marg variations
Critically acclaimed Mexican restaurant with hearth-focused menu & marg variations
"Pascual is one of the buzziest new restaurants in D.C. (and America) from the same restaurant group that includes Lapis and Lutèce. Almost every dish is cooked over the wood-fired grill, giving everything from charred eggplant tamal to lamb neck barbacoa a smoky flavor. The hearth-focused menu honors chef Isabel Coss’s native Mexico City, and her combined experience working at top-tier Mexican restaurants, including Michelin-starred Pujol. Don’t miss out on her bunuelos for dessert, a beautiful fried dough pastry served with chocolate sauce and caramel made of goat’s milk." - Tierney Plumb
"Another establishment under Shamim Popal's successful restaurant group, known for its quality cuisine." - Nancy DePalma
"Culinary couple Isabel Coss and Matt Conroy opened Pascual last year in Capitol Hill with the Popal Group. The hearth-focused menu honors Coss’s native Mexico City and the chefs’ combined experience working at top-tier Mexican restaurants. Smoked chicken and whole grilled fish shine on the seasonal menu, but vegetables are also given special treatment whether they’re roasted whole or fill the rotating selection of tamales. Oaxacan flavors are also present throughout the menu, with tlayudas topped with in-season vegetables and classic mole sauces in many dishes. Coss flexes her pastry muscles with must-try desserts, like the colossal cinnamon-dusted buñuelos that never leave the menu. The Popal Group is also behind Adams Morgan’s Afghan hit Lapis and French Georgetown gem Lutèce." - Tierney Plumb, Emily Venezky
"The team at Pascual leaned into the sweetness of corn with its Chicha Morada Colada, a cocktail inspired by a recent collaboration dinner with Maty’s in Miami. This cocktail, which was recently taken off the menu, featured both Mexican rum as well as a Peruvian purple corn drink called chica morada, made from dried purple corn, fruit, and spices." - Lulu Chang
"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
