One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

The dish was described on 2941’s prix-fixe lunch menu in the barest of terms: East Coast halibut, heirloom tomato, tomato gazpacho, basil salad. The early (out of?) season tomatoes did give me pause, but I ordered the entrée anyway. What chef Bertrand Chemel plated was something I never could have imagined: the halibut version of tomato and mozzarella salad. Let me explain: Chemel, former chef de cuisine at Café Boulud, prepared the halibut as medallions, which were laid atop slices of yellow tomatoes, then surrounded with the delicate gazpacho and topped with thin ribbons of asparagus, julienne red peppers, and other garnishes. The medallions were so fresh—and so moist and firm and white—that they took on an almost mozzarella-like quality when paired with the tomato preparations. Each garnish then added these precise little complementary flavors (a woodsy note here, a piquant one there) that only heightened the dish’s sense of freshness. I savored that lunch as if it were my last meal, seasonal tomatoes or not. This is the kind of creative cooking that Chemel has brought to 2941 since he arrived from New York, and he’s not the only master in the kitchen. Pastry chef Anthony Chavez turns out terrific seasonal desserts, while Patrick Deiss produces a wide line of in-house breads, some so good you’re tempted to gorge yourself on them before Chemel’s handiwork even arrives.

2941, 2941 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church, (703) 270-1500

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

A professional, if not a genius, is someone who can who adapt to public criticism while still maintaining a sense of personal integrity. Chef Peter Smith is such a person. When diners found his opening day menu at PS 7’s too baffling to parse—a sort of build-your-own tasting menu, back when people still had money and thought they wanted to blow it on 10 courses—Smith quickly retreated and developed more approachable ways to showcase his talents. His latest menu, unveiled in late May, is without a doubt his best attempt yet to expand the dining experience without overwhelming anyone. The menu sports a section called “For the Table” that features sharable plates, from his signature petite hot dogs to his delicious flatbreads topped with duck confit and other juicy morsels. But the menu also disposes with the traditional appetizer course in favor of a two-pronged section of “Cool” and “Hot” bites, including scallop ceviche, “oxtail tots,” and foie-gras-studded braised short ribs in pastry. The beauty of this approach, of course, is that some of these bites are so enticing that you want to…well, build your own mini-tasting menu.

PS 7’s, 777 I St. NW, (202) 742-8550

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

I came very close to booting Proof off the list after a recent bad experience. Allow me to explain. I had just ordered the seared Pennsylvania pork loin with radicchio and caramelized onion risotto and was searching for assistance from sommelier Sebastian Zutant on what to pair with chef Haidar Karoum’s entree. Zutant suggested a Burgundy blend. But when I followed my first peppery bite of pork with the wine, I experienced a sensation not unlike breathing in hot acrid smoke. The back of my tongue felt seared. With each subsequent swallow of Burgundy, I felt as if I were pouring gasoline onto Karoum’s fire, rather than adding a tart hit of fruit to my seared pork loin, the classic combination that Zutant no doubt intended. At first I considered this a breakdown on all fronts—chef, kitchen, sommelier—but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the entire experience could be blamed on a simple problem: too many grinds of a pepper mill. It happens. The thing is, it had never happened before in Karoum’s kitchen, which has been a stellar performer in my experience, turning out inventive dishes that easily cross cultures without crossing up your palate. This is one case in which I felt a pass was both necessary and justified.

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Some restaurants like to brag about their eco-friendly ways—I mean, seriously, half of Hook’s appeal has been its sustainability come-on—but some restaurants just are eco-friendly. OK, sure, Poste Moderne Brasserie has gotten a few press notices about its organic and sustainable garden in its courtyard, from which chef Robert Weland will pluck vegetables and herbs for his dishes. But did you know that Poste uses 100 percent recycled paper? Or that it composts all its food scraps? Or that it eliminated all bottled water in favor of its own filtration system? Yeah, I know, none of that means Weland’s food is worth a damn, but here’s the thing: It is. The discipline that Weland injects into his environmental efforts is the same discipline he injects into his kitchen. His dishes are among the most consistent in the area, from his superb terrines to his handmade pastas to his rotating selection of seasonal fish entrées, including his most recent, a wild Alaskan king salmon with parsley sabayon, salmon caviar, and spring onions.

Addendum: Y&H goes whole hog at Poste’s courtyard pig roast.

 Poste Moderne Brasserie, 555 8th St. NW, inside Hotel Monaco, (202) 783-6060

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

If I were ever to compile a list of the District’s most creative chefs, the ones who strive for unusual flavor combinations or push their ingredients in unusual directions, I would put the Oval Room ’s Tony Conte right near the top. How inventive is Conte? In the past, he’s paired a beet salad with passion-fruit gelee and veal slices with a Parmesan sauce and menthol purée. His latest menu features butter-poached lobster lounging in a shallow pool of young coconut milk, which itself is bobbing with peach and wasabi pearls. Sometimes this is all too much, and Conte is just overmanipulating his dishes to his (and my) detriment. I’d point to that lobster as a fine example. The shellfish in my recent order was poached to a downy consistency, but its accompanying liquid was far too sweet for my palate, the result, it seems, of Conte’s line cooks not adding enough wasabi pearls for balance. But here’s the thing: Conte fascinates me, even when he doesn’t always please me. When he hits the mark, though, few chefs in town can touch him. Period. His roast chicken with barbecue consommé—that’s right, consommé—and smoked mushroom is a knockout. So is his appetizer of foie gras brûlé, a small cap of caramelized terrine perched on toasted brioche and served with Meyer lemon and lavender. The thing is so good, I’d run through a gantlet of angry animal protectionists to eat it.

The  Oval Room, 800 Connecticut Ave. NW, (202) 463-8700

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Concept is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the restaurant world. I’m not convinced it means squat to the average diner, but without a solid concept, or operating philosophy, a restaurant would remain rudderless, adrift to shift from idea to idea as desperation and past-due bills become a routine part of daily business. Liberty Tavern has one of the tightest concepts I’ve ever seen. It’s regional American as filtered through chef Liam LaCivita’s Italian prism. The concept plays out up and down the menu, from the superb bread basket (which combines New England anadama with Italian feather loaf) to terrific wood-fired pizzas (including one with Vermont white cheddar) to the homemade fettucine with Maine lobster. This guiding philosophy can even be felt in the very space, erected a century ago as a Masonic building, which gives off the friendly neighborhood vibe of a classic Italian trattoria.

 Liberty Tavern, 3195 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 465-9360

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Let me boil this recommendation down to two words: patty melt. For all their innovative flavor combinations, chefs Jonathan Krinn and Jon Mathieson have devised a rather safe, if regal, interpretation of the humble hamburger melt. The patty in their version features ground, exquisitely beefy culotte, which is topped with two cheeses and black truffles, and then pressed between buttery, beautifully fried slices of crustless brioche. I ate this fine example of handheld decadence with a big fruity glass of Lopez de Heredia Rioja, for the kind of lunch that business types would have downed several decades ago, when excess equaled success. You can discover far more subtle delicacies on the chefs’ dinner menu, but whatever you choose, I predict great things for this pricy Tysons playpen as Krinn and Mathieson continue to explore the high and low ends of American gastronomy.

Inox, 1800 Tysons Blvd., Suite 70, McLean, Va., (703) 790-4669

Photo courtesy of Inox

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

It takes bravado—and lots of bull-headed determination—to run a wine-centered bistro in Montgomery County. Grapeseed chef/owner Jeff Heineman has both. He works the whacked-out county-controlled liquor system as well as a mere mortal can, building and maintaining a wine list that’s deep, approachable, and, at its frequent best, altogether satisfying. Heineman custom-builds the dishes on his menu to pair with specific wines, like his recent portobello-mushroom take on chilaquiles, that classic Mexican breakfast dish, which he suggests you sample with a cool, fruity glass of French rosé, for an Old World/Third World partnership that snootier toques would never touch. That’s the thing about Heineman; his vision of New American cuisine often has a wide lens. It could be that chilaquiles, or it could be his goat cheese-stuffed piquillo peppers, which are more roasty and tart than spicy. Now, I just wish Heineman would bring back his chef-driven take on chicken and waffles (in bourbon sauce!), which makes a mockery of the other insipid versions around town.

 Grapeseed, 4865 Cordell Ave., Bethesda, (301) 986-9592

A meaty homage to Michel Richard?

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Unlike some fine-dining restaurants that aim for the conspicuous-consumption set, Eventide has carved out a different niche for itself: It’s Arlington’s eccentric foodie destination. Eventide combines Komi’s OCD-like attention to detail with the chic intensity of the Source’s downstairs lounge. What’s more, chef Miles Vaden strikes me as a toque who will never be satisfied with his work. His menu reads (and tastes) like a man who pushes things about as far as you can in the typically conservative Clarendon dining scene. His bison carpaccio already assumes an air of Michel Richard; like a red-meat version of Richard’s famous “Mosaic,” Vaden plates thin circles of crimson-bright bison meat on a square of white china so that the dish looks like some monochromatic Pop-Art piece. The appetizer’s flavors and textures, however, are altogether original—the crunch of citrus-marinated jicama, the bite of ancho-chocolate mole, the salty umami of Parmesan, the plodding meatiness of the bison. While not as jaw-dropping as the carpaccio, other dishes on Vaden’s menu display enough invention and technique to justify any wild-eyed optimism you may have about this restaurant. Hell, even the upstairs dining room at Eventide, a former meeting hall for the Odd Fellows fraternal organization, strikes an odd, engaging tone. The ceiling is high, and the walls have an exposed, terra-cotta austerity about them. The long elegant drapes and the intimidating emptiness all around you—above your head and between the widely spaced tables—complete the image: You feel like you’re dining in some cool medieval castle.

Eventide, 3165 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 276-3165

Photo by Darrow Montgomery