The Dabney

The Dabney opened in October 2015 in Blagden Alley, a cobbled service alley behind Shaw that has since become one of the more interesting corners of the city, and it remains hard to find on purpose. Chef-owner Jeremiah Langhorne built the 55-seat room around a ten-foot wood-burning stone hearth, and the hearth is not decorative: it is the primary cooking method, and the menu is hyper-regional Mid-Atlantic, driven by what is available close by rather than by a fixed carte. The accolades came quickly and have held - a Michelin star in 2017, the first year the guide covered Washington, the 2018 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic, and a place on Bon Appetit's Best New Restaurants of 2016.

The bar programme, overseen by bar director Daniel Todd, maintains a dedicated spirit-free list, and Washingtonian's Dry January guide made the useful practical point about it: the list is available a la carte at the bar as well as alongside the tasting menu, so you do not have to commit to a full dinner to drink from it. The two named builds show what a kitchen-led bar can do that a spirits-led one cannot. The Fennel Sour uses toasted fennel with egg white, lime and lemon - the toasting is what gives it the depth a sour normally gets from the base spirit, and the egg white gives it the texture. The Manhattan riff is the more ambitious: it swaps in a house-made sorghum-based faux whiskey, adds a spicebush amaro built in-house, and finishes with black walnut bitters. Both drinks are made from things the kitchen already works with, which is the coherent way to run a spirit-free list in a restaurant of this kind.

Practical notes. The Dabney serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday only, from 5.30pm, closed Sunday and Monday, with last seatings at 9.30pm midweek and 10pm on Friday and Saturday. Sitting at the bar is the flexible option and the better one for the drinks. Blagden Alley itself is worth arriving early for - it is a short walk from the Mount Vernon Square and Shaw Metro stations, and the alley holds several other bars if the evening continues.