Opal

Opal sits in Chevy Chase like a deliberate exhale, a room built for adults who've arranged childcare and intend to make the most of it. Wood-fired oysters set the tone, cucumber-rose water G&Ts do the rest. This is a kitchen confident enough to let its a la carte menu compete with its tasting menu, which is rarer than it should be.

The Simple Supper only undersells itself in name. Five courses build toward a main you choose yourself — bbq swordfish, turnip schnitzel, rainbow trout — with an English pea ricotta agnolotti and a chive blini topped with yuzu labneh and roasted shrimp doing the connective work between. Off the a la carte menu, the clams and saffron spaghetti earn their reputation: the broth soaks into housemade pasta until the dish tastes richer than its ingredient list suggests it should.

Three consecutive years on Michelin's DC list confirm what the plates already argue: a kitchen treating a neighborhood dinner as worth doing properly, course by course, without losing the room's ease. Go for the pasta. Stay for the swordfish.