Restaurants in Ashburn

Kumar Iyer has spent years in the hospitality industry, managing restaurants aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and working the floor at local restaurants. He learned how to take care of people during these experiences, but more importantly, he codified what he thought made a great restaurant. When the time was right, he brought all of those ideas to his own culinary venture, Rangoli. From the laying of the bricks to the creation of the menu, Kumar made sure every element matched his lofty expectations.

Today, Kumar and his team serve up an eclectic array of Indian cuisine gathered from all over the continent. They prepare an exhaustive selection of curries, including a Konkani recipe called chicken xacuti, which uses flavors such as poppy seeds, fennel, and a tart fruit known as kokum in its creamy sauce. They also roast meat in traditional tandoori clay ovens, the blazing-hot vessels known for imparting their searing heat to lamb kebabs, whole chickens, and slightly smaller, more adorable clay ovens.

The chefs at each Copper Canyon Grill, a mid-Atlantic favorite, craft their regional American dishes from scratch every day. Their kitchens fill with flames and savory aromas as they roast meats and vegetables over hardwood fires, making customers happy, but leaving behind bare earth at local basketball arenas.

The kitchen yields hearty servings of grilled prime rib and filet mignon, ahi tuna and Atlantic salmon, and Delmarva-style crab dip and Eastern Shore jumbo lump crab cakes. It also tempts with a signature rotisserie chicken and jalapeño- and serrano-pepper cornbread baked in an iron skillet.

Ashwani Ahluwalia, proprietor of Brix American Bistro, has always set high standards for himself, graduating with honors from the Bermuda Hotel and Catering College at 18 and immediately joining the staff at the fine-dining restaurant Romanoff. After working in restaurants in the Grand Cayman Islands, cooking for celebrities, Supreme Court justices, and athletes, Ahluwalia eventually settled in Grand Falls. Here, he helms Brix American Bistro, pairing upscale American cuisine with more than 30 wines available by the glass and 95 by the bottle. This service strategy helped Ahluwalia's restaurant earn the 2012 Diners' Choice Award from Opentable.com. He draws inspiration for his menu from his background. This helps Ahluwalia create the hickory-smoked barbecue jamaican baby-back ribs with a housemade sauce's Caribbean flavor, as well as the samosas, which he fills with creamy potatoes and a fresh cilantro-mint chutney inspired by his Indian heritage.

Named for brix, the measure for the sugar content in grapes for wine making, the restaurant naturally features a glass-enclosed wine cellar and an extensive wine list. The establishment welcomes oenophiles to become cellar members and store their prized bottles, purchased at a discount through Brix, in the cellar lockers. Past the cellar and the full bar is the main dining room, lined with long booths and lit by a flickering fireplace and natural light streaming in from the patio doors. These doors grant views of wooden trellises covered with thick green vines and a certain jungle legend swinging from them: Tarzan's stunt double.

Ahluwalia also works hard to give back to the community by hosting charity events and fundraisers for organizations such as the Rotary Club and Food for Others. He notes, "What gives me joy is serving people and not just at the restaurant, but also through community activities," according to an interview on the restaurant's website..

Wielding ingredients culled from the fields, stockyards, and vineyards of local producers, chefs craft inventive dishes such as osso buco anointed with smoked-pork au jus and pan-roasted rockfish drifting in crawfish cream. The most recent addition to the Vintage team is brewmaster Kristi Griner, who channels her 24 years of experience to helm the efforts of Vintage 50's 10-barrel brew house. Additionally, Vintage 50's caterers conjure fare for weddings and the food-fight receptions that follow and whip up dishes for offsite corporate events and holiday parties.

In 2009, Southern Louisiana native Melissa Crosswhite decided to show the nation's capital what Cajun cuisine is really about. With eight generations of family recipes in her hand, she set up shop in a historical 18th-century home. Soon enough, the mouthwatering aromas of her spicy étouffée, jambalaya, and gumbo filled the house and out onto the street, where it started drawing crowds from Maryland, Washington DC, and West Virginia. Today, diners enjoy meals prepared from those same trusted family recipes, including blackened chicken, alligator, and fried oyster po' boys. All sandwiches are made with New Orleans' famous Leidenheimer bread, spicy chipotle sauce, and the laments of a poor, poor boy. Guests enjoy their meals on a quaint patio or amid the historic home's Mardi Gras masks, crimson walls, and vintage touches. Chef Crosswhite's dessert skills can put a sweet cap on any creole feast with pecan pie and authentic Café Du Monde beignets.

Sahara Lebanese Cuisine’s fresh, authentic Middle Eastern dishes come courtesy of timeworn family recipes passed down through multiple generations of culinary expertise. At the helm of the kitchen, the head chef—with 16 years of experience—manages a staff of five talented chefs, each dedicated to creating housemade Lebanese favorites, from falafel and gyro sandwiches to baked red snapper, pomegranate lamb kebabs, and other dinner specialties.

In the dining room, the Middle Eastern-inspired design scheme, including arches overhead, complements the fare with another element of Lebanese authenticity. Neighboring the dining room, an on-site hookah lounge facilitates shisha consumption in a variety of flavors. Coffee and tea drinkers, meanwhile, can finish off a cup of Turkish coffee and then decipher their fortune or a forgotten PIN from the grounds.