Restaurants in Lincolnia

Though a dessert display case, rustic wooden tables, and exposed-brick walls ground this eatery's casual neighborhood appeal, the food at Lillies remains decidedly upscale but still approachable. A team of chefs casts an Eastern European spin upon the largely Mediterranean seasonal dishes—including gourmet pastas, roasted lamb, and gourmet eggs benedict—trumped up with demi-glaces and aiolis. Bartenders concoct cocktails and martinis in between pouring international beers and wine to complement the cuisine's distinctive flavors. During warmer months, guests can enjoy their meals on the patio, where Mediterranean touches, including indigo mosaic-tiled tables and olive-oil waterfalls, reflect the cuisine’s heritage.

Behind the wooden counter of the open kitchen, Red Mei’s chefs whip up contemporary takes on Asian classics such as mongolian beef and kung pao chicken. They ladle sauces made fresh daily over dishes such as Red Mei lemon chicken, which is sautéed with ginger, garlic, and red peppers in a tart citrus sauce. Like an itinerant pie thief, the menu picks up dishes from a diversity of locales, such as the Cantonese-style chow fun, which matches chicken, beef, or shrimp with wide wheat noodles, ginger, scallions, hot fresno peppers, and snow peas.

Red Velvet Cupcakery's trained pastry chefs fashion the cupcakes on their menu from European butters, Maldon sea salt, local dairy products, and other premium ingredients. The Washington Post Express concluded that their devil's-food cupcake's rich buttermilk cake topped with Valrhona bittersweet-chocolate ganache "is sinfully satisfying," and hailed their red-velvet Southern Belle's whipped cream-cheese frosting as "simple, elegant, and too scrumptious for words."

Customers can sate cravings with cupcakes available in gluten-free, sugar-free, and vegan varieties. In addition to individual orders, Red Velvet Cupcakery caters its miniature sweets to corporate events and parties, and chefs can match any wedding's colors to create tiered, custom-garnished cupcake cakes.

Along with serving tapas and other Latin American-inspired dishes, Rumba Cafe presents samples of Latin American folk cultures through photographs and paintings by local artists, plus other live Latin music. Guests share plates of specialty tapas, such as arepas, empanadas, tostones, and yuca, or can opt for entrees such as the seafood paella or Argentinean meat platters. Daily happy hours at the bar loosen up guests for dance offs later that evening, or just excited seat-dancing with each arrival of more tapas. Warm orange and red walls inform the warm aesthetic of the décor, and dark wood tables offer an elegant stage for dining and drinking.

The idea for sushi restaurant Oh Fish came in a sandwich shop. As chef Kaz Okochi moved through the line choosing his bread and toppings, he realized: why not sushi? He spent years figuring out how to translate the concept of customization to the sushi market (not to mention how to incorporate the diversity of ingredients he had encountered in Osaka). The result is a restaurant where, in addition to dining on crunchy shrimp, spicy tuna, and other [signature maki] http://www.ohfish.com/sign-maki.html), customers can design their own rolls for chefs to create in front of them as they shout "Thanks chef, you da man!" Starting with bases such as spicy salmon or shrimp salad, they add veggies such as cucumber, kimchee, cilantro, or carrots. They continue with sauces, making tough decisions between wasabi soy sauce and spicy mayo before finishing with bread crumbs, sesame seeds, or Japanese chili-powder.

At Argia's, chef Ryan Baldini and proprietors Pragun and Salina Rana strike a balance between serving fine northern Italian cuisine and fostering a laid-back dining atmosphere. Many of Ryan's dishes, such as his grilled beef tenderloin and range of handmade pastas, come in solo portions or shareable famiglia servings that sate larger parties. For a taste of the kitchen's signature dish, guests can pry open a Prince Edward Island mussel—shipped to the restaurant daily—and sop up its juices with housemade bread still warm from the oven or a pet sea sponge in need of a soak. Outside, the clinking of wineglasses rings out across a patio enclosed by fragrant herbs; inside, a rustic Sienese-style mural matched with eye-catching frescoes conjures an air of the Italian countryside.