If you chase hot new restaurants in Washington, this much is certain: You’re eating a lot of dinners around 5 p.m.
Washington
Review | Pascual raises the bar for Mexican cooking in D.C.
Blame it on the dining room, a mere 30 seats including a bar, or the reputations of the chefs, who met cute while they were working in New York at the admired Empellón and subsequently relocated to Washington to open Lutèce in Georgetown. Conroy’s credits include the breezy-but-serious Oxomoco in Brooklyn. Coss, a native of Mexico City who cooked at the world-class Pujol there when she was just 17, went on to be the pastry chef at Cosme in Manhattan.
You could say a lot of food fans were champing at the bit to get an early taste of their menu.
My strategy for getting into impossible situations is to just show up — early, hopeful and with a smile on my face. Most restaurateurs don’t want to say “no” to would-be diners who have taken the initiative to wait outside their door until opening time. Or really, anyone able and present.
Needless to say, I am relieved to see just two people outside Pascual on my initial trip in mid-March — albeit 30 minutes before showtime. “One and two?” I ask them, and they nod. Like my partner and me, the couple doesn’t have a reservation. “We’re three and four,” I tell them, just as a third couple strolls up. “And we’re five and six!” one of the two strangers announces to the early birds, which grows to a flock within minutes.
I don’t know about the others, but my sense of accomplishment feels like finding Wonka’s golden ticket. At least until opening time, when the shades of the windows at Pascual go up and a hostess calls out to those with reservations. The lucky ones form a separate, exclusive line that looks like the boarding process at an airport: first-class travelers first. Meanwhile, the huddled masses yearning to drink mezcal margaritas (awesome) and eat lamb neck (just as marvelous) start making silent calculations about their prospects.
A long moment passes. Then in we go, to a spare, light-filled dining room. Omar Popal, whose family also owns Lapis in Adams Morgan and Lutèce, where Conroy and Coss continue to cook, created the minimalist look, which is punctuated by some botanicals. Otherwise, white brick walls and blond wood chairs and tables direct your attention to the food and drink.
If you’ve done any homework on the place, named for the patron saint of cooks and the kitchen, you know to order the guacamole, “the perfect beginning of a meal,” says Coss. The dip starts with the basics — avocados, lime, salt — but also pickled jalapeños followed by finishes of olive oil and crushed toasted avocado powder. Nice. But the chefs raise the bar for every guac around by serving it on a Lazy Susan with half a dozen salsas and other condiments, what Coss playfully calls banchan, a reference to the Korean side dishes that often launch a meal. They include pickled vegetables, spiced pineapple and papaya, and bright salsas with varying degrees of heat including the dark brown oil-based salsa macha, “the new chile crunch,” says the chef of the dip with the twin allures of sesame and smoke. There’s no rush to clear the condiments when a fresh course arrives; servers encourage you to enjoy them throughout the rest of dinner.
Pascual employs a full-time “tortilla lady” to make the alluring rounds patted out from a variety of colors of heirloom corn. What’s seemingly simple is important to the chefs. When Coss lands somewhere new, she says, she looks for a good tortilla that “makes me miss Mexico less.”
With the first bite of anything here, you realize how special Pascual is. Yet this is a level of talent I’ve tasted before, in visits to Mexico and Los Angeles, as well as right here at home. If you haven’t noticed, distinctive Mexican cooking is easier than ever to find in and around Washington, and at all price points.
I have yet to greet shad or rhubarb anywhere. For me, spring was sprung at Pascual with a tlayuda — a giant soft tortilla turned crisp on the wood-fired grill — decorated with asparagus, mint salsa and streaks of smoked yogurt fueled with dried scallions and herbs. The green of the assembly pulls you into the season; the toppings keep you there.
A lot of people talk up the parsnip tamal, whose creamy mole — white with almonds, sesame seeds and golden raisins — and nonstaining slivered endive and finely grated cheese explain why brides want to serve it on their wedding day. I like, but do not love, the combination, which veers sweet for me. “Sent by an angel,” a server says as she placed the dish on the table and announced it as a staff favorite. For me, the more celestial vegetarian combination gathers garbanzo beans, potatoes and a custard spiced as if it were green chorizo. The suggestion of eucalyptus in the flan comes from hoja santa, the heart-shaped Mexican pepper leaf that lends its savor to many dishes in Oaxaca in particular. The crunch is dried garbanzos.
The chefs offer dishes from around Mexico. Seafood is a strong suit. Prawns are brushed with a spicy paste of pickled chipotle and grilled in their open shells so the seafood remains tender. Like the chefs, I eat the (thin) crisp shell along with the prawn. Any mess is erased by incoming hot cloths. Skate might look more at home at the French-themed Lutèce, but Conroy likes the fish for its bones, which keep skate moist during cooking and are easily separated from the flesh at the table for taco-making. Before the fish is swaddled in a banana leaf and placed over embers, it gets brushed with a sauce of tomatoes, fruity guajillo peppers, coriander and oregano that flatters the entree without masking it.
The larger dishes include a lamb neck that demonstrates the time and attention lavished on the food at Pascual. The centerpiece is brined for a day; marinated in an adobo sauce built from chiles, avocado leaves, onions and garlic; seared over the fire; bundled in agave leaves; and braised, during which the juices of the meat are captured, strained and used to cook the sublime ayocote beans that ground the imposing lamb neck in its bowl. A brief time on the grill before serving crisps the meat, which goes into some of the most extraordinary tacos you’re likely to make with the accompanying salsa crudo and tortillas. (One complaint: Those margaritas are great, but Mexico also makes some fine wines. It would be nice to see some on Pascual’s itty-bitty list.)
Dessert is another excuse to take photos. Other Mexican restaurants offer churros. Pascual uses a big rosette iron to make plate-size buñuelos, fried confections dusted in sugar and Mexican cinnamon and served with two sauces: chocolate with cajeta, caramel sauce made with goat milk. The rice pudding with poached quince hidden at the bottom is very good, too, but it’s second to the lovely ornament, supported on what looks like a little air bag in its bowl.
Coss, whose parents were both woodworkers, says the setting in the onetime Kenny’s BBQ Smokehouse “feels like home. The smell of wood is familiar.” The blank canvas on the ground floor yields to a spa vibe in the basement, where the restrooms are soothing in pink and scented with palo santo.
Pascual opens its doors Thursday through Monday. The schedule lets the team explore other restaurants with more traditional hours and makes it easier for industry types to visit Pascual. Cooking for peers on Monday night is a “fun service” that ends on a high note for all involved, says Coss.
Getting in requires patience. But Pascual is worth the wait or line. The latest in a succession of Mexican models, foremost Amparo Fondita in Dupont Circle, this mom-and-pop proves the best yet.
732 Maryland Ave. NE. 202-450-1954. pascualdc.com. Open for dinner 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Monday. Prices: appetizers $8 to $24, main dishes $34 to $50. Sound check: 73 decibels/Must speak with raised voice. Accessibility: A small ramp can be used for the step at the door, but the dining room is compact and restrooms are all down a flight of narrow stairs.
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Washington
Touring Trump’s Washington: How the president is putting his imprint on the nation’s capital
The United States is celebrating its 250th year. And what better way to mark that anniversary than with an American summer staple — a trip to the nation’s capital.
But visitors to Washington will find that the city is undergoing tremendous change, courtesy of President Donald Trump’s takeover makeover.
Since returning to office 17 months ago, Trump has demonstrated a continuing fixation with the District of Columbia. The Republican president has slapped his image and name on buildings, torn down storied structures, altered others, started massive construction projects and deployed armed military personnel.
The traditional tourist sights remain. But with slight detours, an open mind and a critical eye, the ambitious walker can see all the ways the president has pushed to remake the capital.
On the eve of the United States’ birthday, take a trip with The Associated Press across a changing Washington.
A new study found that the National Guard in D.C. has had no effect on violent crime. News4’s Jackie Bensen unpacks it.
First stop: An indefinite National Guard deployment
We start our tour at Union Station and Metro Center, the city’s main transit hubs. Notice the Greco-Roman architecture of the former, the Brutalist design of the latter. Now see the ongoing, indefinite deployment of armed National Guard troops there and in many other parts of the city.
National Guard members from the district and several states have been in the city since August 2025, deployed under an emergency order issued by Trump in what he called a bid to fight crime. Trump has portrayed the deployment as a lifeline for the city. They will be here for most, if not all, of 2026 and are expected to number 5,000 this summer.
FILE – Members of the National Guard walking in the lobby of Union Station in Washington, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)
It’s not the first time the military has deployed to the capital. Troops were in Washington throughout the Civil War, to quell riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 assassination and, famously, hours into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
But in Trump’s Washington, Guardsmen at street corners and metro stations have become an increasingly normal part of the city’s scenery.
And no one knows when they will leave.
Second stop: Scars left by DOGE
Exit Union Station, take in the view of the Capitol and turn right down Pennsylvania Avenue. There sits a building now synonymous with the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government.
The U.S. Agency for International Development was the first major federal agency targeted by then-DOGE leader Elon Musk in the remake of the federal government, when cost-cutting measures prompted the terminations of tens of thousands of workers. USAID spent billions on humanitarian aid worldwide and was credited with saving millions of lives over time.
By eliminating 90% of foreign aid contracts, the Trump administration effectively cut some $60 billion in funding.
After workers cleared their desks in February 2025, the USAID offices on Pennsylvania Avenue were repurposed for other government uses.
The shuttering of the agency also contributed to a massive increase in unemployment in the region where about one-fifth of the workforce lives.
Many workers still ask: When their lives were upended, what was saved?
FILE – A banner featuring an image of President Donald Trump hangs on the Department of Justice in Washington, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Third stop: Trump’s image staring down
Walking south along any of the numbered streets leads to Constitution Avenue and the National Mall. Banners bearing Trump’s image have adorned the facades of several government buildings over the past 17 months — an uncommon practice for a sitting American president and a highly literal sign of his imprint upon the city.
At the Department of the Interior, his image has equal billing with George Washington on similar banners proclaiming “America’s First” and “America First.”
A mile away, Trump’s face glowers from the storied Department of Justice building, a physical display of Trump’s efforts to exert power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him. It’s also a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control, as the president pushes to prosecute his political adversaries.
Next up: The Reflecting Pool painted ‘American flag blue’
Westward toward the Lincoln Memorial sits the recently repainted Reflecting Pool.
The site has always been a must-see on any tourist’s checklist. But the Reflecting Pool, the scene of historic marches and protests, today also symbolizes Trump’s drive to change Washington.
Trump called the area “filthy” and had workers paint it in a color he has called “American flag blue.” A Washington-based nonprofit that tried to block the move said it undermined the somber tone of the area, which sits near the memorials to Lincoln and to the Vietnam and Korean wars.
Since the makeover, the pool has been fraught with problems, from runaway algae growth to dead ducks and a torn lining. Authorities say vandals have been responsible for some of the problems and arrests have been made. The National Park Service said the liner was intentionally cut with a sharp razor or knife.
Getty Images Getty Images Chipped paint and algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after it was painted blue in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 22, 2026. Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A walk over the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River leads directly to the proposed future site of Trump’s 20-story, gold-adorned triumphal arch. Although embroiled in a court battle, like a number of his projects, the arch has been approved by a key federal agency and survey work has begun at the site.
In a city meticulously planned and rich with the symbolism that defines the nation, new construction can unsettle the carefully crafted balance.
The arch, when built, will break up the intentionally designed symbolic sightline between Arlington House, once the home of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and the Lincoln Memorial, which symbolized the reunification of a divided nation following the Civil War.
Just ahead: The Trump-Kennedy Center
Visible from the site is the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts — known for much of this year as the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center.
Congress named the performing arts venue as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. A law explicitly prohibits its board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
A court decision eventually stripped the center of Trump’s name, but a tarp remains there, obscuring the change.
Getty Images Getty Images A tarp covers the facade of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on June 14, 2026. (Photo by Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump also added his name to the U.S. Institute of Peace, part of a broader series of tributes that has been largely unprecedented for a sitting, living president.
In the middle of it all: A significantly changed White House
No tour would be complete without 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — the White House. There, gazers can look at the construction site formerly known as the East Wing. It’s now the president’s ballroom-in-waiting as the courts and Congress battle over whether to build it.
The White House has said the $400 million cost would be paid by private donors, but public money — around $1 billion for the entire White House complex, including the ballroom — would be used for security measures. The proposed building has also expanded to a size larger than the rest of the White House. Trump argues the ballroom is necessary for security reasons, and amplified that assertion after the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April.
Guests attend a Rose Garden Club dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump (off frame) for American farmers at the White House in Washington, DC, on June 25, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
Not viewable on the tour: the area formerly known as the Rose Garden. Planted by then-first lady Jackie Kennedy, it has been paved over into a patio.
Last stop: Black Lives Matter Plaza no more
Directly north, across Pennsylvania Avenue, is the area of town formerly known as Black Lives Matter Plaza. During Trump’s first term, a more defiant Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the painting and naming of the area as a remembrance of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
This combination of images shows Black Lives Matter plaza on 16th Street, NW, near the White House on March 10, 2025, top, as work was beginning to remove signage and markings, and on April 1, 2025, after the work was completed. (AP Photo)
BLM Plaza became a magnet point for years of political activism. Hundreds of protests started, ended or rallied there.
The plaza came down in March 2025 at Bowser’s direction, spurred by threats from Congress to hold the city’s funding. The decision served as an acknowledgment of a major shift in tone under Trump.
That’s the tour, folks. Please enjoy your stay.
Former BYU star, AJ Dybantsa, was selected by the Washington Wizards with the no. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Before basketball became such a big part of AJ Dybantsa’s life, he was like any other kid — growing up as a fan of a fictional superhero.
When he was about five, his father bought him a Spider-Man basketball hoop that went on the back of his door.
“I loved Spider-Man growing up. So I just started shooting from my bed with this miniature ball. Then I started playing in the YMCA leagues … ended up falling in love with the game,” Dybantsa said. “So Spider-Man is the reason why I love basketball.”
The Washington Wizards are certainly glad Dybantsa took up the sport and committed himself to it. Two days after taking the 6-foot-9 star out of BYU with the top pick in the NBA draft, the team introduced him Thursday at a hotel overlooking the Potomac River, about 1 1/2 miles south from where the Wizards play their home games.
“Nothing comes easy, but I want to be a piece of the puzzle that is part of the rebuild,” he said. “Obviously, Wizards fans have been waiting for a long time.”
This was the first time the Wizards have picked first in the draft since 2010 when they took John Wall. Dybantsa joins a team that hasn’t won 50 games in a season since 1979 — and more recently managed only 50 victories over the past three seasons combined.
One issue of uncertainty was resolved at the news conference. Dybantsa wore No. 3 in college, but in Washington that belongs to Trae Young. Dybantsa will change to No. 4.
“Previously wore No. 3, but I was the No. 1 pick,” he said. “Wanted to add those up, and we got four.”
Dybantsa averaged 25.5 points per game in college, becoming the first freshman to lead the nation in scoring since his new teammate, Young, did it at Oklahoma in 2017-18.
Washington fans will have a chance soon enough to see what Dybantsa brings on the court, but Thursday’s event was an opportunity to see the type of person they’ll be investing so much hope in. Dybantsa was personable and confident, and he seemed eager to get down to business. That much was clear back at the combine before the draft.
“It was like a job. My dad was like, ‘This is your first job interview,’” he said. “So we decided to dress up. I went to a suit and tie in every single interview. Media availability, that was in a suit and tie. So I just wanted to treat it like a real job.”
That made quite an impression on Wizards general manager Will Dawkins.
“It was a pretty fun first introduction, just to learn the maturity that he brings,” Dawkins said. “We allow opportunities to ask questions. Sometimes you get the standard questions from guys. We didn’t get that from AJ. He’s just curious and mature and asked some really deep questions.”
Dybantsa said he intends to graduate college, finishing his studies online, and he has big plans for how he can make a difference away from basketball. The 19-year-old has already started a foundation aimed at empowering young people.
“My mom’s from Jamaica, my dad’s from Congo. We’re going to start off just sending 20 kids from there to different universities,” he said. “If that’s universities in the continent of Africa, if that’s different universities in Jamaica, if that’s universities in the States, we’re going to try that. But after those, we’re just going to expand all around the world. We just want to help kids all around the world.”
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