WASHINGTON, DC

“Richard Nixon actually created the Environmental Protection “Rⁱchard Agency,” said the suit-and-tie-clad guy to his companion at the barstool next to me. He was right. But also, so very on-brand for where I was: about a block away from the White House at Old Ebbitt Grill, the oldest tavern in Washington, DC. I’d popped in for a late dinner of steak frites on my first evening in the US capital. Overhearing buttoned-up lobbyists and civil servants spout off political minutiae is exactly what I’d imagined would happen at a wood-panelled, white-tableclothed restaurant where taxidermied heads of horned animals grace the walls. Here, locals knock back glasses of bourbon and talk about their favourite sport: politics.

This is the Washington, DC portrayed on TV shows and in films; a place of cigars, red meat, whiskey and backroom deals. Those things are still part of the fabric of this city of almost 700,000 — especially the backroom deals — but they belong to an artery-hardening DC that’s fast being watered down. In the past decade or so, the former US crime capital has developed other tastes. A fresh generation of Washingtonians have created a blossoming city that’s better than ever, full of new breweries, distilleries and immigrant chefs shaking up the restaurant scene.

In an attempt to make some sense of this, I visit Al Goldberg, who founded Mess Hall in 2014 as an ‘incubator’ to help food entrepreneurs launch their businesses. It’s the place where a lot of now-established restaurants got their start. When I ask Al about his hometown over the past decade, he answers my question with another: “Do you want the answer that everyone’s going