Let me tell you something about DC. I lived there for ten years, and I still go back every chance I get. There is no city that does the combination of art, food, and culture quite like it — and the best part? You don’t even have to spend a lot of money to have a really full, beautiful experience there.
The Smithsonians are free. Rock Creek Park is free. One of my favorite things is just driving through the park — it’s this whole unexpected pocket of nature in the middle of the city. And then on the flip side, a new restaurant or bar seems to open every other week, and there are Michelin-starred spots scattered across every neighborhood. DC doesn’t ask you to choose between bougie and accessible. It just gives you both.
So here’s what a summer weekender looks like right now.
Where to Stay: Yours Truly
Yours Truly was designed to be a communal living room as much as a hotel, eclectic furniture, bold concrete, plush bohemian warmth that leans into the neighborhood’s counterculture energy rather than fighting it. Brutalist concrete floors softened with vintage oriental rugs, mid-century touches, wood and leather headboards. Feels collected, not decorated. Downstairs, Mercy Me is the South American-inspired hangout functioning as the Dupont Circle neighborhood living room — restaurant, cocktail bar, low-fi music, a light buzz in the room that makes you feel like you’re already somewhere. Call Your Mother, the beloved bagel shop, is right there on property too. Start there every morning.
Walkability is everything here. Five minutes to Georgetown in one direction, the White House in the other. Central to downtown, close to the Kennedy Center. You can actually explore this city on foot from this address.
The New Entry: Uchi and the Art of the Missed Reservation
I actually secured a reservation during opening week. Plans changed, I had to cancel, and I am still not over it.
Uchi was founded over two decades ago in Austin by James Beard Award-winning chef Tyson Cole, and the hama chili — a yellowtail crudo with ponzu, orange, and Thai chilies — has been on the menu since the very first location opened in 2003. The DC space channels the neighborhood’s Swinging Sixties energy, 185 seats designed with vintage touches and booths you want to stay in all night. Local chef de cuisine Rob Drennan added his own DC stamp with a chawanmushi, silky egg custard with Maryland crab, bacon, seasonal vegetables, and dehydrated crab roe. Happy hour runs weekdays 4 to 6pm with a nine-course omakase tasting for two at $120. The resy situation is exactly what you’d expect for a debut this anticipated. Get on it early.
The Hidden Bar: Florería Atlántico
Georgetown gave us something special when Florería Atlántico arrived. At first glance a charming flower shop — arrangements, natural wine, Argentinian pastries. Then you find your way through a hidden door, descend into the basement, and the whole world shifts. Lighting that simulates sun filtering beneath the sea. The sounds of waves and seagulls playing in the restrooms. The cocktail menu tells the story of immigration, the cultures that crossed the Atlantic and shaped Argentina. Ranked among the World’s 50 Best Bars in its Buenos Aires original. This is the kind of concept that lands in a city and immediately becomes the thing everyone is talking about. Get the Negroni cocktail. Get the empanadas. The sister restaurant Brasero is right next door when you’re ready to move into dinner.
If you’re in the area and didn’t plan ahead, Goodlove is nearby and absolutely worth the detour. A highly reviewed lounge with creative cocktails, small plates, and the kind of DJ sets that make you forget you had somewhere else to be. File it under happy accidents.
The Art Stops
This is where DC earns its place among my favorite cities in the world, every single time.
This trip was my first visit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and I genuinely don’t know what took me so long. The building itself is a former Masonic temple, which carries its own poetic irony given that the Freemasons famously refused to admit women, and since 1987 has housed one of the world’s most significant collections of work by female artists. A recent $66 million renovation expanded the gallery spaces, added a new performance hall and studio workshop, and reinforced the ceiling to allow for large-scale hanging installations. Current exhibitions include Remix: The Collection, showcasing both beloved favorites and never-before-exhibited recent acquisitions, and Making Their Mark, drawn from the Shah Garg Collection and focused on women artists’ vital role in abstraction.
Walking through the permanent collection, I came across a portrait of my friend Tanekeya Word Harris and genuinely stopped in my tracks. There is something entirely different about encountering work featuring someone you actually know inside a museum. She was painted with her locs adorned and styled with such intention, that stoic presence looking back at you. Felt like standing in front of the Mona Lisa. That overwhelming feeling where your chest fills up before your brain catches up. A proud moment, knowing other people get to walk in and experience the beauty of Mrs. Harris on those walls.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum right now is a full reason to book this trip on its own. Nick Cave: Mammoth, his first solo exhibition in DC and the museum’s largest commission by a single artist, is on view through January 3, 2027. The galleries transform into an immersive landscape of crafted mammoth hides and bones, a video projection of the animals coming back to life, and a large-scale beaded curtain depicting his Missouri family farm. Enormous and quiet and it will stay with you.
Then make the trip out to Glenstone. Potomac, Maryland. You have to plan ahead. Art, nature, and architecture across 230 acres, completely free. Take the Ride On bus Route 301 and you get guaranteed entry without advance reservations, dropping directly at the Arrival Hall. I’ll link my TikTok walkthrough for the full park and ride situation. Summer Saturdays through September 5th, last admission runs until 6:45 PM with a live music series on the grounds. Stay for it.
The Unexpected Dinner: Dōgon at the Salamander
We just so happened to be in the neighborhood. And that’s how some of the best meals happen.
Dōgon is chef Kwame Onwuachi’s return to DC, a concept inspired by Benjamin Banneker, the DC surveyor who descended from the West African Dogon tribe, serving vibrant Afro-Caribbean cuisine rooted in Onwuachi’s Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole background. Bon Appétit’s 20 Best New Restaurants of 2025, the New York Times’s list of America’s best restaurants, North America’s 50 Best. The accolades are real and earned.
They squeezed us in at the bar. Love when that works out. The ambience was super chill, they were actually playing Drake’s three albums that just dropped, which set a whole tone. That’s the thing about Dōgon that doesn’t show up in the reviews. A place that represents culture all the way around, from the Obamas dining here to the cool bartenders to whatever soundtrack they’re curating on any given night. The flexibility of a space that can hold that much and still feel relaxed is a rare thing.
The oxtail empanadas, the snapper, the greens and crab cake dish. An array of food that by the end of the night felt like a full Thanksgiving spread without ever feeling heavy. That’s the craft.
The Sound: La Betty
Before the night gets away from you, La Betty is a mandatory stop. A soundbar and café built around the philosophy that music deserves your full attention. Vinyl DJs on the weekends, a rotating natural wine list, small plates that hit. The no-wifi, no-laptop rule sounds like a restriction until you’re inside and realize it’s a gift. You slow down. You listen.
The DJ at La Betty spun a blast from the past. Sa-Ra (Taz Arnold, Om’Mas Keith, and Shafiq Husayn) was released on the G.O.O.D. Music label.
Eat
Call Your Mother for breakfast bagels. Simple, perfect, no notes. Right at Yours Truly.
Ox and Olive for dinner, a new steakhouse tucked into an alley. The kind of find that makes you feel like you’re in on something.
A Snapshot: DC Summer Weekender
Friday night Check into Yours Truly → Florería Atlántico for cocktails and bites → Goodlove if the night has more in it → La Betty to close out
Saturday Mercy Me or Call Your Mother for breakfast → National Museum of Women in the Arts → Smithsonian American Art Museum (Nick Cave: Mammoth, on view through Jan 3, 2027) → Ox and Olive for dinner
Sunday Yours Truly breakfast → Glenstone (book tickets in advance or take Ride On Route 301 from Rockville Metro for guaranteed entry, walkthrough directions via TikTok) → Dōgon at the Salamander if you can get squeezed in → drive back through Rock Creek Park
A few logistics:
Uchi: 1700 M St NW. Reservations go fast. Watch their socials
Florería Atlántico: 1066 Wisconsin Ave NW, Georgetown. Cocktails from 4pm
Women of Arts: 1250 New York Ave NW. Free Community Days first and third Sundays
Nick Cave: Mammoth is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Glenstone tickets at glenstone.org, set a reminder when new windows drop
Dōgon: Salamander Hotel, Southwest waterfront. Book on Resy up to 28 days in advance
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