Gary Landsman

At Agora, beet salad with lemon mashed potatoes, garlic and orange.

Fall Dining in D.C.

Restaurateurs know, perhaps better than anyone else, that everything old can be new again. There’s nothing quite like the high of opening that first, dream-of-a-lifetime place, but what to do when the buzz stops buzzing or boredom sets in?

Washingtonians know the answer to that: You start fresh, branch out or rise from the ashes, but whichever it is, you never look back. Just ask any member of Congress. Or, better yet, let Flyer’s dining columnist let you in on the new arrivals, new additions and happy renewals.

Restaurateur Latif Guler finally understands the restaurant reality of Dupont Circle’s 17th Street business strip: Some places serve bad food and thrive; others don’t, despite the appeal of a spacious patio from which to peruse the locals.

Having had two experiences with the latter model (Le Pigalle and Jack’s), Guler eschewed Franco-American models and tapped into his Turkish roots to create Agora Restaurant (1527 17th St., NW; 202/332-6767; $55 per person, all inclusive). Now he has a winner, right down to the olive oil that comes from the family reserve in Turkey.

You know good things are to come as soon as puffed, airy, football-shaped pide (pita) hit the table. The bread is just as good as Zaytinya’s, if not better. The dishes read like what you’d expect at a Mediterranean restaurant (taromasalata, labneh, dolmades, kibbeh), but chef Ghassan Jarrouj uses experience to elevate familiar dishes to first-class status.

Htipiti red pepper spread, for example, comes to life via that lovely olive oil and feta that has real flavor instead of what we’ve grown used to from the ubiquitous cheese. A double order of the cold meze of roasted eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes and pine nuts and some steamed asparagus with orange aioli would make a fine meal for me, but then I’d miss out on a perfectly grilled branzino or the chunks of lemony grilled chicken on tahini. Falafel stuffed with crabmeat is puzzling; there’s no good reason to force a meeting between those two things. Anything made with phyllo is a winner, like the goat cheese borek or a Napoleon-like dessert topped with kataifi.

Malia Milstead’s wine program is remarkable, if not quite expected in this space. (Most of her producers support sustainable and organic farming.) Many wines come by the glass and bottle, as well as quarter- and half-liters and even 1-ounce “teasers,” a portion of whose proceeds go to no-kill animal shelters. Steele Pinot Noir 2006, at $50, isn’t exactly a steal, but it sure is delicious.

Visiting Bistro La Bonne (1340 U St., NW; 202/758-3413; $55 per person, all inclusive) on a Saturday evening might not be the brightest idea if you’re looking for quiet and romance, but that’s not why you’d come to D.C.’s vibrant U Street corridor in the first place.

Martinique-born chef/owner Daniel Labonne runs the show here in a place you’ve seen umpteen times: long bar, Pastis posters, closely quartered tables, frenetic servers. (I especially love the espresso machine teetering on a shelf above the tiny bread station.) The menu is familiar, too, but happily so; it’s always nice to have a good place to go for gooey onion soup, garlicky escargots, chunky pâté de campagne and steaming pots of moules marinières served with a cornet of French fries crisped in the Belgian manner.

My beloved salad, frisee with lardons, would have been more than just acceptable had the poached egg and bacon garnishes not been overcooked. Shrimp and avocado salad tossed in the French version of Thousand Island dressing is comme il faut, made refreshingly with chunks of jumbo shrimp. A casserole of coq au vin, in a luscious reduced wine sauce as dark and thick as molasses, includes the requisite mushrooms, bacon and onions, but also a needless bonus of tortellini. (The frites I order on the side assuage any disappointment.)

Medallions of beef are two gargantuan rounds of meat in red wine sauce with asparagus and shrimp risotto, a bargain at $21.95. Desserts include crème brulée, profiteroles and floating island, which, in this case, is a brick of meringue set in a pool of crème anglaise and caramel. It’s ordinarily not a favorite of mine, but Labonne’s rendition is irresistible.

When a fall 2009 kitchen fire forced chef Todd Gray and his wife, Ellen, to close and renovate Equinox Restaurant (818 Connecticut Ave., NW; 202/331-8118; $91 per person, all inclusive), I correctly predicted they would rise anew. The best description of the new digs, which reopened in June, is light Gray.

Everything from the walls to the menu reflects the chef’s understanding that diners nowadays seek simply prepared, locally sourced food (Gray was a proponent long before a cutesy term existed for it), served in a casually chic setting.

The menu changes seasonally, but I thrill over the blue crab spring rolls and blue cheese tater tots (“for the table”—a current and smart up-sell device). Gray knows how to prepare the local darling, soft-shell crab, with brown-buttered restraint, and he handles meat (peppercorn flat-iron steak) and fish (Arctic char with chive butter) with equal dexterity. But what he has added to the mix is real attention to vegetables: the fava beans, haricots verts, peas, squash and asparagus that support the main events by rising above supporting-role status. Whatever veggies are available as sides, order them, along with dirty rice laced with roasted chicken livers and pecans.

Pastry chef Tom Wellings threatens to steal the show with ice-cream meringue sandwiches, an ethereal praline chocolate bar, and a panna cotta so delicate it reminds you how heavenly that dessert can be when made with the right hands. Equinox ranks high on the Obameter; Cabinet members and visiting Hollywood types are spotted there regularly. Vive Equinox.

The new kid on the block (well, around the corner and down the street) for the folks behind Clarendon’s Liberty Tavern is Lyon Hall (3100 N. Washington Blvd., Arlington, Va.; 703/741-7636; $62 per person, all inclusive). What is billed as a French brasserie is more precisely updated Alsatian, and chef Liam LaCivita’s menu is one of the most interesting I’ve seen in a while—you have to love a menu that has a section called pastas/dumplings/spaetzle. And they had me at spaetzle, those delightful little dumplings crisped in a sauté pan with lots of butter.

The L-shaped space features vast picture windows that overlook Washington Boulevard, but it lacks the look of a brasserie even if it has the frenetic feel of one. The light gray walls, dark gray quilted banquettes and café chairs seem a little blah amid all the hustle-bustle. But fortunately, the food has plenty of life. There’s a fine selection of raw-bar items, charcuterie (rabbit rillettes and bison bresaola) and cheeses (tangy Epoisses and ashy, black-truffle-specked sottocenare), but the Alsatian dishes are what catch the eye.

The bacon and onion tart with its cracker-thin crust and the short-rib frankfurter with sauerkraut are particularly appealing appetizers, but you may want to start with a beet or market vegetable salad before diving into a Bohemian sausage platter. A long-handled sauté pan plunked in the middle of the table yields a mountain of goodies: sabodet sausage, Hungarian lamb sausage, bratwurst and kielbasa resting on caramelized onions, sauerkraut, spaetzle and roasting juices. It’s heaven.

But in all the bad-boy goodness of this menu, the real stunner for me is the perfectly poached halibut with fava beans, asparagus and Gewürztraminer sauce. A glass of Schloss Lieser Mosel ($11) to wash it down is fine, but I’d opt for the “Belgium” flight ($12) of four 5-ounce portions of beer. (The Kappittel Prior is delightful.)

Everything about Buddha-Bar D.C. (455 Massachusetts Ave., NW; 202/377-5555; $96 per person, all inclusive) is big, starting with the intricate iron gates shielding more than 9,500 square feet of space from the hoi polloi dotting the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue just above Chinatown.

Inside, 22-foot-high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling swaths of red and gold draperies, banquettes upholstered with damask chinoiserie and mahogany side chairs large enough to hold two people catch the eye, but not before the 18-foot-high onyx Buddha imported from Indonesia takes your breath away.

Enormous (of course) chandeliers fill the expanse of the dining room’s ceiling, with hundreds of small red shades covering their bulbs. Red-tassel passementerie dangle from them. They cast a low glow that provides effect but no real light, because the one thing not big at Buddha-Bar is the lighting portion of the electric bill.

The restaurant is so intimately dark that servers furnish flashlights so you can read the menu. The mandate to keep the lighting low comes from Paris, where the Buddha-Bar brand originated (other locations include New York, Dubai, São Paulo, London and Las Vegas).

It’s too bad the lighting is a little low, because there’s no spotlight to see the impressive sushi assortments (like the Buddha-Bar roll of salmon, yellowtail, spicy tuna and snow crab wrapped in cucumber) or any of the attractive appetizers available here.

The assortment of steamed dumplings is a good way to start, or select the shredded chicken salad in a light, gingery dressing. Black cod with miso and yuzu glaze is the winning entrée in my experience here, though the tenderloin with truffle wasabi butter surely satisfied the carnivores at the table.

The owners insist Buddha-Bar is a restaurant, not a club, but go early to hedge your bet; bottle service begins at 10 p.m., just about the time the terrific Euro-house-ethno-tribal music ramps up.