What's new in National Landing's restaurants, bars and stores
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Workers on a rooftop at Amazon's HQ2 campus in National Landing. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Arlington's National Landing has seen a slew of new restaurants and storefronts open recently, with more in the works.
The big picture: The neighborhood — which hatched in 2018 after it was announced as the site of Amazon's HQ2 — is barreling along, despite delayed construction work on HQ2's second phase, Pen Place, and sweeping layoffs across at Amazon over the last few years.
- Meanwhile, Amazon told corporate employees last year that they needed to be in-office five days a week as of last month.
Here are some new and upcoming spots at National Landing, per a spokesperson:
Newly opened
🌮 Taqueria Xochi: Another location with birria and street tacos — plus margs — from José Andrés Group alums Teresa Padilla and Geraldine Mendoza (check out their other spots on U Street and at The Square).
☕ Kaldi's Social House: The newcomer to the existing Clarendon and Silver Spring locations. Start your day with coffee, smoothies and breakfast bowls, or swing by later for dinner dishes like rigatoni with braised pork and a cocktail list.
🥐 Mae's Market: Choose your own adventure: The menu includes breakfast sammies and quiches, chicken Caesar wraps and BLTs, and soups and salads — plus coffee, wine and beer. And don't forget the baked goods!
- It's a sister spot to the Old Town original from the crew behind Del Ray's Bagel Uprising and the former Stomping Grounds.
🍦 Fat Fish Rolls & Twists: Located at a kiosk at Water Park, with dishes inspired by chef Robert Lucas Irwin's Hawaiian childhood. Think: poke wonton nachos, crispy spring rolls, and chili peanut cucumber salad, plus poke bowls, sushi and bento boxes.
- Also important: Soft serve!
🥡 NiHao: Restaurateur Peter Chang offers Chinese small plates like dry-fried eggplant with numbing chili and Sichuan peppercorns, sweet and sour chicken and scallion bubble pancakes. Also expect cocktails using ingredients like tea-infused whiskey.
🎤 Lantern Restaurant and Bar: Expect food and tons of singing, with Chinese and other Asian dishes, six karaoke rooms, a stage and a bar, reports ARLNow.
More new-ish spots: Call Your Mother, Colada Shop, Van Leeuwen, Nailsaloon, Drybar, Club Studio, Tatte and the new location of Yunnan by Potomac Noodle House.
Coming soon
🍷 Flight Wine Shop: A reimagined outpost of the original Chinatown Flight Wine Bar, which closed at the end of last year. Don't expect a full sit-down restaurant, though — the new spot will operate mostly as a bottle shop, with tastings, wine classes, and cheese and charcuterie to go.
🍣 Omacase Japanese Sushi: The new high-end omakase spot — from the crew behind Fairfax's Gyu Shige Japanese BBQ & Bar — comes to the 'hood amidst a wave of other similar sushi outposts in the area.
Also in the works: Restaurants that are spin-offs of original locations.
- Think Dolan Uyghur (which serves Central Asian dishes at its existing locations in Cleveland Park, Chantilly and Falls Church), Bar Chinois (another outpost of the Mount Vernon Triangle spot, from the crew also behind Bar Japonais), the French concept Bar Colline (an interpretation of the Arlington bistro Café Colline from the restaurant-brother duo Eric and Ian Hilton), and Lapu Lapu (an outpost of the Filipino breakfast sammy spot from Kuya Ja's Lechon Belly chef Javier Fernandez).
Plus: Toastique, Tend, GoodVets, Peachy and Whole Foods Market Daily Shop.