With The Restaurant Community at Its Heart, H Street Turns Another New Leaf

H Street, much like the rest of D.C., has gone through a series of ebbs and flows since its initial inception as Swampdoodle, a small settlement formed in the mid-19th century. A railroad brought commerce to the area just a few decades later, ushering in the city’s first Sears Roebuck department store among other shopping and dining destinations. Later came post-World War II suburbanization, the dwindling local population launching a skid that continued as the 1968 riots left the area reeling in their wake.

By the early 2000s, a generation of new businesses — drawn by a community revitalization initiative, courtesy of the D.C. Office of Planning — had set up shop along the corridor, breathing new life into the thoroughfare that had laid neglected for decades. Suddenly there was nightlife by way of the Atlas Theater (then a cinema, now a performing arts space), the now-shuttered Rock and Roll Hotel, and countless bars and restaurants, a few of which remain today. The ensuing period of gentrification was so swift and profound, in fact, that Forbes named H Street NE the sixth-most “hipster place” in America in late 2012.

Of course, things change. COVID rocked the corridor, putting an end to after-dark staples like Rock and Roll Hotel, impacting economic growth, and causing some businesses to flee once their 10-year leases — signed during the area’s 2010s boom — expired. Yet a core group of places have remained, managing by the skin of their teeth to survive the virus’s economic toll and, eventually, serve as beacons to yet another wave of revitalization.

“We’ve been here for eight years running. We wanted to invest in a location that would grow and evolve with us, so H Street was the natural pick,” explain Silvan Kraemer and David Fritsche, co-owners of H Street mainstay Stable. “We’ve had to work really hard to bring people out amongst the shifting landscape of closures, the aftereffects of the pandemic, and beyond. This is one of D.C.’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods, and we would love to see it shine once again.”

“The majority of the restaurants here cater to the neighborhood,” says Paolo Dungca, chef-owner of H Street Filipino hubs KAYU and Hiraya, which opened in 2023. “We’re still working towards building a reputation because we’re still technically kind of new. People representing H Street to the level of drawing a crowd would be Daru, Maketto, Toki Underground. We want people to be aware that they can have different cultural foods here — like Maketto is Taiwanese and Cambodian, Daru is Indian, Toki is Japanese, Cane is Caribbean, and we’re Filipino. You have different offerings compared to other neighborhoods out there.”

Today’s H Street is still a shifting landscape. Each block on H Street has a different flavor, a place where stately marble banks with graffitied walls and fast-food joints occupy one corner while Whole Foods, Orange Theory, and a Casper mattress store look on from the next. And it’s exactly that hodgepodge, makeshift identity that keeps restaurateurs coming back year after year, ebb after ebb.

KAYU and Hiraya occupy the same building on the 1200 Block of H Street NE. Hiraya came first, an inviting all-day neighborhood cafe stocked with Filipino-inspired twists like cast iron hotcakes slathered in ube butter, golden-fried lumpiang Shanghai, and housemade longganisa sausage. A few months later, the team launched Hiraya’s then-unnamed counterpart, a more refined yet playful love letter to Filipino cuisine where modern tasting menus complement a full bar.

It was an ambitious project, and took some working out before Dungca got it right.

“We started off with Hiraya Cafe on September 30th, and then by February of 2024, we opened the upstairs and we called it a restaurant,” he says. “During that time, it was just very confusing for our guests because it was all in one shop — I think we were just trying to do too much at the time. That’s why we made a flip and changed the name to separate the two entities.”

Born and raised in the Philippines before immigrating to California and later the DMV, Dungca’s experience with D.C.’s hospitality industry runs deep.

“I grew up in the D.C. dining scene, starting from a line cook,” he recalls. “I love the different groups of people that live in Washington, D.C., the creatives that represent the city at a high level. It’s a really nice food town, and it’s nice to be representing it — this is where my career took off.”

In fact, one of the reasons he decided to set up shop on H Street? One of his former employers: Erik Bruner-Yang.

“I used to work for chef Erik, so anything that he touches I think is very fun,” Dungca says. “He’s been somewhat of a pioneer of bringing concepts on H Street to life.”

According to Dungca and several of his fellow neighborhood restaurateurs, a lot of H Street’s most recent wave of revitalization can be traced back to Bruner-Yang. The chef and entrepreneur first arrived on the corridor in 2006 to join the team opening Sticky Rice’s first D.C. location.

“While I was in college, I played in a bunch of different bands and we were always playing in Richmond, Virginia, and during that era, Sticky Rice Richmond was like a cultural icon,” Bruner-Yang recalls. “So I did some homework, figured out who the owners and the partners of the D.C. location were gonna be, and emailed them out of the blue, like, ‘I have a lot of restaurant experience.’ I had just gotten my bachelor’s in business, so I applied as the GM. And probably because I was cheap and got along with the owners, they hired me.

“During the day we would do construction at Sticky Rice and then strangely I would work security at Rock and Roll Hotel. We opened Sticky Rice in 2007, it was a huge hit — I think opening day we were on the cover of the style section of the Washington Post. It was so much fun, so that’s what got me here.”

As is often the case in D.C., H Street’s mid-aughts rise played off the energy pouring out of the White House.

“2007 and into 2008, that was [the] Obama era, and it was such a vibrant time to be a Washingtonian,” Bruner-Yang says. “So many people moving here, the independent restaurant scene was really blowing up — you just had a lot of opportunity.”

Bruner-Yang seized that opportunity, moving on from Sticky Rice’s success to open Toki Underground in 2011. Timing wise, the place was a hit and the space — a second-floor spot above revered H Street dive The Pug — couldn’t have been more fitting.

“Now there’s 30, 40 ramen shops, but at the time, the trend hadn’t quite hit D.C. yet, so I think there was an opening there,” says current Toki Underground partner Olivier Caillabet (Bruner-Yang left the restaurant in 2016). The neighborhood’s makeup also lent itself well to operators trying new concepts: “And then the location, basically an attic above the bar, was pretty perfect for that cozy, intimate, slightly grungy kind of feel — very in line with Japanese ramen culture, particularly ramen in train stations and little spots you’d find tucked away.”

“There was something of an energy there, with Rock and Roll Hotel right beside us, a certain feeling of it being an up-and-coming neighborhood, which was definitely true,” Caillabet continues.

And Toki continues to stand tall, its homegrown fanbase staying true even as competition has swelled, bringing people from far and wide to H Street.

“We have a large repeat clientele, people that have been coming for a long time, and then more broadly we get people from all over the country come to see us,” says Caillabet. “We also have ramen hunters, people who are hardcore ramen heads. When they travel, they’ll come because we’ve obviously been around for a long time and are well known, won a bunch of awards. But like any successful restaurant, that’s the bread and butter, the repeat customers.”

Although Bruner-Yang left Toki in 2016, he couldn’t leave the neighborhood behind. He opened Maketto just down the street in 2015, transforming a former dollar store into an airy, multilevel complex for inspired East and Southeast Asian fare, cocktails, boutique shopping, and more. It took off instantly, its growing reputation prompting fellow hospitality pros to follow his lead and also set their sights on H Street.

“We felt like the community of business owners on H Street was so vibrant,” says Dante Datta, a seasoned beverage director who opened upmarket Indian-inspired H Street showstopper Daru with chef Suresh Sundas in 2021. “There’s also this real city grit to it that we were also very attracted to, something you don’t necessarily see in other parts of D.C., and it was very exciting to be a part of that.”

H Street was a logical location for Datta’s “Indian-ish” concept (think: bison momo with Sichuan peppercorn and creamy “lasagna” stuffed with paneer and spinach). The co-owners, who met working at award-winning Indian fine dining destination Rasika, originally conceived of the business as cocktail-driven, later expanding to a full food menu complemented by a robust drinks program that draws on Datta’s experience at the D.C.’s dearly departed Columbia Room. While the details evolved, the pair’s desire to stay deeply rooted in the local scene held firm.

“The biggest thing I’m so excited about is, you walk into any of these restaurants, and you’ll see the owner there — like the owner is working there every single day — and I think that’s very special. It contributes to that neighborhood feel.”

Perhaps it’s that cultural melting pot quality that allows the corridor’s lineup to continue to grow and change without losing its core identity, that welcoming, “anything goes” charm that’s so long inspired the restaurateurs that call the street home. Because a palette as wide-ranging as H Street’s appears to make room for everyone, from Ben’s Chili Bowl and legendary dive bar the Pug to Providencia and Kayu.

Daru’s Datta certainly thinks there’s room for more. Along with Sundas, he has recently opened Tapori, a highly anticipated restaurant he describes as “inspired by the street foods of South Asia, from Himalaya to Mumbai to New Delhi to Sri Lanka.” The concept has taken over the former Fancy Radish space on — where else — H Street.

“For Tapori, we always wanted to stay on H Street. We were kind of looking around at other neighborhoods, but really we wanted to stick within the community,” says Datta. “The neighborhood has been so, so supportive of us, so we wanted to stay with them as we open this place. It’s a pretty close-knit community of business owners here, and we’ve gotten to become very good friends with them. We’ve noticed that there’s a lot of high-quality operators starting to come and fill up the street. And we know there’s more on the way.”

Meredith Paige Heil is a seasoned lifestyle journalist covering food, drinks, travel, sports, and culture. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Wine Enthusiast, Eater, Condé Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, and others. Previously the Editorial Director of Thrillist Travel, she now serves as the Managing Editor of Just Women’s Sports.