Image: Ready to go.
Last Updated: February 2024
This place organically creates a bit of a buzz. Tourists coming a couple blocks from the Mall overlap with local office workers at happy hour to fill up the two bars inside. The Mexican place in the José Andrés Chinatown constellation, it does guacamole, tacos and margaritas well. Several different dining areas fill out the light-drenched corner spot. The crowds come for a reason. Oyamel is a reliably good, fun option good for groups or smaller parties.
Like the other Andrés places, the serving style is small plates with choices among ceviches, seafood, meat, veggies. The small plates here seem more decadent, including choices like short ribs, pork and cheese quesadillas, and maybe some duck confit thrown in. Michelin puts in a plug for tarasca estilo pátzcuaro, “an otherworldly black bean soup with avocado leaves, swirls of crema and crumbled cotija.”
The drink list focuses more on cocktails and cerveza than wine. Margaritas and mezcal get pride of place. The service covers a lot of ground well. The prices can creep up on you, but happy hour prices and large groups help scale the tab.
Other Guidance: The place has many small steps to navigate. GF and vegetarians can do well with many veggie options and corn-based tortillas.
Gift Cards are House Accounts (Good at all Andrés spots)
Summary:
Cuisine: Mexican/Central American
Neighborhood: Chinatown/City Center
Address: 401 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20004
Website: https://www.oyamel.com/
Reservations: Opentable
Other Critics/Voices:
Washington Post: Tom gave it 2.5 in 2013 Fall Dining Guide, and again in 2014. An old Express story on the Cherry Blossom planning.
Washingtonian: #64 in 2009 with a few nice plugs since then
Michelin: Bib Gourmand
The Infatuation: From the first incarnation of the website in 2016.