Image: Wholly Guacamole.
Last Updated: July 2025
Overview:
Sometimes a place feels like a perfect neighborhood anchor with great food and a friendly and warm atmosphere. Pascual fits that profile, but the complicating factor is that it is too good. Pascual does inventive and excellent Mexican from the team that is doing inventive and excellent French at Lutèce . On a quiet corner of Capitol Hill, with an open fire cooking, a big patio and cozy interior, Pascual may eventually become that great neighborhood spot, but for now you probably need to plan ahead to ensure a spot.
The atmosphere may be casual, but the cooking is very serious. The introductory dish of guacamole is served with whole, crispy tortillas and the option of several accompanying sauces and snacks such as pickled peppers or dried and spiced mango and papaya. The shrimp aguachile is over a layer of thinly-sliced cucumbers. White bean tlayuda comes split with half dressed with green chorizo the other half classic red. Fava bean sope is layered with smoked goat ricotta, ramp mole verde and greens. Likewise, the dorade lays cut open and flat dressed in a spring bounty of morels and bright orange sauce of pasilla chiles. The examples are from our visit in the spring, so other than the guacamole the exact dishes are likely to be rotated out with other seasonal choices when you visit. The food is so good a table may depart with each person having a different favorite dish.
The one dessert that everyone mentions, and we couldn’t resist either, is the crispy buñuelo. It is like a giant rosette-shaped churro with cinnamon sugar and things to dip the pieces you break off into. But do not sleep on the chocolate tamal with chocolate corn meal wrapped in a plantain.
The drinks are playful and creatively served, including the zero proof options. Mexican wines were missing from the opening list, but they have now arrived.
The restaurant occupies a corner on the northeast side of Capitol Hill. Plants and trellises enclose a large patio with several tables, inside is a small dining area that is backed by a bar. There is an outside area off to the side with large seats for having a drink while waiting for a table. It is a place best enjoyed in temperate weather.
The couple driving Pascual, Isabel Coss and Matt Conroy, met in New York at Empellón. They intended to open this restaurant a while back as their original project, but they shifted to take over the kitchen at Lutèce first, when the opening chef left after a couple months. Conroy’s neo-bistro menu and Coss’s desserts opened eyes and produced barely-stifled moans of appreciation. Eventually they added Pascual to their achievements. It turned into a double treat for D.C.
Other Guidance: Post accessibility guidance is, “A small ramp can be used for the step at the door, but the dining room is compact and restrooms are all down a flight of narrow stairs.” Both GF and vegetarians can do well. T-shirts dine without irony next to those more dressed up – on our last visit it was a famous-for-D.C. guy in a pink blazer and pressed slacks in an uxorious mood.
Summary:
Cuisine: Mexican/Central American
Neighborhood: Capitol Hill
Address: 732 Maryland Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002
Website: https://www.pascualdc.com/
Reservations: Resy
Other Critics/Voices:
Washington Post: Called it the very best Mexican in D.C. In which he confesses to this questionable move: “My strategy for getting into impossible situations is to just show up — early, hopeful and with a smile on my face. Most restaurateurs don’t want to say ‘no’ to would-be diners who have taken the initiative to wait outside their door until opening time.” Restaurants also don’t say no to the most prominent critic in the city. As we said, the rest of us should probably make a reservation.
Washingtonian: Preview