Anju

The Verdict on Anju

Picture 18th Street NW on a Thursday night: the room is full, soju is flowing, and the kind of energy that makes you want to order one more round of mandu is palpable from the sidewalk. Anju, chef Angel Barreto's Korean anju-style restaurant on Washington D.C.'s upper 18th Street corridor, earns its reputation as one of the city's most consistent Korean kitchens. Ranked #206 on Opinionated About Dining's Casual North America list for 2025 (up from #363 in 2024) and holding a Michelin Plate, this is a restaurant that has been building credibility year over year. If you want Korean food that goes beyond the basics, in a room that feels genuinely lived-in rather than designed-to-impress, book Anju.

The Room and the Concept

The name is the first thing to understand: anju refers to Korean dishes designed to be eaten alongside alcohol. That framing shapes everything here. Brick walls, wood floors, funky artwork, and trailing greenery create a space that reads as casual and comfortable even when the room is packed. This is not a minimalist, reverent dining room. It is a place built for eating and drinking with intention, where the noise level rises pleasantly as the evening deepens. If you are planning a late dinner or a post-work drinks-and-food session, the atmosphere holds up well past standard dinner hours. The room does not quiet down early, which makes it one of the more reliable options in D.C. for anyone who wants a proper meal after 9 PM without sacrificing quality.

What to Eat and Drink

The menu is anchored in anju tradition: fried snacks, rich stews, salty-sweet-spicy combinations built to accompany beer, soju, and makgeolli. Banchan such as Brussels sprouts and apple kimchi open proceedings, and the pork mandu has become a reference point for the kitchen's technical reliability. For something more substantial, the dak jjim (sweet chili-braised chicken with potatoes and onions) and dolsot bibimbap (crisped rice with tofu and grilled vegetables) are drawn from the family recipes of Yesoon Lee, mother of original co-founder Danny Lee. These are the dishes that explain why the OAD ranking climbed 157 places in a single year. The drinks program leans into the anju format: the list covers soju, beer, and makgeolli, making it easier to drink well here without overthinking it.

Booking and Timing

Anju sits at moderate booking difficulty. Aim to reserve a week to two weeks in advance for a weekend dinner, and a few days out for weeknight slots. Walk-ins are possible but unreliable given the restaurant's standing in D.C.'s Korean dining conversation and its Google rating of 4.6 across more than 1,000 reviews. If your schedule is flexible, a late-night weeknight visit is often the most atmospheric option and slightly easier to secure. The address is 1805 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009, in the Dupont Circle-adjacent stretch of 18th Street where foot traffic stays steady into the evening. For a full picture of what else is nearby, see our full Washington, D.C. restaurants guide, or explore our Washington, D.C. bars guide if you want to extend the evening.

Who Should Book Anju

Anju is well-suited to food-curious diners who want Korean cooking with some ambition behind it, without paying the prices of a tasting-menu room. At $$$, it occupies a mid-range price tier that makes it realistic for repeat visits. It works for couples, small groups, and solo diners who are comfortable with a lively room. If you are specifically looking for Korean food in D.C., the comparison that comes up most often is Mandu, also a Danny Lee project: Mandu is broader and more casual in its appeal, while Anju is more specifically built around the drinking-food format with tighter editorial focus on the menu. For diners who want to understand Korean cuisine at a more technically demanding level, the benchmark restaurants are in Seoul itself — venues like Mingles and Kwonsooksoo operate in a different register entirely. But within D.C.'s Korean dining options, Anju is the address that serious food travellers tend to cite first.

The Late-Night Case for Anju

This is where Anju earns particular credit. D.C.'s late-night dining options are thinner than the city's overall restaurant quality would suggest, and finding a kitchen that is both doing serious work and operating in an environment that feels right at 10 PM is harder than it should be. Anju's anju-format menu is structurally built for extended evenings: small plates that encourage ordering in rounds, drinks that arrive easily, and a room that does not feel like it is winding down before you are. If you are arriving in D.C. late, finishing a long day with a reservation elsewhere, or simply prefer eating later, Anju is the most defensible choice in its price tier for Korean food after standard hours. Check our Washington, D.C. hotels guide if you need to sort accommodation nearby, and our experiences guide for what to do in the area before dinner.

Context for the Food-Curious Traveller

Anju's OAD ranking — #206 in Casual North America in 2025 , places it in a peer group that includes some of the most consistently recommended neighbourhood restaurants on the continent. For a city like Washington D.C., which competes in the same national conversation as Le Bernardin in New York City, Alinea in Chicago, Lazy Bear in San Francisco, The French Laundry in Napa, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, and Emeril's in New Orleans, landing in the top 210 of the casual category is a meaningful marker. The trajectory upward from #363 in 2024 to #206 in 2025 suggests the kitchen is in a productive period rather than coasting on an established name. That is a useful signal when deciding whether to book now or revisit later: the answer is now. For tasting-menu alternatives in D.C. that operate at a higher price point, Jônt is the reference address for modern French-influenced cooking in the city. See our Washington, D.C. wineries guide for regional wine context if that matters to your trip planning.