Restaurant in Washington DC, United States
Serious pan-Asian cooking at an honest price.
Maketto holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024) and a 4.6 Google rating at a $$ price point, making it one of the clearest value propositions on D.C.'s H Street. Chef Erik Bruner-Yang's pan-Asian menu spans Cantonese, Cambodian, and Thai influences with every dish designed to share. Book ahead, but walk-ins are realistic. A strong pick for adventurous diners who want serious cooking without a tasting-menu commitment.
Maketto earns a firm recommendation for any food-focused visitor to Washington, D.C. At a $$ price point with a Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024) and a 4.6 Google rating across 1,479 reviews, this is one of the clearest value propositions on the H Street corridor. The premise is simple: share everything, expect bold pan-Asian flavors with no geographic loyalty, and plan to return more than once. If you are choosing between Maketto and a pricier tasting-menu room for a casual dinner out, Maketto wins on value without question.
The Michelin inspectors who awarded the Bib Gourmand in 2024 credited chef-owner Erik Bruner-Yang and his team for keeping it fresh on an H Street corridor that has seen significant turnover over the years. That framing matters: this is not a restaurant coasting on an early reputation. The menu draws from Cantonese, Cambodian, Thai, and broader Southeast and East Asian traditions without treating any single one as canonical. The results, according to the Michelin record, include Cantonese-style shrimp dumplings finished with Cambodian fish sauce and dill, a Thai-spiced pork laab riff with bone marrow, and crispy fried chicken laced in five-spice caramel. These are not timid dishes. The kitchen is working at a level of ambition you do not often find at this price tier.
First-time visitors often do a double-take walking in: the front of the space reads as a retail boutique, with display cases of merchandise before the restaurant opens up behind it. Do not let that throw you. The food-and-retail hybrid format is intentional and long-established here. Your focus should be on the table, not the rack of clothing near the door.
If you have flexibility on seating, ask for counter or bar placement. At a venue like Maketto, where the kitchen is working across multiple flavor traditions simultaneously and every dish is designed for sharing, counter seating lets you watch the pacing of the meal more naturally and coordinate timing with the kitchen's rhythm. Sharing-format Asian restaurants reward guests who eat in sequence rather than all at once, and counter seats make it easier to flag a server and stagger your order. For a party of two, the counter is the right call. For groups of four or more, a table gives you the real estate to spread dishes properly, which matters when the whole menu is designed to be passed around.
The bar program at Maketto sits alongside the food rather than competing with it. The flavor profiles coming out of the kitchen, fish sauce, five-spice, bone marrow, chili heat, are assertive, and a drink order that can hold its own against those flavors will serve you better than something delicate. This is a venue where you eat and drink simultaneously rather than treating cocktails as a separate course.
Maketto is at 1351 H St NE, Washington, DC 20002, on a stretch of H Street that has enough dining and bar options to build a full evening around. Getting there without a car is practical: the DC Streetcar runs along H Street and connects to the broader transit network. Booking difficulty is rated Easy, which means walk-ins are a realistic option, particularly earlier in the evening, but a reservation removes any uncertainty. At the $$ price tier, the financial commitment is low enough that there is little reason to leave this one to chance. Book ahead, arrive ready to share, and order widely. For more on what else the city offers, see our full Washington, D.C. restaurants guide, our full Washington, D.C. bars guide, and our full Washington, D.C. hotels guide.
If you are building a broader D.C. food itinerary, Astoria DC and Chaplin's are nearby options worth knowing, and Bar Chinois covers overlapping Asian-leaning territory if Maketto is fully booked. For broader context on how Maketto fits among Asia-focused restaurants internationally, taku in Cologne and Jun's in Dubai represent the same serious pan-Asian ambition at higher price tiers.
Maketto is the right call for food-focused diners who want a high-return meal without committing to a tasting-menu price or a formal room. It works well for two people who want to eat adventurously and share everything, and equally for a small group that wants a lively, flavor-forward dinner without a long booking lead time. It is not the choice for a quiet one-on-one dinner where conversation needs a calm backdrop, and it is not the right room if someone in your party is averse to bold, fish-sauce-forward or chili-heavy flavors. For the explorer diner who treats a meal as an opportunity to try technique and flavor combinations they have not encountered before, this is close to an ideal fit at this price point in D.C.
For reference on what serious Asian cooking looks like at the higher end of the spectrum nationally, consider how Maketto's Bib Gourmand compares in ambition (if not format) to destinations like Lazy Bear in San Francisco or the French Laundry in Napa. Maketto is not operating in that format, but the Michelin recognition places it in the same conversation around kitchens that earn their credential rather than inherit it. Within D.C. itself, Albi and Causa represent the city's Michelin-recognised ambition at higher price tiers if you are planning a special-occasion meal alongside a casual dinner at Maketto. Explore our full Washington, D.C. experiences guide and our full Washington, D.C. wineries guide for everything else the city offers around a meal here.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maketto | Asian | Credit to chef-owner Erik Bruner-Yang and his team for keeping it fresh, as it were. On ever-changing H Street, this long-favored restaurant at first looks like a clothing store with its glittering display cases lined with chic merch. More impressive, though, is what’s on the menu: A diverse, ambitious, and consistently satisfying roster of dishes inspired by flavors from across Asia. Everything here is designed to share, starting with Cantonese-style shrimp dumplings dressed in Cambodian fish sauce and garnished with dill. What’s next? A Thai-spicy riff on pork laab with bone marrow? An imposing boulder of crispy fried chicken laced in five-spice caramel? There are no rules, no borders, in this house, and diners wouldn’t want it any other way.; Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024) | Easy | — |
| Albi | United States, Middle Eastern | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Causa | Peruvian | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Oyster Oyster | New American, Vegetarian, Vegetarian (Sustainable) | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Bresca | Modern French, Contemporary | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Gravitas | New American, Contemporary | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Maketto measures up.
Yes, clearly. A Michelin Bib Gourmand at a $$ price point is the inspectors' own signal that the kitchen over-delivers for what you spend. Maketto sits in a category where the value case is straightforward: ambitious, cross-regional Asian cooking without the tasting-menu commitment or fine-dining room rates that comparably creative spots in DC charge.
The menu draws broadly from across Asia, with dishes like Cantonese-style dumplings and five-spice fried chicken, so proteins and shellfish feature heavily throughout. That said, a menu designed around sharing plates typically gives the kitchen flexibility. Tell your server about restrictions when you book or arrive — the format makes substitutions easier than a fixed tasting menu would.
Yes, and it's worth requesting. Counter and bar seating puts you close to the kitchen action, which matters at a venue where chef Erik Bruner-Yang's team is working across multiple flavor traditions at once. If you're a party of one or two, bar seating is a strong call over waiting for a table.
For vegetable-forward cooking at a comparable price, Oyster Oyster on 14th Street is the closest peer. Albi in Navy Yard pushes into higher price territory but offers a more focused Middle Eastern-leaning menu with its own Michelin recognition. Bresca and Gravitas are both stronger fits if you want a tasting-menu format. Causa covers Peruvian-Japanese, so it overlaps on the cross-cultural cooking angle at a slightly higher spend.
Based on what the Michelin citation calls out, the Cantonese-style shrimp dumplings finished with Cambodian fish sauce and dill are the reference point dish — they show exactly what the kitchen is doing. The crispy fried chicken with five-spice caramel and the pork laab riff with bone marrow are also named in the Bib Gourmand recognition. Order broadly; the share-plates format is designed for it.
It works well for a low-key celebration where food quality matters more than formality. The room doubles as a retail space, so it reads casual rather than ceremonial. If the occasion calls for a white-tablecloth setting, Bresca or Gravitas in DC fit that expectation better. For a dinner where the food is the event and the atmosphere is relaxed, Maketto holds up.
Maketto does not operate on a tasting-menu format. The kitchen runs share plates, so the experience is self-directed rather than chef-paced. That is part of the appeal at this price point — you get creative, cross-regional cooking without the fixed progression or the bill that tasting menus carry. If a chef-driven sequence is what you want, Bresca or Gravitas are the DC options to consider instead.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
