Peanut butter cake with celery ice cream at The Dabney. (Photo by LaTur.)

Lauded for its hyperlocal focus, The Dabney (122 Blagden Alley NW), a newcomer to the D.C. restaurant scene that opened less than a year ago, has been chosen by Food & Wine Magazine as one of its top ten restaurants of 2016. While it sounds a bit like a backhanded compliment, the magazine wrote, “It’s no small feat for a restaurant to source 100 percent of its ingredients from the region, especially if the area is the mid-Atlantic, which isn’t known for bountiful produce. To turn those ingredients into outstanding food is more challenging still.”

Chef Jeremiah Langhorne has been lauded for his obsessive attention to curating a historically-influenced menu that focuses on strictly local ingredients, to the point of sometimes avoiding items like lemons and olive oil and creating his own fish sauce and a wide range of vinegars. With a constantly changing menu, The Dabney might offer diners anything from locally milled corn grits to foraged ramps to Chesapeake Bay rockfish topped with herbs grown on the restaurant’s rooftop garden.

“Words can’t express how excited and proud I am of our team,” says Langhorne. “We are so honored and grateful to be included among such amazing company.” Other restaurants included on the list are indeed some heavy hitters, including Death & Taxes by acclaimed Raleigh chef Ashley Christensen and Locol in Los Angeles, headed by Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson, who were each previously named Best New Chef by Food & Wine.

Check out DCist contributor Josh Kramer’s ode to The Dabney here. It was also one of our favorite new restaurants of last year.