James Beard finalist named

A Washington wine bar that opened in September is already one of seven restaurants left standing for the 2026 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, and it is the only Washington, District of Columbia, nominee in that category. The James Beard Foundation published the finalist list on March 31, 2026, with winners set for June 15 in Chicago. (jamesbeard.org) The restaurant is Maison Bar à Vins in Adams Morgan, at 1834 Columbia Road Northwest, and local station WJLA said on April 9 that it was the only District finalist on the Best New Restaurant list. WJLA also said the restaurant’s chef went on air to talk about the nomination and the menu behind it. (wjla.com) Maison Bar à Vins is not a standalone one-off. Its own site says it comes from The Popal Group, the Washington team behind Lutèce, Pascual, Lapis, and LaPop, and describes Maison as the more relaxed sibling to reservation-heavy Lutèce. (maisondc.com) That backstory explains why a brand-new place moved this fast. Washingtonian reported before the opening that Lutèce had only six bar seats, so the team built Maison as a place where people could walk in for a glass of Petit Chablis and French bar food instead of planning a full formal dinner. (washingtonian.com) The room matters almost as much as the menu. Washingtonian said Maison took over the former Habana Village space, a century-old building with five working fireplaces, and opened first with a bar floor designed mostly for walk-ins plus a smaller reservation dining room hidden behind a curtain. (washingtonian.com) The food that got it noticed is French in structure but not museum-piece French. Washingtonian’s preview highlighted smoked eel croquettes, seaweed choux buns with whipped fish roe, escargots with bone marrow and mushrooms, and housemade pasta with Maine mussels. (washingtonian.com) The drinks program was built to match that style. Washingtonian reported that the bar planned to stock more than 1,000 bottles of wine, which helps explain the “bar à vins” name and why the place was pitched as somewhere you could drop in for one glass or stay for dinner. (washingtonian.com) The chef behind the menu is Matt Conroy, and the team around him already had awards momentum before Maison opened. Lutèce says Conroy is Michelin-starred, while Maison’s own site calls him a 2025 James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic and ties him to Lutèce and Pascual as well. (lutecedc.com) (maisondc.com) The James Beard category itself is narrow, which makes this nomination harder to fake with hype. The Foundation’s 2026 nominee list shows only seven finalists for Best New Restaurant nationwide: 1033 Omakase in Milwaukee, Agnes and Sherman in Houston, Anjin in Kansas City, Emmett in Philadelphia, Ki in Los Angeles, Lei in New York, and Maison Bar à Vins in Washington. (jamesbeard.org) For Washington diners, the bigger picture is that Maison landed in the awards conversation less than seven months after its September 13, 2025 debut. For anyone planning a food stop in the city now, that means one of the country’s newest nationally recognized tables is not in a hotel dining room or a tasting-menu bunker, but inside an Adams Morgan wine bar built for walk-ins. (washingtonian.com) (jamesbeard.org)