Sweet Home Cafe

Washington DC

Food Court

Helmed by chef Jerome Grant and culinary ambassador Carla Hall (<em>The Chew, Top Chef</em>), Sweet Home Café serves hearty soul food that highlights regional tastes inspired by African American history. Shrimp and grits with smoked tomato butter, caramelized leeks, and crispy tasso pork evoke the Creole Coast, whereas buttermilk fried chicken harkens back to the Agricultural South; for the Northern states, there's the "smoking hot" Caribbean-style pepper pot, and a nod to the Western Range through dessert: "High Mesa" peach and blackberry cobbler. The eatery, which is located within the brand new National Museum of African American History and Culture, uses food to tell stories, aided by its physical design (lunch counter seating evokes the sit-in movement from the Civil Rights era, documentary photos cover entire walls, historical artifacts framed throughout).