Mardi Gras is already in full swing at Bayou Bakery in Courthouse.

From now through mid-February, people can indulge in the bakery’s King Cake, as well as a King Cake-inspired daiquiri, and donuts that look like mini King Cakes.

In keeping with New Orleans tradition, the café and bakery at 1515 N. Courthouse Road kicked off its pre-Lenten festivities on Saturday: the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating when three Magi visited Jesus after his birth. It will last through Fat Tuesday, Feb. 13, a day of feasting before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

To mark the festive season, people can order a King Cake for $50, made with the bakery’s signature Creole cream cheese, cinnamon and white icing. It is festively finished with the Mardi Gras colors of gold, green and purple, representing power, faith and justice, and a plastic baby, according to a press release from the bakery.

There is also a daiquiri inspired by the traditional cake made of vodka and Bailey’s Irish Cream. For early birds, the bakery is also selling vanilla and cinnamon “Li’l KC” donuts, which are first-come, first-served, and only available on Tuesdays starting at 9 a.m., now through Tuesday, Feb. 6.

For those wanting to fully embrace the Mardi Gras spirit, Bayou Bakery offers a “Mardi Gras in a Box,” available for in-store pickup. The $150 box includes a King Cake, beads, masks, boas, doubloons, Pat O’Briens Hurricane Cocktail Mix and a mystery game.

The Bayou Bakery King Cake, the Mardi Gras in a Box and catering requests must be ordered 48 hours in advance.

Mardi Gras season at Bayou — owned by celebrity chef and New Orleans David Guas — will appropriately conclude with a party and even more cake.

“On Fat Tuesday, Bayou Bakery will be hosting an evening Bayou Gras party [ticketed] and will also have a variety of specials to celebrate Mardi Gras — like King Cake by the slice,” a PR rep said.

Falls Church is gearing up for its first-ever restaurant week later this month.

Starting on Friday, Jan. 19 and concluding on Sunday, Jan. 28, over 40 Falls Church eateries, including The Falls — sister restaurant to Clarendon’s Liberty Tavern — along with Thompson Italian and Borek-G, plan to offer discounted dishes and three-course meal deals.

“Its goal is to promote and increase visitors to restaurants and businesses within the City of Falls Church and increase awareness and consideration of Virginia’s culinary experiences,” according to a press release.

Below is the current list of participating restaurants.

• Audacious Aleworks
• baddpizza
• Bakeshop
• Borek-G
• Cafe Kindred
• Caribbean Plate
• Chasin’ Tails
• Clare and Don’s
• Cuates Grill
• Disturbingly Delicious Foods
• Dogwood Tavern
• Dominion Wine and Beer
• Ellie Bird
• Harvey’s 
• Hot N Juicy Crawfish
• Ireland’s Four Provinces
• Izaka Donburi
• Kyo Matcha 
• Kyuramen
• La Tingeria
• Luzmila’s Bolivian Restaurant
• Moby Dick House of Kabob
• Northside Social
• Nue
• Panjshir
• Pho Ga Vang
• Pizzaria Orso
• Plaka Grill
• Preservation Biscuit Co.
• Rare Bird Coffee Roasters
• Roll Play 
• Scramble
• Sfizi Cafe
• Solace Outpost
• Taco Rock
• TeaDM Plus
• The Falls
• The Happy Tart 
• Thompson Italian
• Vivi Bubble Tea

While The Little City is planning its first restaurant week, neighboring Arlington has, of course, had one for awhile — most recently held this past October.

The event is sponsored by the Falls Church Economic Development Office, Virginia Tourism Corporation and the American Rescue Plan’s Tourism Recovery Program.

Arlington’s Pupatella has been recognized by an international pizza ranking guide as one of the premier pizza chains worldwide.

The Italy-based guide 50 Top Pizza gave Pupatella and a few dozen other notable pizza chains special mention alongside its “50 Top World Artisan Pizza Chains 2023” list, an annual selection of the best pizzerias in the world.

“Their style, highly appreciated by the public, nods to contemporary Neapolitan-style pizza,” 50 Top Pizza said on its website.

“On the menu, you’ll find pizzas divided between red and white, all traditionally topped with ingredients often of Italian origin,” the website description continued. “The Napoli Street Snack section dedicated to fried items is a must-try.”

Founded by Naples, Italy natives Enzo Algarme and his wife Anastasiya Laufenberg, the pizzeria started as a modest pizza cart near the Ballston Metro station in September 2007.

Almost three years later, the duo opened their first brick-and-mortar location at 5104 Wilson Blvd — which nearly closed at one point — in the Bluemont neighborhood in 2010.

Since its inception, Pupatella has garnered numerous awards and this week, Algarme welcomed the news that Pupatella was mentioned in the guide.

“At Pupatella, we believe in doing things the old-fashioned way, which is why I think we’ve become a staple in our community since opening in 2007,” he said in a statement to ARLnow.

“We also feel it’s important to invest in the community that gave us our start to build long lasting relationships instead of following trends,” he continued. “We try to be the kind of place where people come back to because they grew up going there — and they know the experience they’re going to get when they come to any of our locations.”

The pizza chain has expanded to seven additional locations across the D.C. area, including another in Arlington on S. Walter Reed Drive, and outlets in D.C., Reston, Springfield, the Mosaic District, Leesburg and Richmond, Virginia.

It intends to open four new locations in D.C., Alexandria and Chantilly, Virginia, and Columbia, Maryland, according to its website.

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that spotlights Arlington-based startups, founders, and local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring Three Ballston Plaza. 

Arlington-based cookie company MOLTN Cookies opened its newest location today (Monday) in Ashburn, just in time for National Cookie Day.

To celebrate, the new location in a pizza and pasta place called EATaliano will offer free triple chocolate cookies — limited to one per visitor, while supplies last — from 4-6 p.m.

Customers who splurge and put in orders exceeding $75, meanwhile, will get a free sugar or s’mores cookie-scented candle.

“We only have 20, so grab them quick,” the company says on Instagram. “We can’t wait to celebrate together.”

The location started operating two months behind its anticipated opening date of Oct. 1.

It is MOLTN’s third in the D.C. area, after the company debuted in a “ghost kitchen” within AllSpice Catering at 6017 Wilson Blvd, near the border with Falls Church. Over the summer, it expanded into D.C., operating from Teddy & The Bully Bar at 1200 19th Street NW.

The Ashburn cooke hub kicks off what MOLTN founder Neal Miglani says is the start of an expansion across the D.C. area., including three forthcoming locations in Maryland: Prince George’s and Montgomery counties and Baltimore.

“We are thrilled to bring the MOLTN Cookies brand to Ashburn and beyond,” Miglani said in a statement. “The excitement around our new location at Eataliano signals the start of an even more exciting phase for us as we plan to expand across the DMV area. Soon, more communities will be able to enjoy the MOLTN Cookies experience.”

He told ARLnow he aims to open 10 new locations by the second quarter of 2024, in the D.C. and Baltimore areas.

He aims these locations to soon bake the 12,000-15,0000 cookies MOLTN’s Arlington location churns out each month.

The company transitioned from operating ghost kitchens to what Miglani says is a licensing model. Restaurant partners purchase MOLTN’s cookie dough from approved suppliers in its distribution network.

“We provide the dough and all technology, they handle the operations and retain all profits, a strategy that propels rapid expansion while upholding the excellence MOLTN Cookies is known for,” Miglani says.

Other new ventures are coming down the pike, too.

Miglani says MOLTN is creating a gifting platform that allows customers to send freshly baked, warm cookies to others, along with personalized items such as candles and cards. The company is on the cusp of launching nationwide shipping.

These developments could be coming late in the first quarter of next year or early in the second quarter, Miglani said.

Tacos are closer to being served in Westover, just in time for the holidays.

After a nearly 4-month delay, Westover Taco at 5849 Washington Blvd — previously the home of the Forest Inn, a long-time dive bar which closed in June 2022 — is set to open around mid-December, per the company’s Instagram account.

“Alright! We are super excited to announce that we’ve overcome all the hurdles and will be opening to the public in the next few weeks,” the company posted yesterday (Tuesday). “We’ll announce the exact date as soon as we have it.”

Originally, Westover Taco aimed to start serving back in August. However, co-owner Scott Parker said the opening was delayed due to permitting issues.

“It was just the usual permit delays. Nothing too exciting,” Parker told ARLnow.

Construction began last spring, and it appeared the restaurant was adding the final touches when ARLnow recently checked in on its progress.

The restaurant’s menu boasts several types of tacos, including chicken, pork, steak and fish.

Complementing the taco selection is an assortment of tequila-based cocktails, including a cucumber jalapeño paloma with grapefruit and lime, a tequila colada with coconut water and coconut Rèal and the classic margarita.

The Ballston “singing tree” is set to return for the holiday season.

Starting next week, the sparkling, voice-activated Christmas tree near the Ballston Metro station will brighten the neighborhood with lights and music through the new year.

The tree — in the center of Welburn Square at 901 N. Taylor Street — will be adorned with 1,200 “interactive, sound responsive” lights designed by Canadian developer Limbic Media.

“Microphones capture audio input from the environment around the system, which interprets that data into colors and patterns to display throughout the tree,” per a press release.

The Ballston Business Improvement District, which introduced the tree last year, will mark its return with an event next Wednesday, Dec. 6, from 5-7 p.m. The event will include performances by the Arlington Children’s Chorus as well as food and drink.

Attendees can enjoy food from Rustico and DMV Empanadas, Turkish coffee from the Ballstonian cart, a free hot chocolate bar for kids, and a “Jingle Bar” for adults 21 and older.

“This event was such a joyous success last year, we knew we had to bring it back for the Ballston community,” Ballston BID CEO Tina Leone said in a statement. “We love supporting our local businesses as well as the Arlington Children’s Chorus and we hope other community members will come down to Ballston, shop for the holidays, enjoy some of our fabulous restaurants and see if they can activate the tree themselves!”

The Pentagon City mall is adding a dash of South American flavor to its dining options.

Maizal, situated on the mall’s exterior along S. Hayes Street adjacent to Macy’s, is gearing up to open next week, according to a company spokesperson.

The Pentagon City location will be the chain’s second outpost in Arlington. Maizal made its debut in Ballston Quarter’s food hall in 2019. Today, the chain also operates two locations in D.C. and opened a location in Reston yesterday (Monday).

Menu items include “green, grain or mixed bowls, assorted arepas, and specialty items such as south American hot dogs, empanadas, street corn, plantains, yucca, churros and cookie sandwiches,” per a press release.

Details regarding the new restaurant’s hours of operation have yet to be released, but other Maizal locations are open from 11 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m., according to the company’s website.

Maizal joins a list of fast-casual eateries moving into the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, including Mezeh Mediterranean Grill. The restaurant, similar to Cava and Roti, announced its upcoming opening with a “Coming Soon” banner in August.

A new restaurant specializing in Japanese street food opened last week on Columbia Pike.

Ryu Izakaya, located at 3030 Columbia Pike, on the ground floor of the Days Inn hotel, celebrated its soft opening last Thursday after almost a year of renovations. It moved into the former home of Rincome Thai, a Pike mainstay.

The restaurant serves both lunch and dinner but the owners may adjust the hours a grand opening set for later this month, Panni Satayayuk, the restaurant’s marketing director, told ARLnow.

Satayayuk noted the owners are keen on gathering customer feedback before the grand opening.

“We still try to get feedback from our customers and how they like the soup. How do you like the fish, or is it too sweet? Is it too salty too sour?” she said. “So we are like in a learning process on this our first few days.”

The restaurant is co-owned by two couples, Ben and Bow Jaypakdee and Tony and Jenny Seesiadkhaall, who immigrated to the U.S. from Thailand more than a decade ago, Satayayuk said.

While none of the owners are of Japanese descent, Satayayuk said Ben and Bow have spent the past decade working in Japanese restaurants in D.C. Tony and Jenny, who co-own Absolute Noodle and Sushi Bar in D.C.’s Chinatown, also have backgrounds in Japanese cuisine, specifically making sushi.

The four friends started talking about opening a new restaurant in 2020 when Absolute Noodle started making a profit in 2018, according to Satayayuk. The idea was to have a more casual Japanese restaurant dining experience with smaller plates and a bar that is open late.

“Right now in Japan, they started doing this trend called izakaya,” said Satayayuk. “It’s like street food. People drink at night having like… tapas, but the Japanese version.”

A few highlights from the menu include the Mt. Fuji Roll — spicy tuna, salmon, crunchy tempura and eel sauce — and yakitori assortment.

Satayayuk noted part of the restaurant’s mission was to expose more people to Japanese street food like   yakitori and donburi, in addition to more mainstream staples like ramen and sushi. The other motive was to appeal to a younger crowd.

“In this Arlington area, there’s not many [options for a] younger vibe for Japanese food,” Satayayuk said.

The owners also chose the Columbia Pike location, in part, because it was less expensive to open a restaurant in Arlington than D.C. and there is a lot of new growth nearby.

“The food price would have to be higher to pay for the market rent everything [in D.C.]. So, here is still not easy, but it’s less challenging,” she said.

Peruvian Brothers is officially open on the ground floor of Amazon’s second headquarters in Pentagon City.

The D.C.-based Peruvian food truck and fast-casual eatery officially opened its second brick-and-mortar restaurant this past Friday. The location at 1450 S. Eads Street is only open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. but “dinner and brunch services will launch in a few weeks,” according to a press release.

“We are so honored and excited to bring a large piece of our beloved Perú right to Amazon’s doorstep in Arlington,” co-owner Giuseppe Lanzone said in the release. “After years of perfecting our craft, we’re excited to have a space large enough to share the full experience of our culture, heritage, and flavorful Peruvian cuisine with our community.”

Amazon announced in July 2022 that the restaurant would move into a 2,000-square-foot space within its HQ2, among several eateries, including Makers Union and Good Company Doughnuts & Cafe.

The restaurant planned to open its first phase over the summer in April, however, the opening was pushed back “to ensure everything was 100% ready,” a spokesperson told ARLnow.

This marks a return to the area for Peruvian Brothers, which previously occupied a stand at the Crystal City Water Park before the park underwent renovations to add new food and drink kiosks. The water park re-opened earlier this month.

Co-owners Giuseppe Lanzone and his brother Mario relocated with their family from Peru to McLean in 1997. Before becoming a restaurateur, Giuseppe was a two-time Olympic rower for Team USA.

In 2012, the duo launched their Alexandria-based food truck and catering business. Nearly a decade later, the brothers opened their first brick-and-mortar spot in La Cosecha, a Latin American market in D.C.

Giuseppe and Mario say the cuisine, which includes sandwiches, empanadas, ceviches, rotisserie chicken and a Peruvian stir fry called saltado, is inspired by their upbringing in a port city within the sprawling metropolitan area of Lima.

Some noteworthy dishes at the HQ2 outpost include the pan con chicharrón sandwich — fried pork tenderloin on a French roll with sweet potato slices and a Peruvian salsa called criolla — and lomo saltado, a savory beef stir-fry with tomatoes, onions and fries.

The new space has both indoor and outdoor seating. Inside, a mural evokes scenes of La Punta, Perú, where the brothers grew up, and pays homage to Inti, the ancient Inca god of the sun.

The restaurant also has a bar that serves Peruvian beers, wines, liquor and a frozen cocktail formulated by the brothers: the Pisco Sour Slush.

Introducing Peruvian Brothers at Amazon HQ2 🙌🏽⁣

Peruvian Brothers, the award-winning D.C. area food truck & eatery, is thrilled to announce the opening of its newest brick-and-mortar location on the ground floor of Amazon HQ2’s gleaming campus in National Landing. pic.twitter.com/YHFH94xG38

— Peruvian Brothers (@perubrothers) October 16, 2023

Lao and Thai restaurant Padaek is finally open for business in the Arlington Ridge Shopping Center.

The day after we last reported on the restaurant’s progress in late August, Padaek started fulfilling to-go orders, according to a restaurant spokeswoman. The restaurant added its dine-in service on Sept. 12, she told ARLnow today.

The restaurant, located at 2931 S. Glebe Road, also recently opened its bar and plans to announce its grand opening “soon,” she added.

This is the second outpost of the Lao and Thai restaurant, originally founded in Falls Church by award-winning D.C. chef Seng Luangrath.

It was initially expected to open in June but Luangrath told ARLnow it had to wait a little longer while the last permits from Arlington County came in.

The family-owned eatery serves dishes from both Thai and Lao cuisine, from Pad Thai to an herbal curry stew with wood ear mushrooms.

Padaek is named for the fermented fish sauce that provides a distinctive salty base to many Lao dishes. The salty flavors balance out several stand-by Thai recipes, sweetened by a base of coconut milk.

Padaek is open from noon to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday. The restaurant will close daily from 3-4 p.m. to switch from lunch to dinner service.

The 3,500-square-foot space along Glebe Road was formerly home to Delia’s Mediterranean Grill, Tazza Kitchen and Cafe Caturra.

Starting today, all 11 food vendors and restaurants within Crystal City Water Park are officially open for business, following a soft opening two weeks ago.

Morning to night, the 1.6-acre outdoor food hall and park in Crystal City will serve everything from indulgent duck-fat fried chicken sandwiches to Indian-style crepes filled with lentils and chutney to gelato.

The kiosks include:

• D.C.-based café and wine bar Brij
• Bubbie’s Plant Burger, serving plant-based and kosher-certified burgers, fries and soda pop
• Cracked Eggery, serving egg sandwiches, bowls and sides
• DC Dosa, selling South Indian street food fare
• D.C.-based Dolci Gelati, serving a rotating list of gelati and espresso-based drinks
• Falafel Inc., a charitable food spot that feeds refugees through its falafel bowls, sandwiches and sides
• PhoWheels, the first brick-and-mortar location of a D.C. food truck selling Vietnamese-inspired dishes
• Tiki Thai, serving dishes inspired by Thai and Polynesian cuisine
• Queen Mother’s, a fried chicken spot that previously operated on Columbia Pike

Perched atop a water wall at the back of the park, meanwhile, is the cocktail and oyster bar Water Bar.

Operated by Atlanta-based hospitality group STHRN, the restaurant offers light lunch and dinner options, ranging from salads, seafood sandwiches and oysters to ceviche and specialty cocktails.

For something more casual, STHRN operates a New York-style pizzeria that serves beer, wine and cocktails, called Crush Pizza.

The park’s owner, JBG Smith, aimed to provide a comprehensive dining experience from breakfast through dessert, Amy Rice, the company’s senior vice president of retail leasing, tells ARLnow.

“We were really deliberate in wanting to make sure we could create a bit of an 18-hour offering,” she said.

At the park’s grand opening tonight, attendees can sample from nine newly opened restaurant kiosks, a sit-down seafood restaurant and bar or a new pizza place, all while listening to music. A month-long live concert series kicks off next Friday.

The kiosks are home to several minority- and women-owned businesses that were “having a hard time making the jump from a farmers market or food truck into a traditional brick and mortar,” Rice said.

“Typically, if you were a retail-like, fast-casual restaurant, and you wanted to start a new restaurant in a new building, it would probably be upwards of a million-dollar-plus investment to actually get your business up and running in that location,” Rice said. “We removed both of those barriers by creating these turnkey kiosks for these operators.”

Those looking for recommendations can try Water Bar’s “Middle Ground” cocktail, a Mezcal-based drink with tepache, made from fermented pineapple, and grapefruit, lime and peppercorn. At Crush Pizza, the mushroom lemon cream pizza was memorable.

Live music performances from 5-7:30 p.m. will start at the venue next Friday, Oct. 13, and run through Nov. 3. A performance by Virginia native R&B artist Bryan Lee will kick the inaugural concert.

“This series is just the first of many engaging Water Park events that will celebrate our diverse and growing downtown,” Tracy Sayegh Gabriel, president and executive director of the National Landing Business Improvement District, said in a press release.