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Gourmet toast and more: What's trending on Washington's food scene?

Want the scoop on Washington's food scene? Read on for the latest trending restaurants in the District.

WASHINGTON — As fans of cronuts and cake pops can attest, food trends come and go. So how can you tell which tastes are trending right this minute?

We took a data-driven look at the question, using Yelp to discover which local businesses have been seeing especially high review volumes this month.

To find out who made the list, we looked at Washington businesses on Yelp by category and counted how many reviews each received. Rather than compare them based on number of reviews alone, we calculated a percentage increase in reviews over the past month, and tracked businesses that consistently increased their volume of reviews to identify statistically significant outliers compared to past performance.

Read on to see which spots are worth exploring this summer.

Open since February, this New American and vegetarian spot, which offers salads and more, is trending compared to other businesses categorized as 'American (New)' on Yelp.

Citywide, New American spots saw a median 2.3% increase in new reviews over the past month, but Flower Child saw a 20% increase, maintaining a sound four-star rating throughout. Moreover, on a month-to-month basis Flower Child's review count increased by more than 180%.

Located at 2112 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 101 (between North I and North 21st streets), in Foggy Bottom, the chain restaurant offers organic kale salad, Mediterranean quinoa salad, tomato toast, Indian-spiced cauliflower, red chile-glazed sweet potato and more.

Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about Georgetown's Guapo's, the Tex-Mex, Mexican and Latin American restaurant is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.

While businesses categorized as 'Mexican' on Yelp saw a median 1.7% increase in new reviews over the past month, Guapo's bagged a 14.3% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a solid four-star rating.

Open at 3050 K St. NW since 2018, the restaurant features steak or chicken fajitas with smoked baby back ribs, New York strip steak with garlic sauce, enchiladas with choice of protein and cheese and beef tongue tacos, as well as chimichangas and burritos.  

Southwest's Toastique is also making waves. Open since 2018 at 764 Maine Ave. SW (between South Seventh and South L streets), the breakfast and brunch spot, which offers juices, smoothies and more, has seen a 9.2% bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 2% for all businesses tagged 'Breakfast & Brunch' on Yelp. Moreover, on a month-to-month basis Toastique's review count increased by more than 230%.

The gourmet toast and juice bar offers tomato burrata toast with herbed ricotta and Greek toast, with hummus, feta, tomato, cucumbers and onions, among other options. Juices include watermelon/ginger/lemon and orange/carrot/apple/turmeric. Over the past month, Toastique has maintained a healthy 4.5-star rating among Yelpers.

Downtown Washington's Rare Steakhouse is the city's buzziest seafood spot by the numbers.

The popular steakhouse, seafood and traditional American restaurant, which has been open since 2017 at 1595 I St. NW (between North Vermont Avenue and North 16th Street), increased its new review count by 7.5% over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 2.4% for the Yelp category 'Seafood.' It outperformed the previous month by gaining two times more reviews than expected based on past performance.

The restaurant features a steakhouse menu and a tavern menu. The steakhouse menu features dry-aged grass-fed local beef, diver scallops, Maine lobster and grilled branzino. The tavern menu offers quick bites and snacks, as well as a dry-aged burger and steak frites.

This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.

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