No Beast, No Problem: Taste of Bethesda, Agora, Silk Route Hospitality, and The Fountain Inn Take Over Foodie & The Beast
David was a no-show once more, so I was Beastless for another week on Foodie & The Beast, but the studio didn't get the memo. With our 18th anniversary on air just a week out, this might have been the fullest house we've ever had, and the food backed it up: butter chicken from Chef Sanjay Mandhaiya, platters of dips from Agora (plus their gorgeous Greek olive oil), and cocktails from Devon that were massive and, frankly, a little dangerous.
-Agora Brings Turkish, Greek, and Lebanese Cuisine to Three DMV Locations - Betul and Ismail Uslu, the husband-and-wife team behind Agora, now have three Agora locations across the DMV — Dupont Circle, Tysons Corner, and the newest on the ground floor of the Bethesda Hyatt Regency — serving honest-to-goodness cuisine from Türkiye, Greece, and Lebanon.
-Executive Chef Sanjay Mandhaiya joined us to talk Pappe, Karavaan, and The Grace, the three restaurants under his Silk Route Hospitality banner. His menus build around freshly ground spices, seasonal produce, and fresh meats and seafood.
-Greg Heitzig, General Manager and Executive Chef of The Fountain Inn in Georgetown, came in alongside the inn's bartender, Zach Atzert. We an excellent meal there a few weeks back. Together, Greg and Zach talked about how their little inn in the middle of Georgetown pulls off big tastes and even bigger hospitality.
-AND, Mark Your Calendar: Taste of Bethesda Returns October 3, 2026
Taste of Bethesda returns Saturday, October 3, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., bringing more than 50 restaurants — a good number of them new this year — and four stages of entertainment to downtown Bethesda. Stephanie Coppula, the queen of Bethesda entertainment, stopped by with all the details and brought a head start with her: Executive Chef Andrew Fleischauer and bartender Devon Kloth, both of Mon Ami Gabi.
