David Park wonders why Washington, DC doesn't have the fine dining of a Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles. Putting aside the fact that DC's scene is rapidly improving and gets, I think, short shrift, the answer to this is pretty clear: DC is way smaller than any of those areas. When people think about this, they know it's true, but because of DC's tremendously high profile, it's easy to forget. Here, however, is a graph comparing population for the greater metro areas (you can't just use DC, you have to use the area) and those cities (all numbers from Wikipedia):
So DC is smaller. Its ability to support a vibrant fine dining scene is, thus, limited. Moreover, as a destination for upwardly mobile foodies, it's pretty young. People forget how rough DC was a decade ago. Cabbies routinely joke that they wouldn't drop me off at my house if this were 1996. Haha. But even so, the scene has exploded relatively quickly, and restaurants like Makoto, CityZen, Citronelle, Two Amy's, Maestro, Source, Komi, Minibar, Palena, Obelisk, Hook, etc, etc. They may not necessarily be of Nobu quality, but it's nothing to sneeze at, particularly given how many of them are only a few years old.
So DC is smaller. Its ability to support a vibrant fine dining scene is, thus, limited. Moreover, as a destination for upwardly mobile foodies, it's pretty young. People forget how rough DC was a decade ago. Cabbies routinely joke that they wouldn't drop me off at my house if this were 1996. Haha. But even so, the scene has exploded relatively quickly, and restaurants like Makoto, CityZen, Citronelle, Two Amy's, Maestro, Source, Komi, Minibar, Palena, Obelisk, Hook, etc, etc. They may not necessarily be of Nobu quality, but it's nothing to sneeze at, particularly given how many of them are only a few years old. 
