Your Taste of Bethesda Game Plan: Who to Eat & Who to Catch on Stage

Taste of Bethesda is back for its 34th year on Saturday, October 3rd, and with more than 50 restaurants and four stages of live music packed into Woodmont Triangle, this isn't a festival you wander into without a plan. Here's how I'm tackling it.

Where to Eat
With more than 50 restaurants slinging small bites, you need a strategy. A few new names joined the lineup this year — The Food Market, Sweeteria, Ooh La La Bakery, and Rosetta Bakery among them, alongside the crowd that keeps everyone coming back: Medium Rare, Tout de Sweet, Guardado's, Q by Peter Chang, Georgetown Cupcake, Mon Ami Gabi, Smoke BBQ, Mussel Bar, Aventino, and ala.

Pisco y Nazca is serving the causa de pollo, and their ceviche is the kind of bright, citrusy bite that resets your palate between stops. Q by Peter Chang is bringing Beijing duck bao and Sichuan chicken bites, which is about as good a reason as any to save room early. If you're chasing something rich and unfussy, Cubanos has croquetas and empanadas that disappear in two bites, and Kadhai Boutique Indian Cuisine's chicken makhani is the kind of small bite that makes you wish it came in a full entrée size (it does, just not at TOB). If you are looking for a taste of Japan, Kusshi Sushi is doing pork dumplings and karaage that eat like a perfect snack.

Save room for the sweet stretch: Georgetown Cupcake will have their usual lineup plus a pumpkin spice option for the season, and Levain Bakery is bringing six cookie varieties, chocolate chip and dark chocolate peanut butter among them, which is reason enough to walk the extra block.
Small-world moment: Mon Ami Gabi is on the restaurant list this year, and Chef Andrew Fleischauer and bartender Devon Kloth from the team are also pouring cocktails for us on this week's Foodie & the Beast. So if you like what they're serving on the show, you can go find them in person at the festival.
That's a handful to build a route around, but the full restaurant list and menus are here — ANNA PLEASE HOTLINK bethesda.org/taste-of-bethesda — AND t here’s Turkish, Peruvian, Vietnamese, Thai, and a full bakery row I didn't even get to fully here.

Who to Catch
Four stages means constant decisions, so here's how I'd work the day. Start at Veterans Park with Sara Jones (11am–1pm) to ease into the morning, then let the afternoon carry you: Kemi Adegoroye takes the Cordell Stage from 1:45–3:45pm, Honest Lee Soul closes out Norfolk in that same window, and Kara Levchenko wraps things up at St. Elmo. You can't plan this one too tightly, half the fun is following the music from block to block and seeing who's playing when you land somewhere with a plate in your hand.

Bring the kids, too
There's a Kids' Corner with crafts, activities from downtown Bethesda businesses, and face painting to keep the littlest festival-goers busy while you work the food line.
It’s amazing that thirty-four years in, Taste of Bethesda keeps getting better and better. Incredible tastes, good music, and a whole neighborhood turned into one big outdoor table.

The Details
Saturday, October 3rd, 11am–4pm (ticket sales end at 3:30pm), Woodmont Triangle — Norfolk, St. Elmo, Cordell, Del Ray, and Auburn Avenues, three blocks from the Bethesda Metro. Entry's free, taste tickets come in bundles of five for $10, and tastes run one to four tickets each (beer and wine are four tickets). Mark your calendars and we will see you there.