A Critical Take on Government Cafeterias

Whether you get your reviews from restaurant critics or TikTok, there’s no shortage of content about DC’s hottest culinary destinations. But if you’re an overworked Capitol Hill staffer with just 30 minutes for lunch, L’Ardente is the last place on your mind. Instead, you’re probably choosing between the mac and cheese or the humdrum salad bar at the basement cafeteria in the Longworth House Office Building. Who’s going to give you advice on that?

Well, Victoria Knight has you covered. A health-policy reporter at Axios, she has rapidly become known for her side gig as a reviewer of federal Washington’s institutional eateries. Knight’s chosen platform is X (formerly Twitter), where she shares photos, critiques, and ratings (a pizza slice from the Longworth cafe recently scored a middling 6.5 out of 10, for example). You might find her weighing in on Longworth’s Taco Tuesday, a personal fave, or on the Rayburn Reuben, which, at $5.45, is one of the better sandwich deals in town and is now available at several congressional eateries. The famous Senate Bean Soup, which has been on the menu at the congressional cafeterias every day for more than a century, is pretty good, Knight says—a 7 out of 10.

Her efforts have found an eager audience among the large community of congressional staffers, reporters, and lobbyists who spend all day stuck on the Hill. “Obviously this food is, like, fine,” she says. “It’s not high-end-restaurant quality. But it’s judged on a different scale. I always try to put how much it costs as part of the calculation. Staffers have limited budgets. Reporters do, too.” When lawmakers are in session, Hill reporters such as Knight are usually running around from hearings to interviews all day, sometimes into the evening, with little time to venture out into the world for more appealing food choices. “This place is like a college campus,” she says. “We spend all of our time here. These are basically the options that you have.”

Knight also occasionally branches out to other government cafeterias: So far she’s weighed in on sushi from the Library of Congress cafe and a bibim bap rice bowl from the one at the Department of Agriculture. But her primary beat is the congressional cafeterias, and her efforts are noted even at the highest levels. When she recently heard about a new barbecue menu being offered in Longworth, she talked Representative Steny Hoyer into trying it for lunch and got a photo out of it. (Her verdict on the barbecue: “decent, needed the sauce.”)

Hitting the cafe with an elected official isn’t typical, though. “When I do sit-downs with lawmakers, I’ll ask them what their favorite food is on the Hill,” Knight says, “and so many of them are like, ‘I don’t eat here.’ ”

This article appears in the April 2024 issue of Washingtonian.

Ike Allen

Assistant Editor