Signature Dish Season 2 Premieres September 25 with Six New Episodes and an Online Restaurant Guide

Arlington, Virginia — From breakfast to pizza, from Mediterranean to South American cuisine, the D.C. area is filled with incredible restaurants and innovative dishes created by outstanding chefs. WETA, the flagship public media station in the region, will celebrate this diverse food landscape with a new season of the popular Emmy Award-winning series Signature Dish and the launch of the Signature Dish Restaurant Guide. The series will premiere September 25, 2023, at 9:00 p.m. on WETA PBS and 8:00 p.m. on WETA Metro, with five more episodes to follow this fall. The series will also be available to stream on the PBS App following each episode broadcast. The restaurant guide is available at wetaguides.org/restaurants.

“The first season of Signature Dish showcased 36 incredible dishes, but our research uncovered so many more that we knew we needed to produce a second season,” said Miguel Monteverde, senior vice president and general manager, WETA Greater Washington. “So, this year we have cast an even wider net, with three dozen new restaurants and dishes from all over the region. And to make it even easier for the people in the DMV who want to visit the restaurants profiled on Signature Dish, we’ve launched an online restaurant guide.”

Season 2 of Signature Dish

Signature Dish is hosted by Seth Tillman, who takes viewers on a culinary and cultural adventure around the D.C. area. At each restaurant stop, Seth does more than simply taste the signature dish; he explores the backstory of the restaurant, its neighborhood and the people behind the food.

As a producer at WETA, Seth has worked on several documentaries about the history of the D.C. region. He combines a gourmand's appreciation for the area's diverse culinary offerings with a keen interest in the people who make local communities thrive. 

“This season is a whirlwind of food, flavor and fun. We travel far and wide throughout the DMV to showcase some incredible food and inspiring stories,” says Seth. “I’m particularly excited to feature dishes that we learned about after soliciting viewer suggestions for this new season.”

Monday, Sept. 25 at 9 p.m.| Comfort Food

Season two kicks off with an adventure, as Seth boards a fishing vessel on the Potomac River to learn how invasive blue catfish are caught and turned into the local blue catfish and chips at Preserve in Maryland’s capital city, Annapolis. At Cielo Rojo in Takoma Park, he enjoys a comforting bowl of pozole verde, a chicken soup loaded with heirloom corn from Mexico. The journey wraps up in the Capitol Hill East neighborhood with a perfectly executed chicken parmigiana at Caruso’s Grocery, a restaurant that celebrates classic Italian American cuisine.

Monday, Oct. 2 at 9 p.m. | Pizza

The star of this D.C.-focused episode is a universal favorite: pizza. From the unique Roman-style “pinsas” of La Casina in Capitol Hill to the Detroit-style delights of Shaw’s Motown Square, and the Greek-influenced creations at Martha Dear in Mount Pleasant, Seth explores the artistry behind the perfect pie.

Monday, Oct. 9 at 9 p.m. | Mediterranean

Seth dives into the rich culinary heritage of the Mediterranean. He meets with chefs at Green Almond Pantry in Georgetown, then heads to Maryland for a stop at Cedars of Lebanon in Greenbelt and Melina in North Bethesda to explore the unique flavors of Turkish, Lebanese and Greek cuisines. 

Monday, Oct. 23 at 9 p.m. | Crossover Cuisine

The innovative world of fusion cuisine, where culinary traditions collide and create something new, is the heart of this episode. Seth visits Imperfecto in D.C.’s West End for Mediterranean-Latin American fusion and then crosses into Virginia to visit Mama Tigre in Oakton for a blend of Mexican and Indian influences, and Wooboi in Alexandria where Asian and Nashville fried chicken techniques join as one.

Monday, Oct. 30 and Monday Nov. 6 at 9 p.m. | TBA

Episode titles and featured restaurants will be announced at a later date.

Titles and restaurants are subject to change. Six more episodes are slated to begin in January 2024.

After its broadcast premiere, each episode will be available to stream on the PBS App and at weta.org. For more information, visit weta.org/signaturedish or follow Signature Dish on Instagram at @signaturedishdc.

About the Signature Dish Restaurant Guide

The Signature Dish Restaurant Guide at wetaguides.org/restaurants provides additional information about restaurants featured on Signature Dish, including locations, links to learn more, and reviews and video clips from each episode, all sorted by cuisine type and plotted on an interactive map of the local area. This new resource is a companion to the WETA Neighborhood Guide (wetaguides.org/neighborhoods), created to offer more information about neighborhoods featured on If You Lived Here, the hit WETA series that explores real estate in D.C. area communities.

 About WETA

WETA is the leading public media station in the nation’s capital, serving Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. WETA’s content educates and inspires on five television channels – WETA PBS, WETA UK, WETA Metro, WETA World and WETA PBS Kids – on weta.org and the PBS App, and on WETA Classical 90.9 FM and wetaclassical.org. Local programming created by WETA includes Emmy Award-winning programs Signature Dish, If You Lived Here and WETA Arts, as well as the new regional travel series Get Out of Town. WETA is also the second-largest producing station for the PBS system, with news and public affairs programs including PBS NewsHour and Washington Week; films by production partners Ken Burns and Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; and performance specials from venues such as the U.S. Capitol and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The station also creates leading public service websites and develops community outreach programs to engage people of all ages in the joy of lifelong learning. Sharon Percy Rockefeller is president and chief executive officer. More information on WETA programs and services is available at weta.org. Visit facebook.com/wetatvfm or follow @WETAtvfm on Twitter.