District Doughnut (Washington, D.C.)

District Doughnut is this charming artisan doughnut shop that is under 10 minutes from the heart of Washington, D.C and right across the street from the Marine Barracks. This shop is owned by two young, passionate doughnut lovers (and high school friends), Greg Menna and Juan Pablo Segura, and their master doughnut maker, Christine Schaefer. This shop strives to be a designer doughnut shop that creates flavors that are nostalgic but with a twist.

Originally, this shop started as a doughnut delivery service but expanded to a storefront. They crank out one of my favorite doughnuts in the D.C. area. The doughnuts are freshly made with the best possible ingredients and in small batches. You may pair the doughnuts with drip coffee from a local D.C. roaster, Compass Coffee.

They have eight doughnut flavors on the menu everyday and they try to rotate a few flavors every few months. When we were there, they had two cake doughnuts – a Nutella cake doughnut and a blueberry cake doughnut that incredible depth of fruit flavor.

The remaining doughnuts were yeast doughnuts that are the familiar fluffy, tender, ever so slightly crisp textured doughnuts and most importantly, not greasy. A salt flecked, dulce de leche was excellent and it was wonderfully creamy, sweet with a salty kick. Their signature brown butter doughnut that had a beautiful gently cinnamon spiced doughnut and the nuanced brown butter flavor from the glaze. A cranberry orange streusel topped doughnut that tasted like the holidays and the wonderful tartness of the cranberry compote was welcoming. The chocolate orange doughnut was nicely flavored of the hint of orange from the candied peel. The malted milk chocolate with the crunchy chocolate balls was nostalgic. The vanilla bean glazed doughnut was beautifully done even though it’s minimalist.