Mitsitam Cafe

I cannot describe in words how amazing this place is. I went in expecting a cafeteria and while it is set up in the «cafeteria style», the food is incredible and most definitely not «cafeteria style». I had the buffalo skirt steak, some amazing spinach and vegetables, and the creamy broccoli. Definitely skip the hamburgers and head straight for the authentic food. The names might be frightening but everything is delicious and flavorful. They cook the meat right in front of you over big fires which makes the food and experience even better. Great to relax with family, eat slowly to enjoy your food or if you need a quick bite.

Bit on the expensive side but the food options were unique and tasty.

Food was ok but VERY expensive.
Can buy wine at the register.
If you are in the museum then it’s a decent place to eat but don’t make a special trip based on reviews.

No good. If I had to come here, it would be to try special food from different cultures but it is way too expensive for just mediocre food and not filling portions.

The mole enchiladas were dry, flavorless, and just shredded chicken wrapped in tortillas. Stick to the smaller vegetable/​salad dishes or sides.

This cafeteria style café at the Native American Museum serves a menu consisted wholly of Native American foods in origin and ingredients. The server explained how the bison for our burger feed naturally on native grasses. The burger was very good and did taste like beef. We went on a Wednesday afternoon and it was not crowded. It is light and bright and has plenty of seating. It provided a welcome respite from a day of touristing.

Not Only is the museum amazing, but Great authentic food of American Indian regions. If you have a chance to sit down and eat please do so. They have different regions where they showcase traditional authentic American Indian food. Price is moderate compared to other museums. Will be coming back again soon!

This use to be the go-​to spot for museum goers, but not anymore. We were there at lunch time during spring break and it was only moderately busy. After grabbing my tray and anticipating the good food I had a few years back, I see why it was empty. The food did not look appetizing. It looked dried out and beige like it had been sitting there for awhile. DW was turned off by the high prices so we left. I give them credit for having vegetarian options and labeling the food, and having things other than burgers, hot dogs, and pizza, but this place needs a makeover.

Really expensive cafeteria food. Unique dishes. It might be better to eat here with a group of people so that you can taste different dishes without being stuffed. Would eat here again.
Fiddleheads and parsnips: interesting, tastes healthy. Would buy again
Papusa de res: starch was a bit stiff for me. Sauce had a nice kick. Curtido was nicely tart.
Blue cornbread: tastes like cornbread.

Native American cuisine by region! Word to the wise, not matter how delicious the first regions dishes look, keep looking! Every station got better and better. Bison burgers, Indian fry bread tacos and salmon. All stations are made to order. Not your average museum food court! Come hungry, and bring you ATM card. Pricey, but worth it! Easy to see why it was voted best café in DC!

For a cafeteria in a DC museum, the food is good, meaning the options are more varied and fancy than you normally find. But you pay for it — this place is expensive…
We ordered:
Chicken fingers /​fries plate
Milk
Cup of grapes
Two side dishes
Mini bottle of wine
Cost = just over $ 30
I feel that is expensive, for example, cup of grapes was $ 3.95. I can’t turn down my kid when she asks for something healthy, but normally four dollars for one serving of fruit is why I avoid shopping at whole foods.
But the side dishes were really tasty — I got the braised leeks and another that was carrot and root veg in a sauce. I also really appreciate cafeterias that serve wine. Chicken fingers and fries were average, and seemed like they had been sitting for some time which was probably the case, since we are around 3 pm.
The setting was ok — we were there in the afternoon and half the sitting area was closed. The ceilings are high so it doesn’t feel closed in, and there is a row of Windows. Tables were as clean as you expect from a cafeteria, which is to say it’s somewhat dependent on other diners not being pigs.
We will come back — DD loves the kids area on level 4 — but next time I think I’ll stick to the ‘express’ counter in front and forego a meal in favor of a snack.

I fully support eating here as a contribution to the museum; however I don’t think that the food/​value make this a place worth going out of my way to visit. It’s neat to see American Indian inspired dishes represented, though they skew toward the unfortunate modern American habit of putting meat into nearly every entrée and some sides. The only non meat entrée that I saw was a black bean and green chile tamale for a whopping $ 13.95. That said, I enjoyed a few veggie-​based sides, such as a wild rice and watercress salad. I also enjoyed an heirloom bean stew but was sad to see that they’d added smoked turkey. It still tasted good, but I was surprised by all the meat when so many American Indians had diets that were heavier in veggies, fruits, legumes, roots, and grains.
Ah well. They had to get the meat and dairy lovin’ masses of North America appeased somehow.

Everyone said we must eat here and they were right. Besides the fact that we could spend much more time at this museum, we want to return to the café as well!
So many options and intriguing choices. Plenty to talk about with the different regions. Not all that exotic either. Don’t let it scare you away as being «Native American» food. It’s regional food, with an understanding of spices from various regions.
I had a bbq pork shank with fried cheesy bread and Brussel sprouts. Partner had a red bean and quinoa stew with blue corn bread. Yummy!

This cafeteria has a large selection of native American inspired cuisine. I think it is safe to say this place serves up some of the best and most creative food you can get from any of the museums in the area.

Oh poor tourists. If they knew there were options nearby in Penn Quarter they would do better to go ahead and hoof it across the mall and up 8^th or 7^th Streets. This place is expensive but offers very lackluster flavors. The menu choices are extremely challenging because what is listed on the screens above each prep-​station doesn’t match exactly what you see below. Some of the food appears unique and there are nice vegetable side dishes. However the prices are exorbitant and quantities disatisfactory. In addition the experience of carting around your own food, tabling your own dishes later, finding your own cutlery in the middle of a poorly laid out space where people are milling around is just… not worth what you are paying.

I was told by MANY people that we absolutely had to eat at the Mitsitam Café while in DC. Since I always* do as I’m told, that’s what we did.
It was definitely interesting. There were some very tasty items, and it was great to see so many different dishes offered. However, it was really expensive (as are most museum cafes) and the kids had a hard time finding things they were willing to eat. I had the salmon and the mushroom oyster stuffing. The salmon was FINE; kind of dry and stingy on the tasty salsa for the top. The stuffing was really good. My husband got the quinoa soup (yum!) and pulled pork tacos. He enjoyed them.
It was also slow, and the woman who served me was completely overwhelmed with two stations. In fact, I wanted a gordita at first, but switched stations because the wait was so long.
Anyway, I’d go back on my own and if I felt particularly wealthy. That stuffing was really good!

This cafeteria-​style café seemed pretty promising until I actually sat down to eat the food. When you walk in, it’s hard not to be impressed by the variety of regions represented, as well as the many selections available! Everything smells amazing, and I started to think we’d hit the jackpot for a quick lunch find while exploring museums.
I ordered the chicken tinga tacos and my husband got the bison chili taco on fry bread. My chicken was dry as a bone, and parts of it were actually inedible because they had completely dried and become hard. My husband said his food was ok, but not exactly what he had expected. The food is also pretty expensive (but what isn’t in DC?). I noticed that they heavily advertise the more expensive items and make it seem like they don’t have smaller portions or less expensive items, but if you go up to each counter and look closely, you’ll see small signs stating otherwise.
I wouldn’t recommend this place.

Still the best on the Mall, but has slipped. Not what it once was, a real shame because it’s unique. We enjoyed our lunch but left hungry, decided a bigger dinner would be a better value.
Most things said earlier are true: it’s a cafeteria with tight seating. Food is segregated into regional cuisine stations. The serving area is a mad house at all times; the seating area is when the restaurant fills. Yankee Stadium aspires to be this expensive.
The electric signs over each food station didn’t completely match the food at that station. And there’s no single menu describing all the available food. This makes it really hard when you have to go from station to station to see what food you want, and then get in line. Did I mention that the serving area is a zoo?
If you’re a first timer, it is unique food, so you should probably go. Just be prepared for it.
Oh, and go during off-​peak times. The line can get well over an hour long.

Four stars simply for the experience. I mean, realistically speaking, how often do you get the chance to try food styles that Native Americans may have eaten?
The cafeteria is divided by region, so naturally I went for the East Coast menu. Maple roasted turkey, bacon cornbread, and watercress/​wild rice salad did remind me almost instantly of tales of the local Siwanoy in my home borough of the Bronx. The meal was definitely hearty and portions were pretty big. Yes, it was expensive, but museum food is never cheap.
Brotip: Do skip the beverages and desserts. They aren’t anything particularly unique.

After seeing and hearing the rave reviews of this particular cafeteria (supposedly the best one in the Smithsonian complex), I decided that it would be worth a stop for lunch. Certainly walking into the café area was impressive, divided up into stations based on ethnic cuisines of a particular region. This is on the high side of two dollar signs, especially if you want something with meat on it. For cafeteria dining, this seems to be a rather unusual occurrence.
The stations there seemed a bit understaffed; while there were two people working at the burger/​chicken tender/​Indian taco line, there were only two people that were manning the other four stations. While one of them was quite helpful in explaining what the different foods were (and being willing to hand out sample cups to those who asked), the other wouldn’t give you the time of day if you weren’t immediately going to buy some of the food he was tending. That likely led us towards getting our food exclusively from the helpful employee. I also was stuck behind a group of touring young students that seemed to want to try everything available; one even reached up over the glass, broke off a piece of the blue corn cornbread, and ate it, all with no reprimand from the teacher. It was nice to see the staff promptly and efficiently cleaning up after the little hellions.
We ended up taking the colorful plate option and turning four side dishes into a meal (there’s a bit of a discount if you do so). They ended up being out of one of our first choices, so we got the Three Sisters salad, mashed parsnip, mustard greens and onions, and a warm cabbage slaw. The Three Sisters salad was supposed to be the only cold dish, but it was the cabbage and fennel that ended up being the only warm dish, instead. The two that were supposed to be hot were on the room-​temperature side of lukewarm. The cabbage slaw was the best of the four, but it was also apparent that all four entrees had potential that was left unfulfilled.
We also got some sort of quinoa dessert which consisted of two dense cakes a couple inches across that were separated by a layer of dulce de leche, and all of it was topped with whipped cream. I couldn’t tell if the dessert was supposed to be cool or warm, as it was also served at room temperature. The cakes contained some very tough anise seeds that jarred me until I figured out what the unlabeled hard objects in my food were. They were also a bit dry, needing the whipped cream to reach a pleasant level of moisture. As for the dulce de leche, well, we couldn’t tell that it was there until we isolated a portion of it and stripped away the rest of the dessert from it.
It was nice to beat the rain by getting a bite to eat, both the nourishment and the overall experience left a lot to be desired

Let’s get the basics out of the way.
It’s not cheap at all
It’s a cafeteria.
The seating area is very tight.
Vast majority of the desserts you’ve seen someplace else.
This is the sort of place that’s wasted on tourists. There are very few places like that in DC, but this is at the top of the list.
Unless you’re from an area that still has a a significant Native American/​First People’s presence, then you don’t really get a chance to try any of the various foods offered.
It breaks down into
— The Plains Indians
— The NW Indians
— The East Coast
— SW/​Meso American Indians
I’ve had a number of dishes from the NW side. I’d go with the beef offerings. My siblings really liked the SW side, betraying their Texas residence.
This most recent trip I went with the plains.
Braised bison short rib over hominy.
Coupled with buckwheat, apple, and thyme cobbler.
This was a lot of food, not cheap at all.
Conception wise, this was very sophisticated, the kind of thing that you’d expect at one of the numerous expense account establishments that infest this city.
Execution wise, it was a miss. It’s a cafeteria, but as a Luby’s veteran, that’s not an excuse for a hair above lukewarm food.
The bison had been cooked well. Fall off the bone, it was like a more luxurious pot roast. For my money, it could have been more aggressively seasoned.
The hominy was sad though. When you cook meat and potatoes at home, the potatoes are the vehicle of flavor. Hominy stands in for the starch, but since it wasn’t cooked with the beef, you get little white pearls of Styrofoam instead.
The seasoned fries were super Hannah Montana, they needed to be a lot more Beyonce. The seasoning was atop the heat lamp. A concession to the middle America crowd? (more likely the culture less transplants) Had they been fried to order and attacked with spice like they do at 5 guys, they’d be awesome.
The most interesting part of the meal was the cobbler. Buckwheat has the texture of a yeast roll and the nice color of whole wheat. I was intrigued and concerned by the thyme and apple combination, but that turned out to be the best interplay of the whole meal
I still liked the meal, but this place could easily be one of the top dining destinations in D.C.

It’s an interesting, if expensive, alternative on the mall. On my last visit I had the special buffalo burger that was good not great and took a while to prepare. To their credit it was cooked to order which is a rarity in a cafeteria setting. This place is pretty much what you make of it. If you want bland cafeteria food you can get that. But if you want something more exotic you can get that too. The one downside is that it is pretty expensive even with the Fed discount I still paid about $ 20 for a burger, fries, and a drink.

This place might have been cool a few years ago, but it’s very definitively reverted to the mean of bland, overpriced, museum cafeteria food.
I got a small plate of salmon with quinoa. Bland. Completely bland and blindingly expensive for the portions and quality. My 2 friends who I was with agreed with me on their dishes. And say nothing about the environment; Mitsitam had the ambiance of an elementary school cafeteria. I came on rumors that this place was a hidden smithsonian gem, and I was totally blindsided by disappointment and mediocrity.
I expected variety; I got Guy Fieri’s Times Square Native American Kitchen.

The food choices are creative and I like that they are organized in a geographically manner based on cultural groups. This place is not structured well for a crowd though. It’s hard to maneuver the small servery and the staff didn’t seem overly eager to actually give food to customers.
The food was okay. I had the tacos. I think this probably wasn’t the best choice considering the other options
Quite expensive for what you get.

Not to be skipped at the museum of the American Indian. The prices are a little steep, especially when the a la carte options start adding up, but it’s totally delicious and worth it. A wide selection of native-​esque foods from across a continent, there’s everything from elk to shellfish. It makes me wish all the Smithsonians had themed restaurants — maybe an American and a Russian restaurant competing in the Air and Space?

This is my second time visiting the Mitsitam Café. It is located inside the National Museum of the American Indian. This is by far the best option for food within the Smithsonian museum area. There are many options beyond burgers and fries. The food is delicious and much healthier than anything you find elsewhere along the Mall.
The one downside is the price. It is very expensive. While the museums are free to enter, you seem to make up for it in the price of the food. I ordered the cedar plank salmon entrée with two sides and that ran me $ 22. Include my wife’s meal and we’re approaching $ 40 for lunch, without a drink or dessert.
Yet despite the price, I can’t imagine going elsewhere to eat while visiting the museums. You can’t beat the fresh options and healthy fare.

The food. Five stars. I had the five region sampler for approximately $ 30, it fed both myself and my wife. The food was just amazing! Came with salmon, bison steak, and choice of 3 sides. There was nothing leftover at the end, we ate every morsel.
The setting. It’s cafeteria style, so you just order your food, sit down, eat, finish, and go on with the rest of your day. Everything was fast, but the quality did not lack.
The authenticity. There were a lot of native Americans within the building, and the food in the cafeteria just looked and tasted really good. Highly recommend coming here either for lunch or dinner. Come before 5pm, because that’s the time this place closes. Best to order your food before 4:45pm otherwise you won’t make it on time. I’ll be back.

Mitsitam represents the best of the food available at a Museum on the Mall. It also provides an interesting variety of food that, like many other restaurants, rotates seasonally. Expect to find more root vegetables, dark leafy greens, and various squash in the winter, with fruit playing larger role in the summer menu.
Another relatively interesting feature of the restaurant is that it organizes its food regionally. Care to eat food whose preparation originates in the American West or Southwest? Each has its own station. There are a total of 5 or 6 stations each which offers a range of appetizers, mains, aides, salads, soups, and desserts. For the less adventurous, there are also a number of standard American cafeteria items, but it’s quite worth trying some of the more exotic fair. Who knows– you might even like it.

I visited Mitsitam Café in the National Museum of the American Indian again recently with my boyfriend and we had a fantastic time. This place never fails to impress me! Since it’s been over a year and a half since my last review (and visit), I wanted to write another review to affirm how wonderful this place is. The food is delicious, service is great, and they have quite a nice selection of different foods representative of different regions /​peoples in North America. I ordered the Indian taco chili from the Great Plains section again and it was delicious! The food is a bit on the pricier side, but it’s to be expected from a museum restaurant.
Mitsitam continues to be the best museum restaurant on the National Mall. It’s not even comparable!

Mitsitam Café is one of the only places in this area of SW DC that you can get a quality lunch on any day of the week. No man can live on McDonald’s, Potbelly, and salads alone plus food trucks aren’t fun when it’s raining outside. Mitsitam is the spot to have a nice lunch with a fountain view and a reason to explore and walk off those calories afterwards.
Recently, I went with my project manager and we were impressed by the selection and freshness of choices. The Cedar Plank salmon was definitely my favorite… tender, flavorful and not overcooked at all. My veggie sides were the roasted potatoes and mushrooms + grilled nopales, green beans, and onions – both were seasoned well but a bit greasy for my liking. We split the trio of sliders: elk burger, house ground turkey burger, and the buffalo and duck burger. The elk was a bit tough/​dry since the meat is so lean but a good combo of flavors – the goat cheese created a nice balance of flavors but I’m not sure if I would order a whole one of these… don’t hate the player, hate the game-​yness. The buffalo/​duck burger was the most tasty with cheddar cheese and a sauce that made me believe that I could eat a full-​size version of this burger.
The real disappointing thing about this place is the cost. I would venture to say pretty much every single thing here is too expensive. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not cheap to serve up fresh wild caught seafood or high quality buffalo meat but it discourages me from coming here often or trying a variety of items.

The Misitam café is located in the National Museum of the American Indian. It’s a cafeteria, but a pricey one. It’s a self serve place, you get a tray, you walk to a stall and you order.
The food:
Strawberry Tart– it was actually a really nice tart. The strawberries were really sweet, the tart itself was nice and flaky, the vanilla sauce was sweet but not too sweet.
Chipotle chicken taco– grilled chipotle chicken, fry bread, lettuce tomato and shredded cheese. The flatbread was nice, but became soggy from the chipotle chicken, the chicken and other stuff was pretty standard. The taco was OK, but not worth $ 12.50.