♪ ♪ NARRATOR: In the 2000s, Washington finally shed its label as a steak-and-potatoes town.

ANDY: Washington was a very sleepy town.

If you wanted to go out to a fancy place, you ended up either going on K Street or in Georgetown.

Eventually, that was bound to change.

AMANDA: The rise of the restaurant scene was really a startling and fast-paced thing, but at first, it was just super exciting.

ROXANNE: There was the national trend where food became more of a recreational activity.

CHEF: Perfect.

ROXANNE: Suddenly, restaurants themselves became not just an addition to an evening but point of the evening, and so it became a much more vibrant food town.

NARRATOR: Spanish-born chef José Andrés led Washington's culinary revolution.

JOSE: Washington was always under the radar on the amazing things we were doing and were happening right here in D.C. NARRATOR: Andrés' Minibar, opened in 2002, broke the fine dining mold.

JOSE: And we had this bar in the second floor where Café Atlantico was with six seats.

We transform it into a very unique, creative place.

Here we have avocado, tomato, lime, cilantro, tortilla chips.

Ladies and gentlemen, guacamole.

People began calling it molecular cooking.

We only call it good creative cooking.

ANDY: Going from a good crab cake at Kincaid's or a half smoke at Ben's Chili Bowl to places that have, like, eight stools and you eat food with a syringe, it's like, "Wow!"

NARRATOR: For more clips, and to watch the full program visit weta.org/decades.