In February 2017, a controversy roiled the food world: President Donald Trump went to a steakhouse for dinner, where he ordered a $54 steak well-done and paired it with a heavy helping of ketchup. The story caught on because it seemed to reflect Trump's worst tendencies: his inability to take advice and his helplessly gauche behavior despite his wealth. At the time, writer Helen Rosner put it succinctly, writing “A person who refuses to try something better is a person who will never make things good.”

On Sunday, in a look at V.I.P. dining in Washington, D.C., published in Washingtonian magazine, another data point emerged in Trump dining story. Badger Russell, a former server at the Trump restaurant in D.C., said that as far as he could tell, Trump was putting the ketchup on his fries, not his steak, when he would dine at the restaurant. The server also added that every time Trump dined at the restaurant, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

That the president expects adulation with his well-done steak is one understandable reason why he tends not to eat at restaurants that he does not own himself. He’s probably doing the other restaurants of D.C. a favor: consider what happened when Trump official Stephen Miller allegedly demanded a seat in the middle of the restaurant, sparking anti-Trump anger among other customers.

But for as many Trumpworld figures as there are dining in D.C., it's still the previous administration that owns the hearts and minds. Restaurants will still do anything they can to accommodate Barack and especially Michelle Obama, whose presence at a restaurant is “such great word-of-mouth advertising,” said Billy Carter, who has been a maître d’ at various D.C. haunts. And the restauranteurs return the favor by keeping their dining habits to themselves, though Brent Kroll, a former beverage director at the St. Regis, acknowledged that when it came to wine, “Barack Obama wouldn’t go really expensive. He wanted domestic."

When the Obamas are in, everyone who enters the restaurant is wanded, which seems like a pain, but is worth it for the employees and owners. “We don’t say at first, but finally it all gets out, so all those people are going to say, ‘I was at Joe’s when Michelle was there,’ ” added Carter.

Unlike celebrity-choked Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., still has the type of restaurant culture where having a big name gets you the best service. Unless you’re one of the many politicians who all kind of look the same. At the restaurant Oyamel, they realized one day that a regular who would dine at the bar was wearing a lapel pin. They finally thought to look at the name on the credit card, and it was former Tennessee senator Bob Corker they had been serving that whole time. Who can blame them? Would you recognize Bob Corker in the wild?

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

— The campiest looks from this year’s Met Gala

— Shooting a tiger: the bitter infighting, global protests, and massive egos of India’s most controversial tiger hunt

— How the thong inventor’s work lives on

— When did fashion get religious?

— Dispatches from Andy Warhol’s “human tape recorder”

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss a story.