Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) have collectively spent thousands of donor dollars at a controversial gourmet Palestinian restaurant whose owner accuses Israel of using food "to starve people and deprive them of their human rights" and posed in a Keffiyeh for a New York Times review.
The socialist "Squad" members' taste for spending other people's money on high-end Palestinian cuisine is just one example of how Democratic Socialists and other far-left members of Congress are spending large at exclusive, Michelin-starred restaurants, according to data buried in campaign filings that was reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The luxurious restaurants in question are the haunts of the ultra-rich people these representatives frequently denounce.
Ocasio-Cortez has dropped nearly $10,000 at a number of Michelin restaurants, Federal Election Commission records show. A third of her spending was a $3,326.57 tab at Albi, a Washington, D.C., Palestinian restaurant which openly leans into support for terrorism.
Albi's menu features a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, who resigned from the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee in protest in 1993 in opposition to the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel. The restaurant is particularly proud of its collection of Levantine wine (none from Israel) that includes bottles sourced from Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. One wine, called "Grapes of Wrath," is identified by the restaurant as being from "the West Bank, Palestine."
Albi was also the recipient this summer of the Times's first-ever four-star review for a restaurant outside New York City. The award, by new chief restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan, focused more on Palestinian ethnic identity than food, and was highly irregular. There are only five four-star restaurants out of the 20,000 restaurants in New York City, and all five are in Manhattan.
Tlaib, who was censured by the House for hateful rhetoric against Israel, has dropped more than $2,700 at Albi for meals and catering, records show.
Like AOC, Tlaib—also a proud Democratic Socialist—has made a point of fighting for the 99 percent—even as she dines like the 1 percent.
"I will continue to fight for working class people and take on wealth inequality," Tlaib said in a statement on December 6, 2024—the same day she took a $1,156 meal at Albi.
On September 11, 2024—as Americans spent the day in somber reflection—AOC's campaign committee dropped $2,338.34 at Alinea. The blowout Michelin three-star in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood was named the "Best Restaurant in the World by Elite Traveler," its website proudly notes.
The restaurant's signature 18-course tasting menu runs a cool $495 per person. Throw on a wine pairing and the bill quickly approaches $1,000 a head. Team AOC reported the expenditure as "catering."
Just days before, AOC had thundered against the rich at the Democratic National Convention.
"To love this country is to fight for its people, all people, working people, everyday Americans like bartenders and factory workers and fast-food cashiers who punch a clock and are on their feet all day in some of the toughest jobs out there," she said in her floor speech supporting Kamala Harris.
That same year, Team AOC also spent more than $4,000 for catering from Sushi Nakazawa, a Michelin spot near the White House famous for its chef's counter Omakase experience, records show.
Many more of Congress's well-known Lulu Lenins are also no stranger to haute cuisine. Current House Democrats have spent at least $328,000 on Michelin-starred fine dining, the Free Beacon review found.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), a fabulously wealthy California progressive whose Silicon Valley district is the richest in the country by some measures, has spent more than $1,400 of his campaign cash at The Village Pub in Woodside, Calif., where discerning diners like him and his wife, an automotive parts heiress, can enjoy Tsar Imperial Ossetra caviar for $200 a person, among other items.
Khanna also enjoys the Indian fare at Semma, a Michelin-starred New York City eatery, where he spent $400 in February.
"The inequality is staggering. We are in a new Gilded Age," Khanna bemoaned during a denunciation of "The Epstein Class" in April.
Speaking of the Epstein class, Democrat Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands delegate and longtime Epstein "friend," was a big spender even though she can't vote. Her campaign committee spent more than $4,200 on events and catering at the Michelin-starred Rose's Luxury, with an additional $1,625 at the similarly honored Pineapple and Pearls, a sister restaurant, FEC records show.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), like Khanna, a centimillionaire, once enjoyed a $1,660 meal at New York City's triple-Michelin-starred Per Se with an unnamed contributor in March 2005. Pelosi has also spent at least $778 on meals from Mister Jiu's, a Michelin-starred Chinese spot in San Francisco.
The tradition of House leadership enjoying fine dining appears set to continue with Pelosi's successor Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), whose campaign committee dropped more than $9,000 at Brooklyn's River Cafe over the years—with most of the cash coming before the haute cuisine restaurant lost its Michelin star in 2023. The Democratic leader—who pays almost no property taxes on his Brooklyn condo—also has a penchant for "strategic meetings" in Fiola in Washington, D.C., and the now-closed New York location for L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.
In terms of raw cash spent, California Rep. Mark Takano (D., Calif.) was far and away the largest fine dining enthusiast among the chamber's Democrats, thanks to his patronage of the Los Angeles Michelin eatery n/naka.
Team Takano has spent more than $74,000 on event space and catering at the Japanese restaurant between 2016 and 2026, records show.
When Takano attended a state dinner for the prime minister of Japan in 2024, n/naka owner Niki Nakayama also found his way in.
The restaurant is not in Takano's district—but is instead represented by his colleague and fellow fine dining connoisseur, Rep. Ted Lieu (D.).
But Lieu, who has spent thousands in Michelin establishments, prefers different places.
There was $1,100 at Santa Monica bistro Mélisse last July, with another $950 at Los Angeles hot spot Meteora two months later. He dropped $887 at Knife Pleat in Costa Mesa just a few months before it lost its Michelin star. In Washington, D.C., there have been trips to Rooster and Owl and a $1,370 splurge at Cranes—which has since closed. For a 2016 lunch meeting in Los Angeles, Lieu selected the ultra-luxe triple-Michelin Providence.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D.) doesn't have any Michelin restaurants in his East Texas border district—but he indulged at Zurich's La Rôtisserie in September 2025, dropping almost $400 of his donor cash during a bougie official swing through Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. In Rome, he stayed at the five-star Parco dei Principi Grand Hotel & Spa, records show. He's also dropped hundreds of dollars at Albi.
No elite bistro has benefited more than Fiola, visited by a total of 26 current House Democrats over the years for meals and catering.
None, however, have left a mark like Connecticut Rep. John B. Larson, who has dropped more than $3,800 at the Italian spot over at least 21 distinct visits, records show. Larson lost his primary to Luke Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford, in August. Bronin will almost certainly succeed him in the state's safely blue first district.
