Celebrity chef Todd English’s restaurant, Olives, packs a full house for both lunch and dinner. A local hot spot for business diners, Olives offers a wide range of options, from drinks and light fare at the bar, a lively dinner with distinctive service, to a private room perfect for small dinner parties. The restaurant’s rustic-meets-urban design, a juxtaposition of wood and industrial iron accents, is simultaneously fresh and familiar, much like English’s modern takes on classic Mediterranean and Italian cuisine, such as the wood grilled sea bass with horseradish potatoes and bacony haricot verts or the tomato braised veal breast saffron pappardelle with herbed ricotta. Though lunch at Olives can be formal and stuffy — the restaurant is on K Street which is famed for its population of Washington lobbyists — happy hour and dinner take on a much more casual and jubilant atmosphere.