Best Restaurants for Outdoor Dining in Penn Quarter

Carmine's is my family favorite for Christmas Eve dinner. Everyone in the restaurant was wonderful--from the people checking us in and seating us to the people in the kitchen who prepared wonderful food. My last bit of praise is for the young woman who helped us navigate Carmine's menu to seeing that all our food and beverages arrived at the table with just enough time between courses.

Wonderful service and food. Really love the ambiance and the quality. Only down side was the 5% charge added to the bill, notated as NOT a tip but a service charge due to increasing cost to run the business. As a business owner myself I would not charge a fee rather if you need more money just charge more for your items. We tip 20% minimum everywhere we go but to be charged an extra 5% on top of the bill seems strange. Some people will just leave when they see that. I guess I appreciate the honesty however considering the menus are printed daily at this restaurant they could just raise the prices and then no one would be aware or need to know about the extra "we're hurting and business is tough" charge. Again - I own businesses. I understand. It's been rough the past two years.

Service started a little slow, but our server had many tables and it's a Saturday night in DC. Fine after he turned some tables. Food was excellent and came out at a nice pace. Look forward to coming back!

Everything we had was really good! They were busy and still all of our food was cooked perfectly and no long waits for the food!

Staff were attentive and welcoming. Food was very delicious. We ordered small plates and a side: Burrata, raw bar (half dozen), chickpea tortilla tacos, tuna meatballs, grilled octopus, grilled carrots. Our favorite was the tuna meatballs - definitely ordering that again! The only dish that was slightly off was the octopus - was a little overcooked. The staff graciously gave us our dessert to go (so we could properly thank the grandparent sitters). We’d gladly come back for cocktails and full entrees in the future!