30 Years

Red Sauce Classics at Machiavelli

While the pasta isn’t handmade and the menu holds no allegiance to any one Italian region, three decades on rapidly changing Capitol Hill can’t lie: This haunt along Pine is a neighborhood staple. As are the affordable carafes of house red, baskets of Columbia City bread, couples waiting for a table, and simple comforts like spaghetti and meatballs in red sauce. —Rosin Saez

10 Years

Memorable Meals at The Corson Building

In an old Italianate cottage amid a Georgetown garden, chef Emily Crawford Dann invents, and reinvents, seasonal odes: coho lox with tahini and ginger-marinated celery, or braised beef shoulder with brussels sprout tips, squash ribbons, and hearty caponata. Few special occasion restaurants feel this genuinely special, a magic that even infuses the old wooden chairs and communal tables. —Allecia Vermillion

20 Years

Harvest Vine’s Impeccable Tapas

Over two decades, Madison Valley’s 11-seat tapas bar added a downstairs dining room and installed chef Joey Serquinia after his Basque-leaning mentor, Joseba Jimenez de Jimenez, split up with his wife, Carolin Messier, now Harvest Vine’s sole owner. The close-quartered warmth radiates as strong as ever, delivered via a fluffy tortilla española, thin slices of cured tuna loin topped with caviar, or acorn-fed iberico pork, criminally tender and further enriched with smoked paprika oil. Generous pours of Spanish wines only amplify the appeal. —AV

10 Years

A Sharp Chop Salad at Tilikum Place Cafe

Chef Ba Culbert’s been serving midmorning realness in the form of Dutch babies—baked pancakes in a hot cast iron skillet, perhaps with spiced pumpkin or duck confit—since 2008. But lunch here on the edge of Belltown has its stunners, too: a peppery chop salad of kale, escarole, sticks of salami and ham, and a drizzle of spicy oil. —RS

A New Year’s Bubbly

Syncline Winery Scintillation Grüner Veltliner Brut Columbia Gorge 2016 $40

As the year’s end nears, let’s celebrate what was—or imbibe extensively because of what was—with a bottle of sparkling wine. Grüner veltliner is an extreme niche variety in Washington. This is, perhaps, the only sparkling grüner offering in the state. Aromas of citrus, white pepper, and flower lead to fresh, lemony flavors that linger like a Cranberries song. Pair with passed hors d’oeuvres and a New Year’s Eve rager. —Sean P. Sullivan