(Travel + Leisure) On a Wednesday afternoon, there were few people strolling its waterfront walkway, but I found a cheerful crowd as soon as I entered Officina, chef Nick Stefanelli's three-story Italian marketplace-restaurant-rooftop bar. Like the rest of the Wharf, Officina still has a just-out-of-the-package shine, from the marble counters to the glass case displaying house-made sausages. The olive oil on my vitello tonnato, the pasta in my bigoli all'anatra (a thick spaghetti with duck sauce), even the torrone gelato in my dessert—which tasted, no joke, the way the cool side of your pillow feels—were all for sale in the market downstairs. Stefanelli told me he had polled D.C.'s Italian community to see which hard-to-find treats he might stock for them. By the time I left, lines of cars were idling in the Wharf's drop-off zones, delivering people in steady droves.

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