This post by DCist contributor Rawn James, Jr.

This week’s Five O’Clock Meeting takes us to a happy hour that runs Mondays through Fridays from 5-7pm, but on Tuesdays, lasts until 11pm. The spotlight this week shines on Viridian, located north on 14th Street, NW just north of the Studio Theatre in Logan Circle.

Viridian’s space is a unique combination of polished concrete and unobtrusive modernity. On this early evening, large paintings catch angled sunlight from even larger windows. Behind the bar flickers a rather depressing short film entitled “Resolve,” by Kathryn Cornelius; the five minute loop consists of a barefoot woman in a black dress pushing a vacuum cleaner back and forth across the beach. She is having considerable difficulty getting across the dry sand. Thankfully, we’re not here for the filmmaking.

Executive chef Michael Hartzer has been running the kitchen at Viridian for less than two months, but his experience—as chef de cuisine at Michel Richard Citronelle and as executive chef at Silver Spring’s Ray’s the Classics—explains why Viridian offers the one of the most delectably diverse happy hour menus in the nation’s capital. There are just a few items on the menu, but the selections change with the seasons. Each of the food offerings costs $5.00, as do the rail cocktails, bottled beers and glasses of wine. The rail drinks are low-grade call liquors like Jack Daniels, a welcome step up from the Bowman’s rot-gut that is too-often offered at D.C.’s happy hours. This more than makes up for Viridian's lack of specific cocktail specials, which the restaurant has discontinued. Use this opportunity to explore some cocktail classics like the Sidecar, Tom Collins, or Sazerac.

The steamed mussels with garlic thyme cream and grilled croutons are, in a city replete with bowls of mussels, refreshingly simple. The sliced shallots complement the garlic cream sauce and both invite you to use the “crouton”—a basket of warm focaccia bread—as the third utensil. While mussels served at other D.C. happy hours are often dried by overcooking, Viridian’s happy hour mussels are full-bodied and soft.

A “petite calzone” arrives alongside an unannounced and lightly dressed salad. The calzone, which is not so petite, is stuffed with a roasted tomato, mozzarella and capers and each holds up well inside a bread that is crispy on the outside and soft-but-not-doughy on the inside. The only misstep is the thick anchovy dipping sauce, which, given the little fish’s love-it-or-hate-it status, should be announced on the menu.

The “roasted chicken drumette with pickled onion” dish presents two oven roasted chicken "drumettes" crossed atop a bed of spinach layered with slices of garlic. Pickled red onions are softened and swirl in a pan sauce that begs you to gather a little chicken, spinach and onions in each bite.

Finding a seat at Viridian’s bar on Tuesday evenings can be a challenge, particularly when groups of five or six begin to move chairs to accommodate themselves. There is a fair amount of standing room, however, and the padding installed beneath the bar and tables wonderfully mutes what otherwise could become a cacophonous one-story of Babel on the polished concrete floor. Between Chef Hartzer’s spring happy hour menu and the bar’s well-poured drinks, Viridian certainly presents one of the District’s best venues in which to celebrate a happy daylight savings hour.

Viridian
1515 14th Street, NW
Metro: Dupont Circle, McPherson Square
202-234-1400

Photo of a chandelier in Viridian from tragicallypale, used with permission