Downtown Bethesda is not hurting for Italian restaurants. No fewer than 13 pasta houses, trattorias, delis, and pizza shops—some several decades old—are within a three-quarter-mile radius of the genre’s latest arrival, Aventino. But there’s nothing remotely like this Rome-inspired newcomer from the folks behind Bloomingdale’s beloved Red Hen and the Navy Yard and Shaw pizzerias All-Purpose.

The dining room, all emerald green and brass, reads as clubby and chic—and, even with sponge-painted terra-cotta walls, entirely current. At the giant bar in the center of the restaurant, the crowd (there’s always a crowd) sips dirty martinis tinted with squid ink, sunset-hued Sicilian spritzes, and pitch-perfect Negronis. Aventino feels like what every owner dreams of: the place to be.