Chef Spike Mendelsohn is probably one of the few people to refer to D.C. as “laid-back.”

But the description — at least compared with New York City — is what prompted him to found his own restaurant company, Sunny Side Group LLC, in D.C., even after successful stints at Manhattan’s Le Cirque and Tribeca’s Mai House. His first restaurant, Good Stuff Eatery, opens on Capitol Hill on July 7.

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