<p class="ingestion featured-caption">We ordered quite a spread at Charlie Palmer Steak.Alice Levitt</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>I ate at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, DC, and spent over $180 on a multicourse lunch for two.</li><li>The fig salad and peach cobbler were highlights of the meal.</li></ul><p>I may live in the <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/left-walkable-city-upsized-after-retirement-moved-to-suburbs">suburbs of Washington, DC</a>, but I'm far from a political animal.</p><p>I'm just your friendly, neighborhood food writer who rarely crosses paths with the movers and shakers who run the DC scene. I may know the restaurants where the action takes place, but the names of the players mostly evade me.</p><p>So I headed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.charliepalmersteak.com/">Charlie Palmer Steak</a> for lunch with both a critic's and an anthropologist's eye.</p><p>I threw on my conservative best (although I also brought my hippo-shaped purse) and drove with my husband into the city.</p><p>We lucked into a parking spot just across the street from the <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/woman-president-changes-history-white-house-2024-11">White House</a> and walked three minutes to the restaurant's front door at 101 Constitution Ave NW.</p>