Hollis Wells Silverman. Credit: Deb Lindsey

For Hollis Wells Silverman, Hospitality Comes Before Hype

8 Minute read

29 Jan 2026

Nevin Martell

Journalist

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From Cornell to Capitol Hill, the Washington, D.C. restaurateur has built neighborhood restaurants grounded in warmth, discipline, and deeply personal service.

Growing up in Connecticut, Hollis Silverman was not yet sure what she wanted to do with her life. Nothing in particular pulled her in. But her parents loved to host dinner parties and travel, and her early jobs included catering and food service. Those experiences led her to earn a degree in hospitality management from Cornell University in 2000.

After moving to San Francisco, she became a purchasing manager at Traci Des Jardins’s French-accented, California-inspired fine dining restaurant Jardinière, where she worked closely with chef Douglas Keane, now the chef of the Michelin one-star Cyrus in Sonoma County, California. Her understanding of ingredients shifted dramatically.

“It was eye opening,” she says. “We had a mushroom person and a fish person. We butchered everything. I was able to see the quality of the produce and product.”

After a brief stint in Guam, Silverman returned to San Francisco, working both in restaurants and as a wine broker. In 2006, she relocated to Washington, D.C., where she joined a then-fledgling restaurant group led by José Andrés as a service director.

Over the next decade, she rose through the company, eventually becoming chief operating officer and helping expand the group from five restaurants to 16.

“I feel lucky because I got a lot of time with José,” says Silverman. “He taught me so many things about teams, developing recipes, and developing concepts on every single level. I was able to see into how his mind worked and what really makes him so special and unique.”

Silverman left the restaurant group in 2013, but returned a few years later to help Andrés open Mercado Little Spain in New York City alongside elBulli legends Albert Adrià and Ferran Adrià. When that project concluded, she stepped away again, unsure whether becoming a restaurateur herself was ever part of the plan.

“I never wanted to do it because I didn't think it was a good idea,” she says. “Restaurants are insane and very challenging.”

That changed when a space opened just four blocks from her home in Capitol Hill. “I knew I would be mad if someone else did it,” she says. “I felt like I had a good grasp of what the neighborhood needed. And I’d opened so many restaurants with José.”

She ultimately landed on a trio of concepts, all operating out of a shared kitchen and intentionally cross-utilizing ingredients, equipment, and staff. The Duck & The Peach is a New American restaurant designed to feel like a high-end dinner party. The Wells is a gin-centric bar built around warmth and ease. La Collina is a neighborhood Italian restaurant focused on house-made pastas and antipasti.

Covid disrupted her opening plans, but The Duck & The Peach debuted in late 2020, with La Collina and The Wells opening the following year.

Since then, the restaurants and their teams have earned widespread recognition. The Duck & The Peach was named to The New York Times’ list of the 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, D.C. in 2023. Rochelle Cooper was honored as the 2024 RAMMY Pastry Chef of the Year, and Silverman was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2024.