Every Friday, we fill you in on what’s been happening in the local restaurant world.
• Richard Blais, a Top Chef season-four finalist, announced that he’s bringing his Flip Burger Boutique to DC’s Penn Quarter next year. The slogan for the restaurant, which Blais would like to make a nationwide chain, is “fine dining between two buns,” and the first location is in Atlanta. The menu there has 20 burgers, which include such ingredients as Japanese Kobe beef, foie gras, kimchee ketchup, and pickled apples. Sides include vodka-battered onion rings with beer honey mustard and veal-sweetbread nuggets. The molecular-gastronomy fanatic also has liquid-nitrogen milkshakes whose flavors include Krispy Kreme, pistachio-and-white-truffle, and foie gras.
Every Friday, we fill you in on what’s been happening in the local restaurant world.
• White House pastry chef Bill “the crustmaster” Yosses (nickname by President Obama), spilled a few of the First Family’s eating habits. The Obamas love fruit pies, but hate meringue and don’t go for cookies. Despite the President’s earlier proclamation that “the pastry chef makes the best pie I’ve ever tasted, and that is causing big problems for Michelle and myself,” Yosses says that the health-conscious family only indulges in their favorite dessert about once a week.
An upscale pub brings all things British (plus 130 kinds of Scotch!) to DC's Penn Quarter. Check out our photo slideshow and the menus.
CORE—the architecture and design team behind Potenza, Brasserie Beck, and Comet Ping Pong—created Againn's upscale pub vibe. Photograph by Chris Leaman.
For all their literary, musical, and theatrical achievements, Britons haven’t traditionally been known for their flair in the kitchen. Fish and chips can be synonymous with crude frying, and mushy peas taste like, well, mush. But thanks to Michelin-starred English chefs such as Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay—and locals such as Jamie Leeds of CommonWealth—UK cuisine has become de rigueur.
In keeping with this trend is Againn, a British-inspired gastropub that opened last week on the fringes of DC’s Penn Quarter. Contrary to spell check, the oddly named location isn’t a typo—it loosely translates as “are you going?,” “with us,” or “at us,” depending on your Gaelic dictionary.
At Mr. Yogato in DC’s Dupont Circle, owner Steve Davis gives 10 percent off to anyone willing to get the fro-yo shop’s name stamped on their foreheads. BGR the Burger Joint is doing customers one better on Tuesday—for an hour, at least. From 11 to noon, anyone who shows up at one of the three outposts (the original in Bethesda plus two newer locations in Dupont Circle and Old Town) with BGR written on any body part will get a free veggie or regular burger. If you forget to ink yourself, there’ll be BGR reps stationed with stamps at the ready.
Every Friday, we fill you in on what’s been happening in the local restaurant world.
On Monday night, Coppi’s Organic co-owner Nori Amaya was found dead in her apartment, according to NBCWashington.com. Police ruled that the 38-year-old, who owned the U Street restaurant with her brother, Carlos, was strangled.
D’Acqua, a seafood-centric restaurant in downtown DC, shut its doors for good on Friday after its landlord proposed a rent increase, reports the Washington Business Journal’s Missy Frederick. Chef Enzo Febbraro’s other two businesses, a mini D’Acqua in the Verizon Center and the recently opened Forno in Ashburn, aren’t affected by the closure. Febbraro is scouting locations to reopen D’Acqua.
Ping Pong Dim Sum, which has 16 storefronts in England, signed a deal in July for an outpost in DC’s Penn Quarter, its first US location. The company said Tuesday the opening is set for December.
To be among the lunch-breakers who routinely line up outside downtown DC’s Greek Deli in the hope of grabbing a cup of avgolemono soup is to experience a moment straight out of Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” episode. Owner Kosta Fostieris moves things along quickly—the soup has quite a following—but unlike the episode’s title character, he’s an affable fellow. So what makes the egg-and-lemon soup so good? We set up our cameras in his kitchen to find out.
Magical Elves, the production company behind Top Chef, held its first Washington casting call this morning at the Occidental Grille. The company is currently casting for the next season of the Bravo TV show as well as its pastry-focused spinoff, Top Chef: Just Desserts. With three local contestants on the current season of the show, we were expecting to see a mob of chefs lined up outside the restaurant as early as 9 this morning—casting ran from 10 to 2—but we found only a handful of hopefuls, mostly from outside the Washington area. We chatted with a few of the wannabe cheftestants.
Gone are the robust bureaus for the Los Angeles Times, Newhouse News, and other once-healthy news organizations. Digital media bureaus now are taking their places with as many reporters and plenty of swagger.
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Though Ann Limpert graduated from Connecticut College with a degree in art history and creative writing, she spent most of her time in New England debating the merits of warm, buttery lobster rolls vs. cold, mayo-y ones. She spent two years covering the internet for Entertainment Weekly magazine (highlights include interviewing the Beastie Boys and dancing to "Livin' la Vida Loca" with Penn Jillette), then left to hone her kitchen skills at the Institute of Culinary Education. She has worked as a cook at several New York restaurants, researched and edited cookbooks, and now writes about food and restaurants for the Washingtonian.
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Kate Nerenberg
Kate Nerenberg started as an editorial intern at The Washingtonian in January 2008 and became an assistant editor in September 2008. A native of West Hartford, Connecticut, she spent the first half of her writing life as a sports reporter, and was the editor of the athletics section for the newspaper and student-run magazine while at Middlebury College. A joint Spanish and Art History major, Kate graduated in 2005 and took off on a year-long journey around the world. After tasting everything from fried crickets to lavish Turkish breakfasts, she realized she wanted to devote herself to writing about food, a lifelong passion. She lives with three roommates just east of Logan Circle in a house that's often filled with the smell of sauteed garlic, warm banana bread, or fried bacon and eggs.
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Rina Rapuano
Rina Rapuano's English degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond put her on the path to becoming a managing editor of a weekly business magazine; a freelance copy editor; and assistant managing news editor—and later the lifestyles editor—at a weekly paper in Maryland. But she realized her true calling when her descriptions of meals to friends and colleagues always seemed to end with the same statement: “You're making me hungry.” Frankly, it was making Rina hungry, too. She chucked her day job in 2006 to become a full-time freelance writer focusing mainly on food, and now works as assistant food and wine editor at The Washingtonian.
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