• It’s been a big week for restaurant openings. On Monday, the New Haven-inspired Pete’s Apizza (1400 Irving St., NW; 202-332-7383) opened its doors above the Columbia Heights Metro station. There’s a white-clam-and-garlic pie just like at Pepe’s in New Haven, a ricotta-and-salumi topped nod to Sorbillo’s in Naples, and a gluten-free pizza. (Pies are available by the slice, too.) Plus Illy coffee and Dolcezza gelato. You can check out photos of the place here.
• The picnic tables are open for business at Tackle Box (3245 M St., NW; 202-337-8269), the Georgetown fish shack from the team behind next-door neighbor Hook. Its chef is Robert Bechtold, a protégé of New Orleans chefs John Besh and Susan Spicer, who came up to this area after Hurricane Katrina. This past Tuesday night, Bechtold had a little help from Hook’s Barton Seaver, who was expediting orders behind the counter. We’ll take another lobster roll (bound with house-made mayo and not too cold) and wedge of cinnamony blueberry pie, but not another glass of the overly puckery ($4!) lemonade.
• And finally, former Galileo and Bebo Trattoria chef de cuisine Amy Brandwein takes over in the same role at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton’s new restaurant, the unfortunately spelled Fyve, which opens today. Brandwein seems to be showing her girly side on the Mediterranean menu, with dishes such as Amy’s Purse, described in a press release as “cod prepared in a tomato cilantro broth and cumin, presented in a cellophane pouch that is opened tableside.”
• DCFoodies has some pictures of the revamped Corduroy, which is reopening in its new location (1122 Ninth St., NW; 202-589-0699) tomorrow night.
• The New York Times has an interactive map based on Gary Paul Nabhan’s new book, Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods, that shows the once-plentiful and now-depleted foods in culinary regions all over the country. We know the blue crab is in trouble, but what else is “Crab Cake Nation”—as Nabhan calls our area— in danger of losing? Apparently fish peppers, Choppee okra, White maypop passion fruit, Zimmerman pawpaws, and Ossabaw Island hogs.
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Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
