Mike Isabella will debut Bandolero dishes at a pop-up in February. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

“This is not classic food,” says Mike Isabella, pointing to a draft of the Bandolero menu. “The tradition is there, but then it’s the Mike Isabella touch.”

A few days before Living Social announced a new pop-up project that will preview the menu at Isabella’s forthcoming Mexican restaurant in Georgetown, the Graffiato chef had just returned from an eating trip to San Francisco—the final leg of a three-city tour designed to familiarize himself with the offerings at the best Mexican eateries around the country. In between these jaunts, he’s been poring over the Mexican cookbook canon, “from Diana Kennedy, the classic, to Rick Bayless and some of the modern stuff.” The Bandolero menu has yet to be finalized—Isabella says he’ll likely make tweaks up until two weeks from the opening—but the chef seems to have nailed down the lion’s share of the dishes.

Here’s the scoop on what to expect:

California cuisine luminary Alice Waters heads to DC this month. Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe.

At her Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters has famously served diners a raw, unpeeled peach for dessert, saying the fruit was perfect and therefore impossible to improve upon. This devotion to seasonal, local, organic produce evolved into a philanthropic and political passion—she is an outspoken advocate for universal access to healthy organic food, reform in school lunches, and farmers’ rights.

Later this month, Waters will come to Washington for Sunday Night Suppers, an annual event she organizes with Joan Nathan and José Andrés in which 20 chefs, both local and far-flung, cook dinner for groups of 15 to 40 people at Washington homes. At $550, the dinners don’t come cheap—but then again, says Waters, you might just wind up seated next to a Supreme Court justice.

We recently chatted with the chef, who shared her thoughts on unexpected dinner guests, her charitable contributions, and what she loves about Washington.

Melissa Clark is not afraid of a little fat. Photograph by Lucy Schaeffer

As far as food writers are concerned, Melissa Clark is living the dream. She is a New York Times columnist, a culinary mag contributor, and the author of more than 30 cookbooks, including collaborations with top toques like Daniel Boulud and White House pastry chef Bill Yosses.

Clark recently visited Washington to promote her latest work, Cook This Now, a personal record of seasonal recipes she compiled over a year of making her favorite meals for her husband and three-year-old daughter. We caught up with her at KramerBooks & Afterwords Cafe, where she dished about the essentials of good cookbook writing, favorite New Year’s Eve dishes, and which local chef whips up a sauce good enough to be licked off a shoe.

You’ve worked on so many cookbooks. What do you think is essential to writing a good one?

I always say there are so many different paths to dinner. So what I do in this book—which I probably will do in anything I write from now on, really—is to break it down: all the other ways the dinner could have gone. I could have done this if I had this, substituted this, etc. I show people all the roads not taken. I love the roads not taken.

Don't call Eric Ripert a Silver Fox. Photograph by Stacy Zarin-Goldberg.

Celebrity chef Eric Ripert is known for his million-dollar smile, and a bidder at last year's Capitol Food Fight was willing to shell out $10,000 for his presence at a dinner held yesterday (the money went to DC Central Kitchen). The Avec Eric star's last trip to Washington—where he oversees Westend Bistro in the downtown DC Ritz-Carlton—involved a whirlwind dining tour with stops at the Source, Graffiato, Zaytinya, Citronelle, and Georgetown stalwart Bistro Francais ("It has this authentic feeling, like it has a soul."), but don't expect too many Ripert-sightings this time around; minus a stroll or two in Georgetown, Ripert says this trip is all business.

We caught up with Ripert as he was taking a break from kitchen rounds. Still wearing a crisp white chef’s coat that bears the name of his New York flagship, Le Bernardin—and his signature string of Tibetan prayer beads—he submitted to our Either/Or questionnaire.

Half-smoke or New York City dirty-water dog?
"Half-smoke—I've been to Ben's."

Who would you press the mute button on—Gordon Ramsey or Elia Aboumrad?
"Can I have a wild card for that?  I don't wish anyone something bad like that. But if I'm watching TV, Gordon is out."

The best way to kill a lobster—steaming or knife through the head?
"A 20-inch chef knife."

Sonya Thomas is ready to shovel down some chili.

Major League Eating comes to Washington this weekend with the World Chili Eating Competition, which will be held on Sunday at 12:35 as part of the Taste of DC festival. Ben's Chili Bowl is cooking up more than 30 gallons of its spicy beef chili, which the top competitors will have six minutes to devour by the gallon. The person that downs the most gets a $1,250 prize.  

We checked in with Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, the International Federation of Competitive Eating's highest ranked female, and fifth best eater overall. You wouldn't guess by looking at Thomas that the 105 pound 44 year-old could take down 11 pounds of cheesecake in nine minutes, but she has garnered some of the most prized titles in competitive eating, including winning the female division of the most recent Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship. She chatted with us about her job at Burger King, Rocky Mountain oysters, and her goal to eat 15 pounds of Ben's chili.

Yesterday, we interviewed her toughest competition, Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, currently the highest ranked Major League Eater.

Anthony Lombardo is ditching red sauce for rack of lamb.

There's been plenty of buzz over the chef shuffle at 1789 restaurant, where after three years leading the kitchen, Daniel Giusti is leaving for Copenhagen to work at Noma. His spot was filled quickly: Casa Nonna sous-chef Anthony Lombardo is set to take the helm on August 31. We spoke with Lombardo about the cooking test that landed him the job, Kanye West, and his love of cupcakes.

How did you know Dan Giusti? We hear he tapped you for the job.
“We're longtime friends. We went to the Culinary Institute of America together, and then to a Slow Food designated cooking school in Italy. We were also roommates for a year in Alexandria.”

Your cooking background is mainly Italian—you spent four years as chef de cuisine at Bacco Ristorante in MIchigan and also worked at Galileo here in DC. Is your family Italian?
“I come from an Italian family in Detroit. My mother is first generation from Abruzzo, and my dad from Sicily. Professionally they weren't cooks, but Sundays were always a feast at grandma's house. It's a blue collar automotive-based family, but I always ended up making food with my mother instead of fixing up cars with my dad.”