The servers at Ceiba love to gush about how executive pastry chef David Guas has been featured on the Today show. Now comes word from Guas’s wife, Passion Food Hospitality publicist Simone Rathle, that the camera-ready confectioner will no longer be overseeing desserts there or at the group's other restaurants, Acadiana, TenPenh, and DC Coast.
Starting in September, Guas will launch “an entrepreneurial career as a private consultant, caterer, and cookbook author.” Taking his place will be not one chef but three. Norman Messer, currently the pastry chef at TenPenh, will handle the desserts there and at Ceiba; Chris Hutcheson, who worked at Leopold’s Kafe & Konditorei in Georgetown is slated to oversee Acadiana; and Guas’s current assistant, Lauren Whitledge, will be in charge of the sweets at DC Coast. So at least if one runs off to do a TV spot, there will be someone keeping an eye on the kitchens.
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.
