• Want to nosh on Cork’s chicken-liver spread during the latest episode of Glee? Now you can. Cork Market (1805 14th St., NW; 202-265-2674), an offshoot of the Logan Circle wine bar, opens today. Besides the restaurant’s decadent signature pâté, you’ll find its oil-cured tomatoes plus charcuterie, cheese, sandwiches and carryout “picnic fare,” Copper Pot jams, and Trickling Springs Creamery products. The focus of the place though, is on wine both Old and New World—everything from budget-friendly offerings to esoteric reserve bottles.
• Almost two years ago, chef Andrew Evans traded his upscale Modern American restaurant at the Inn at Easton for the more casual Thai Ki. Now he’s stepping off the satay track and in early January will launch a barbecue house in Thai Ki’s space. Evans’s barbecue obsession is no secret. At the inn, he held summer barbecue competitions with local chefs. A few years ago, when we asked Evans what he’d eat for a last meal, he replied: “I’d want to be a judge at the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue.”
• Think the area has OD’d on burger joints? Not yet, apparently. Last week came word that Manhattan chef Laurent Tourondel would expand here beyond BLT Steak. He’ll open a branch of his BLT Burger (1317 Connecticut Ave., NW) in the spring. He’s also planning a pizza/pasta eatery in the old California Pizza Kitchen space downtown.
• Joining Tourondel on a burger kick—just a few storefronts down from BLT Burger—is Lima chef Raynold Mendizabal, who is opening his international-themed patty joint Rogue States in four to six weeks. And Top Chef season-five runner-up Richard Blais will bring an outpost of his Flip Burger Boutique to Penn Quarter next year. His might be the most out-there concept: The Atlanta original offers Korean burgers with kimchee ketchup, chorizo burgers, sweetbread nuggets with sweet-and-sour sauce, and milkshakes in flavors such as pistachio/white truffle, Krispy Kreme, and foie gras.
• Is Bethesda slowly turning into Georgetown North? Sweetgreen and Georgetown Cupcake recently set up shop in Bethesda Row, joining a branch of Dolcezza. Now urban fishhouse Tackle Box is reportedly scouting locations there and in Chinatown.
• Bad news for carb addicts: Bread master and Breadline/Marvelous Market founder Mark Furstenberg has left his latest lunch spot, G Street Food, after just a few months. “The owners of G Street Food and I had different views of the business,” Furstenberg tells the Washington Post’s Tom Sietsema. “It’s important to my ego to serve stuff I’m proud of.” One bright spot: He’s thinking about a DC bakery or a sandwich truck.
• Three years after signing a letter of intent, former 1789 chef Ris Lacoste is finally opening her own spot. Ris (2275 L St., NW), in DC’s West End, will debut on Monday. Beyond the dining rooms, the 240-seater will have a more casual cafe (with free wi-fi) and a summertime patio. On the menu: rabbit stew, vegetable Wellington, Nantucket bay scallops, daily sundaes, and on Thursday nights, her famed rack of lamb.
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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.
