Food

Food News Review: Suna to Shutter, Jackie’s Chef Out, Michelle Obama Still Loves We, the Pizza

Plus: Inside POTUS’s bipartisan feast at the Jefferson Hotel.

See you later, Suna. Johnny Spero’s Capitol Hill spot closes after less than four months in business. Photograph by Dakota Fine.

Tom Sietsema shocked everyone Friday when he shared the news that chef Johnny Spero was calling it quits at Suna. The 27-year-old toque was vague about what prompted the shutter of the new Capitol Hill restaurant, which debuted in November. Acqua Al 2 co-owner Ari Gejdenson was Spero’s partner in the project. [WaPo]

Unfortunate timing: At a Google Hangout Monday, Michelle Obama described how she kept her kids at a healthy weight (by surrounding them with good-for-you foods and exercising with them). And on that same day, she was spotted upstairs at greasy slice spot We, the Pizza. [Politico]

Eater DC broke the not-great news this week that chef Diana Davila-Boldin will be leaving Jackie’s to return to her hometown of Chicago. The chef, whose family hails from Mexico, developed the menu at taco-and-elote restaurant El Chucho in Columbia Heights. Davila-Boldin will be around until mid-April. Meanwhile, know a chef looking of work? Owner Jackie Greenbaum is in the market for a replacement. [Eater DC]

Carol Ross Joynt has all the deets on Obama’s aisle-crossing senators’ dinner at the Parlor Ballroom inside the Jefferson Hotel on Wednesday night. [Washingtonian]

Daikaya is not the first restaurant to list “a six-pack for the kitchen” among its menu items, but still: cute. If you love your ramen, you can reward chef Fukushima and staff for their hard work for the low price of $10. [Young & Hungry]

El Floridano owner Steven Boillon has opened his brick-and-mortar Mothership despite two broken toes, reports Tim Carman. [WaPo]

Pizzeria Paradiso reopened its birreria this week—it’s now first come, first served, says DC Beer. [DC Beer]

Got baked goods tasty enough to sell? A new bill from DC City Council member Mary Cheh could make that easier, DCist reports. If passed, it will offer a regulatory exception for bakers and caters who earn less than $25,000 a year from their treats. [DCist]

Melake Gebre would like to breathe new life into the shuttered space at 2200 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Southeast, that formerly housed Uniontown Bar & Grill. Gebre’s concept, Cherry Hill Bar & Grill, would serve American food, reports the City Paper’s Housing Complex blog. Uniontown closed last year when its former owner was arrested on cocaine-trafficking charges. Gebre is hoping for a summer opening. [Housing Complex]

A Tex-Mex spot from M Crowd Restaurant Group—which owns properties in Houston and Tulsa, per Chevy Chase Patch—is headed to Chevy Chase. Mi Cocina replaces M Café at “5471-5481 Wisconsin Ave.,” according to the site. [Patch]

Pub chain BlackFinn is bringing its Ameripub concept to Dunn Loring in April. There will be 70 beers on tap and a wider menu than that at traditional BlackFinns, according to an Eater DC report. [Eater DC]

Frozen Tropics reports the opening of H Street Coffeehouse and Cafe, the new concept replacing Sova at 1359 H Street, Northeast. H Street is brought to you by the owners of Biergarten Haus next door. [Frozen Tropics]