A series of financial, legal, and political issues have been stacking up this year for chef Matt Baker, whose restaurants include Michelin-starred Gravitas in Ivy City and more casual spots Michele’s and Baker’s Daughter in the downtown Eaton hotel.
In December and January, he closed two locations of Baker’s Daughter, in Georgetown and Ivy City, though he’s retaining the latter space for a future project. Then in February, the DC Office of Tax and Revenue briefly shutdown Gravitas and Michele’s for unpaid taxes, following a series of tax liens—though all have since been resolved. Meanwhile, Baker is being sued by the landlord of a Union Market property where he’s been planning to open a Mediterranean wine bar.
And to top it off: Baker is now facing backlash for pro-MAGA social media posts—including one inviting Elon Musk to dine at Gravitas—that aren’t going over well in liberal DC.
Tax turbulence
DC tax authorities have filed three separate liens against Gravitas at different points over the last year and a half. In the most recent one, the tasting menu restaurant owed more than $33,500 in taxes, according to notices from OTR. Michele’s has faced four separate liens, dating back to December 2022, with the most recent recording around $61,800 in unpaid taxes in 2024. A tax lien for since-closed Baker’s Daughter in Ivy City shows an additional $18,000 owed. After “numerous attempts to collect the outstanding taxes from these establishments without success,” the city was forced to revoke sales tax certificates for Gravitas and Michele’s on February 19, a spokesperson for OTR says. But both businesses reopened a couple days later after coming into compliance on February 21.
Baker declined to comment on the record about the cash flow issues. But in a 2023 interview with Washingtonian, the chef talked about how increased labor costs from Initiative 82 had upended the old-school rules of thumb for operating a restaurant, as well as the difficulties of altering his business models. He’s adjusted the prices at tasting menu spot Gravitas several times and added more options to try to stay profitable as the Ivy City neighborhood has struggled to become the destination it once promised to be. As recently as a couple weeks ago, he lowered the price of a three-course menu from $95 to $72 in an attempt to make the restaurant more approachable.
But Baker said in the 2023 interview there was less flexibility for a place like Michele’s, where “there’s a threshold of what people are willing to pay” for dishes like steak frites and heirloom-tomato linguini. “Unfortunately, Michele’s has lost a lot of money this year. And so myself and our investors had to cover the costs for that,” he said at the time. It remains open, though Baker declined to say on the record how it’s doing.
Lawsuit over a new wine bar
Baker has had two new restaurants in the works. A Capitol Hill steakhouse called Lucille’s Modern Chophouse is still on track, but a Mediterranean wine bar in Union Market called Non Se is now facing legal troubles.
Baker is currently being sued by the space’s landlord, who alleges that the restaurateur had unauthorized HVAC work done on the property and then failed to pay for it. The lawsuit, filed in early February, says that the landlord terminated its leases with Baker in March 2024, and though there were negotiations to reinstate the leases under new terms, the two sides never came to an agreement. A few months later, despite allegedly not having a lease, the landlord says that Baker contracted with a company called Roman Mechanical to have HVAC work done on the property. In the months since, Roman has recorded two mechanic’s liens against the property for more than $213,000 in unpaid HVAC bills.
Baker declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Social media backlash
The issue that has been been getting the most attention lately is Baker’s social media posts. DC food content creator Anela Malik of Feed the Malik put Baker on blast in an Instagram post last week for “retweeting Elon, anti-immigrant clips, how DOGE is stopping the steal, disparaging federal workers, and more.” She shared a series of screenshots of his re-posts, which touched on DEI hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration and federal workers not showing up in person. “It’s okay to be patriotic again. Trump is president,” reads one tweet that that Baker reposted from right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong. Most of the posts have since disappeared from Baker’s X page, which is now private.
Malik was also the first to point out that tax authorities had previously suspended sales at Gravitas, writing “Maybe get your own house in order first?”
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The Instagram account @washingtonianprobs also posted the screenshots of Baker’s retweets and posts with its half-a-million followers. In one since-deleted tweet from February, Baker invited Musk to dine at Gravitas. “Thank you for all your hard work so far!,” he wrote. “I’m reaching out bc I saw that you referenced Gravitas a few times today; my favorite being with your son X in the Oval Office! I’m a Chef in DC and have a restaurant Gravitas, that I would love to host you at…”
The posts led “resistance-chic” Eaton hotel—where Baker operates Michele’s and Baker’s Daughter—to release a statement distancing themselves from him: “While we wholeheartedly support the right of individuals to express their personal opinions, we are deeply disappointed by the nature of some of the content shared by Chef Baker,” it read in part.
On Monday, Baker put out his own statement on Instagram, apologizing to his staff and partners at Eaton and offering to grab a coffee with anyone who wanted to have a conversation.
“I do not condone hate or discrimination in any form. I do not support targeting immigrants or people of color. I also stand with our federal workers who contribute so much to the character of our city,” the statement reads in part. “I regret that my posts and retweets have undermined that. My online associations were thoughtless, and I never intended to hurt this city or its people, and for that, I sincerely apologize.”
Baker declined to comment further on the social media backlash.
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Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
