Image: Lana Turner reminding you to support what you want to see survive.
Dearest Gentle Reader, we ride a rollercoaster of weather, shocking our systems, challenging our wardrobe, and creating rare al fresco dining chances in January. Like D.C. public services, we plow ahead thinly-staffed and slowly to bring you another week in review of dining news from the District and elsewhere. We also added a spot to our D.C. dining guide this week. So shall we proceed?
Updates to D.C. Recommended Restaurant List
Added:
Villa Yara – The cute spot in Georgetown with some pretty good food.
Comings & Goings:
The parent company closed Nicoletta, but plans to replace it with something that looks more enticing. “Cucina MORINI will be in partnership with Chef Matt Adler, who will help bring a selection of Osteria Morini classics, as well as lighter options inspired by Southern Italy to this new concept. More information to come.” Fear not, Adler is not leaving Caruso’s, just adding this to his list of projects.
In case you missed it, and not sure you could, Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s new place at the old Mandarin gets a name.
D.C. Dining News
Kudos:
This week the Washingtonian Top 100 list came out. Like last year, they only “rank” the top 25, then list the remainders alphabetically. First impression is that the list was a bit more traditional in its choices. Lots of tasting menu spots, though they did sneak 2fifty into the top 10, along with Komi follow-on Gemini. Surveying the whole list, it is a reminder that D.C. is still in the middle of a golden age of restaurants. The top 25 are all strong candidates, without including stand-outs like Oyster Oyster, Daru, and Martha Dear. Eat up, and support what you want to see survive.
The Beard list of semifinalists also came out this week, with many D.C. restaurants getting a nod. We will admit the only person/place we really want to see win is Amy Brandwein of Centrolina. It’s time Beard judges.
Industry:
As noted below, the big economic numbers are looking good, but what that means for individual businesses may vary radically. Petula Dvorak in the Post Metro section, reminds you to support what you love. She notes a number closings and a report that 50 (maybe 55) places closed in D.C. last year. Axios reports the flip side of that number, in 2019 there were 69 closings. There were also about 100 openings. Axios, relying on Yelp data says it was the highest per capita of any state, “42 new restaurants for every 100,000 residents. By comparison, New York state had about 22.” The various surveys do not exactly match, but they do point in a positive direction.
Amanda Michelle Gomez notes the irony that many places are opening downtown or nearby, despite the fears of collapse.
If you are looking for a direct way to help a small spot survive, Big Bear Cafe is looking for investors to keep improving. We keep noting alternative business models; hopefully we will figure out what the underlying trend is.
The threat to delivery drivers from carjackings. “A few months before he was shot, Wolderufael, an Ethiopian immigrant who is married and has three young children, had another terrifying encounter while delivering pizza in Prince George’s County. As he reached his destination, he said, a man approached him, pressed a pistol to his cheek and stole his iPhone.”
Drink
Wine:
Related, there was a mindful drinking festival in D.C. this weekend, and Dave McIntyre in the Post did a N/A wine review.
Alice Feiring attended the world’s premier sommelier competition and came away with questions. “There is something confounding about modern organizations and wine education platforms that require top sommeliers to be schooled in cigar service yet ignore natural wine or how to handle wine service at a casual café or wine bar. This setting and this customer seemed not to matter. How is it possible that the system wants their profession to be linked solely to three-star venues and not bring the love of wine to all?” She asked 30 somms for their thoughts. The answers behind the paywall.
Beer:
An Indian restaurant in Maine decides to make its own beer. People are surprised to find out that IPAs (India Pale Ales) are the beer of the imperialists. “There’s this sort of disconnect in thinking of IPA as British and American. It’s not necessarily a pleasant connection with the subcontinent. Colonizing, stripping the land of its assets, terrorizing and massacring the population. When we see the story of IPA, it has a double-edged meaning. Rupee is trying to tell this story while incorporating Indian cultural history.”
The craft beer industry coming to grips with the end of the boom. Many shift away from waves of new releases to focus on doing just a couple beers really well. “Focusing on two beers allows Brienne Allan, the brewery’s brewmaster and president, time to refine them. And that selective approach pleases the beer distributors that link breweries with retailers. Overwhelmed with so many brands, ‘they’re so happy to hear that we don’t have that many’ beers, Mr. Fava said.”
Other News
The Emerging Economy:
The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation came in on target. More details, “Food prices increased 0.1% on the month while energy goods and services rose 0.3%. Prices for longer-lasting durable goods such as appliances, computers and vehicles decreased 0.4%.” GDP also came in strong for the fourth quarter of 2023. While many are still recovering from the bumps and bruises of the last two years of turbulence, it does appear the economy as a whole might make the magical soft landing.
For the restaurant industry, the winners and losers of the last two years have yet to be determined. But this story about Marea and the Carbone companies doing joint projects shows the ones thriving are not the unique, independent spots. They are the ones that talk like this: “Marea is a brand we have always loved,” Mr. Zalaznick said. “We’re excited to bring it into the fold and expand it into the larger world.”
Industry:
The Times did its best restaurants in the nation and came back with 121 menus. It then analyzed them to find trends. First, Caesar Salads are big. But also on the list is a trend we have been tracking: Lo/No or Zero Proof drinks getting their own section. Also fees are not just a D.C. thing.
Adam Reiner on why restaurants should be cautious throwing around the word family. “The family metaphor is more apt in describing cultural problems endemic to the industry.” (Free subscription required but annoying to sign up for).
Maxim’s in Paris looks to come back….again. “The focus at Maxim’s in recent years had shifted to private events, Mr. Pelegry said, and for a while it was open to diners only from Wednesdays through Saturdays. It resumed daily bookings in November, two months after the Paris Society, a French hospitality group, took over operations as part of a deal with the Cardin family.” A place that was an opulent dream when re-created for the movies 60 years after its first moment.
Food & Culture:
The King Cake Queen: “Today, Tran and Garza rule a Carnival empire out of a squat, brick building on the side of a four-lane highway 10 miles northeast of the French Quarter. In Dong Phuong’s industrial kitchen, crews of bakers finish about 1,600 king cakes per day, beginning with the first batch of dough on Dec. 31 and finishing on Lundi Gras — the day before Fat Tuesday — which this year falls on Feb. 12.”
It is difficult to read about how much effort Gordon Ramsay puts into his T.V. shows and not think that his restaurants are a back burner concern. “Whenever Ramsay isn’t working or cooking, he is watching cooking shows.”
Paraguay’s national dish: “In the mid-1800s, when Carlos Antonio López was the president of Paraguay, corn soup was often served for lunch. But one day, the president’s chef got carried away with the cornmeal and added too much. In an attempt to fix the dish, the chef put the sopa into the oven and served it to the president as cornbread. The leader loved the bread so much that he decreed it a national dish and named it sopa Paraguaya.” But of course, that is just a story. “Other Paraguayans, like Liliana Rodas de Araujo, said the bread was being baked for many years before the presidential chef’s mistake. Ms. Rodas de Araujo said the Cario-Guaraní — a group of Indigenous Paraguayans who lived near her native city, Asunción — likely used native corn and baked a similar type of bread when they learned about dairy from Spanish colonists.”
Peru’s food scene is hopping. “How the gastronomic scene in the capital of troubled, underdeveloped Peru came to triumph over established powerhouses such as Paris and New York owes much to the personal talent and drive of Martínez and Lima’s other high-end chefs. But it’s no coincidence that they are Peruvian, their creativity forged in this South American nation’s highly original and varied national food culture, one that is finally being recognized as one of the world’s greatest.”
Food Sources:
If big food companies think they need to address climate change… “The stakes, or perhaps steaks, of this effort to rewrite the science-backed narrative that cows are a climate menace are bigger than this 46-restaurant chain. The company is at the vanguard of a contentious push by meat and dairy industries trying to rebrand as climate solutions. The companies claim they can neutralize the climate impact of cows by changing their diets, overhauling how their manure is handled, and transitioning to farming and grazing practices that equip soil to capture carbon.”
Food & Nutrition:
School lunches in Italy: “Italy has designed its school lunches with health and sustainability in mind. Here’s what that means in practice: Students in many Italian preschools eat from a set menu, with no outside food allowed — so no bag lunches. Some schools, including my son’s, prepare lunch in-house; others cater food from off-site kitchens. In either case, the children enjoy a healthy meal — Italian law restricts public schools from serving fried foods.”
From a couple months back, as we catch up on New Yorkers, the lawyer who bring the deception labeling cases on food. “Sheehan, forty-four, specializes in consumer-protection class-action suits. Specifically, he focusses on packaged foods, and on the authenticity of their ingredients and flavors. Sheehan has sued the makers of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts (dearth of real strawberries), Hint of Lime Tostitos (absence of lime), Snapple “all natural” fruit drinks (absence of natural juice), Keebler’s fudge-mint cookies (lack of real fudge and mint), Cheesecake Factory brown bread (insufficient whole-grain flour), Trident original-flavor gum (lack of real mint, despite package’s illustration of a blue mint leaf), and many more, generally seeking millions in damages from each.”
Odds & Ends:
There is a “secret” restaurant at Newark airport. “So one airline has taken exclusivity a step further: United Airlines has Classified, the post-pandemic rebirth of a secret invitation-only restaurant tucked away behind a private door. It’s not advertised or even teased in commercials; it’s the kind of word-of-mouth thing that makes marketers and travel bloggers salivate. The caveat is that it’s at Newark Airport, widely regarded as the one of the worst airports in the United States.”
A court case in India to determine who really created butter chicken. “The case involves two competing restaurants and families, each claiming a lineage with the city’s renowned Moti Mahal restaurant founded in 1947, and each calling themselves the inventors of the popular dish. The lawsuit – brought by the family of Kundan Lal Gujral, one the original restaurant’s founders – claims that Gujral created the curry and has sued rival chain Daryaganj of falsely taking credit for it.”
A diplomatic spit take. And have some tea and sympathy for the poor staffer who did not “ensure” there were no typos.
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That is it reader. So, best of luck this week and we look forward to having you check in next week. And in the meantime, check out our D.C. dining guide, if you are into that kind of thing. We have 300+ recommended restaurants, sortable by cuisine or neighborhood in either LIST or MAP format.
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Be kind. Tip big. And prompted by our meal last night, remember to use your inside voice when at a fine dining establishment.