CHEFS IN THE NEWS....

RIS LACOSTE, RICHARD BRANDENBERG, ROBERT WELAND

By Georgetowner

April 2007

Rock Creek partners Tom Williams and Judith Hammerschmidt are pleased to announce the formation of a strategic alliance with renowned Washington Chef Ris Lacoste. Lacoste will be assisting with the spring launch of their second restaurant, Rock Creek Mazza, located in Friendship Heights at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue, NW in Mazza Gallerie. Lacoste will serve as a member of the Rock Creek opening team and as such, willassist in allaspects of the restaurant’s expansion. This includes naming a new chef and recruiting the management team for the Mazza location, as well as consulting on menu development and staff training.

“We have known and admired Ris Lacoste for quite awhile, as she brought 1789 Restaurant to new heights as a landmark restaurant during her 10-year tenure there, and we are very fortunate to be able to engage her as a consulting chef on our latest endeavor, the opening of a second Rock Creek,” say Williams and Hammerschmidt. “We believe she will bring energy, excitement and considerable knowledge to our concept, helping us to take our restaurant to the next level.”

The flagship Rock Creek opened in 2005 at 4917 Elm Street in Bethesda, Maryland specializing in “conscious cuisine.” Rock Creek lists all nutritional information for each dish on the back page of its menu, an amenity that has won it widespread popularity with the dining audience of Washington and beyond. In explaining the concept Hammerschmidt states, “our food is about being as kind to the body as it is to the palate. We pay attention to what is on each plate, from the portion size to the fat content in a manner that is pleasing to our guests.” Rock Creek’s Bethesda Chef Frederick Pryzborowski exclaims, “Ris Lacoste is an important fi gure in the nation’s capital’s dining scene.

I am excited to work with her in Bethesda, and I know the new chef we will hire to lead the kitchen at Mazza willalso enjoy her input and depth of knowledge and experience.”

Chef Lacoste, who will be opening her own restaurant in downtown Washington in late 2007, comments, “I am very taken with Rock Creek’s concept. “Food in America needs to go in this direction: delicious, fresh and beautiful, yet mindful and healthful. I am delighted to have this opportunity to work with the Rock Creek team as they expand their realm in the community.”

The idea of sustainability isn’t so wild. But the food is. Not in an outrageous sense, but grown wild in a fi eld, in the ocean—even on a farm organically.

For Chef Robert Weland at Poste Moderne Brasserie, nothing could be as important as the care of the environment and the simple, clean flavors of Mother Nature.

Chef Weland takes his love for the land and its bounty to New York’s acclaimed James Beard House on Tuesday, April 10 when he presents a Wild Things Dinner to benefi t the James Beard Foundation. The dinner will include a selection of passed hors d’oeuvres including soft-shell crab; wild king salmon tartare cones; wild boar soppressata with pickled ramp; grass fed beef bresoala; Maine sweet red shrimp, spring garlic; Pacific oysters with champagne mignonette, caviar; and hamachi with ruby red grapefruit, spring ginger vinaigrette and spring onions. The dinner menu features spring tonic wild nettle soup with sheep’s milk agnolotti; salad of pursalane, young watercress, chickweed, chive flowers, spring beauty and lambs quarter; pan seared shad roe with braised dandelion greens, new pokeweed; olive oil poached wild Alaskan salmon with Anson Mills white polenta, morels, fiddleheads, wild asparagus; lemon verbena granite; Elysian farms double lamb chop with shepherd’s pie and grilled ramps and rhubarb, fraise des bois with buttermilk parfait. Chef Weland’s dinner at the Beard house is priced at $125 for members and $155 for non-members of the organization.

For those that can’t make it to New York City, along with the restaurant’s a la carte menu, Chef Weland will be offering his Wild Things menu at Poste Moderne Brasserie on Thursday, April 19. The Beard Menu is priced at $85 and $110 with wine pairings. Poste Moderne Brasserie is located at 555 8th Street in Penn Quarter.

Urbana Restaurant and Wine Bar has become a favorite spot in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, thanks to the talents of Chef Richard Brandenburg. Brandenburg, who developed the restaurant’s opening menus, is credited with putting Urbana on the map in its opening year. Chef Brandenburg recently announced that he is leaving Urbana to pursue new opportunities. A nationwide search is on for Urbana’s new chef, and in the meantime, an interim chef will be brought in to oversee the kitchen at Urbana.

701 Restaurant’s new executive chef Alexander Powell will create an entirely new menu for spring. Powell comes to DC from New York City where he was the Chef de Cuisine at Jean-George Vongerichten’s three-star bistro, Jo Jo. Reservations: 202-393-0701.701 Restaurant is at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Breadsticks wrapped in bacon, fried creamed corn, and bread pudding made from Krispy Kreme doughnuts—those are some of the comfort foods that nationally known celebrity cook, TV star, restaurateur, and cookbook author Paula Deen talks about on her Food Network TV shows Paula’s Home Cooking and Paula’s Party. Deen’s story, as the title of her latest book, Paula Deen: It Ain’t Allabout the Cookin’, indicates, is about a lot more than “cookin’”—it’s about a woman who overcame adversities and became a self-made success.

In an entertaining evening illustrated with video clips, Deen shares her infectious laugh, unabashed love of comfort food, and life’s pure enjoyment with radio talk-show host, Jim Bohannon. Wednesday, April 18, 7 p.m. Member: $15.00; Gen. Admission: $20.00 At Smithsonian.