Capital Spice

Brace yourselves.  We just need a minute to totally lose our cool:

WE GOT TO HANG OUT WITH TOP CHEF STEPHANIE IZARD!

Ah, much better.  If you’ve read Capital Spice before now, you know we’re kind of huge Top Chef fans.  And our first big interview was with Chef Spike Mendelsohn as he prepared to open Good Stuff Eatery, so we’re especially partial to Season 4 (Top Chef Chicago).  So when we were given the chance to attend a dinner prepared by Spike and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard, we jumped at it.

The dinner, which took place on Wednesday, November 16th, was part of Chef Izard’s tour promoting her new cookbook, Girl in the Kitchen.  Rather than subject herself and her fans to a series of low-key bookstore signing events, Izard has partnered with local chefs in cities across the country to put on special dinner events benefiting Share Our Strength.  The “Goat Tour” (the name is a nod to her year-old, critically acclaimed Girl and the Goat restaurant) has the look and feel of a concert tour, right down to the t-shirts worn by Izard and her team featuring a map and a list of dates on the back.  With everyone from Jimmy Fallon to the Wall Street Journal calling chefs “rock stars,” it’s only fitting.

A four-course pizza feast with a pair of fun chefs after the jump. (more…)

If you watched Bravo’s debut season of Top Chef: Just Desserts last year, you learned that pastry chefs can be just as competitive (and just as cutting) as their meat-and-potatoes counterparts.  To some, the pressure on pastry chefs is even greater, as most of their creations require perfect recall of ingredient ratios, temperatures and cooking times.  If a souffle doesn’t come together, it’s a lot harder for them to pivot and turn it into another dessert on the fly.

With all that in mind, Bravo is offering up a tasty treat: a second helping of Just Desserts!  Season Two debuts tomorrow night, and the competition has expanded from twelve chefs to fourteen.  We were excited to see that DC would be represented once again, this time by CityZen’s Matthew Petersen.

Petersen has been at CityZen for a little over a year now, and he’s been earning praise for his blending of classic techniques with creative twists.  We caught up with him over email as he was getting ready for his next big thing: a three-course “Simply Dessert” tasting menu ($25) that will change weekly on Thursdays – conveniently the day after each episode of Top Chef: Just Desserts airs.

Questions and answers are reprinted in their entirety without any editing or revision:

Capital Spice: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Chef.  Let’s start with the basics: What inspired you to compete?
Matthew Petersen: I decided that it would be a great opportunity so I decided to apply.

CS: You studied baking and pastry in culinary school – what drew you to them?
MP: I always knew, from about the age of 15, that I wanted to work in a kitchen making pastry of some sort.  I didn’t know then that I would end up in mostly fine dining restaurants working with some great chefs.  At an early age I was surrounded by great, simple, homemade pastry.

CS: CityZen is well-known for the creativity of its menu, from appetizers to desserts.  What is it like working in that kind of environment?
MP: I love working with [Chef] Eric [Ziebold] at CityZen.  The constant rotation of the menu pushes my creativity more than any other restaurant I have been at.  I would say that I thrive in this kind of environment where you are pushed to your limits in every capacity.  It is a grueling effort sometimes but the rewards are great.

What it’s like to follow a Beard Award-nominated chef and more after the jump. (more…)

Think back to that first episode of Top Chef Las Vegas in August of 2009.  What was your first impression of “Mike I?”

Photo Credit: Greg Powers

Chances are, the Zaytinya chef registered as loud, brash and maybe even a bit obnoxious.

Now picture him in the final episode of Top Chef All-Stars this spring.  The Graffiato chef/owner was composed and thoughtful, but still easy-going and clearly enjoying himself.  Within a year and a half he had evolved from a subject of criticism to one of pride among supporters of the DC dining scene.

When the first patrons taste his food at Graffiato’s opening tonight, that evolution will be on full display.  The concept is his.  The menu is his.  The kitchen is his.  It’s been a team effort to get here, for sure, but this is his show.

Buzz surrounding Graffiato’s opening has reached a fever pitch over the past few weeks (we fueled the fire a month ago when we saw Chef Isabella and he teased “Could be two weeks!”).  This is absolutely one of the most anticipated restaurants of the year, and details about the pizza oven, the local partners and the prosecco on tap have only made us more eager to actually taste the food.

We had a chance to stop by for a First Look as the Graffiato team was working through some of the finishing touches in advance of tonight’s opening.  Photos and some more details on what to expect after the jump. (more…)

SPOILER ALERT

If you have not yet watched last night’s season finale of Top Chef All-Stars, you probably won’t want to read this interview just yet.  We spoke with Washington’s own Chef Mike Isabella, chef-owner of the forthcoming Graffiato, for the third time this season just a few minutes ago.  And yes, we talk about how he did in the finale last night.

With that disclaimer out of the way, join us after the jump for the conversation.

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No spoilers in this post, but just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we’ll be posting our one-on-one interview with Top Chef Finalist Mike Isabella today at noon.  We’ll be discussing the Blais versus Isabella finale, what Chef Isabella is most proud of about his time in the Bahamas, and some more details about Graffiato (we hear there are lasers involved!).

See you back here soon.

Photo credit: Bravo

We have to give credit where credit is due.  The chefs who came back for this All-Star season of Top Chef have given us lots of reasons to root for them.  And the quality of this season has done a lot to wash the bad taste of Season 7 (filmed here in Washington) out of fans’ mouths.

By the end of tonight’s episode, we’ll be down to four remaining chefs.  And if bringing an extra chef along to the finale in the Bahamas means we get one additional week of sunny skies and killer cooking, we’re all for that.

Yesterday, we shared our interview with Mike Isabella as we head into the finals.  Today, we’ve got our pick for fan favorite, Carla Hall.  There’s something about the way Carla seems to root for everyone to succeed that is endearing and rare on competition shows like Top Chef.  Watching her fall short of her own expectations – especially when working with “her flavors” and cuisines – is heartbreaking.  But we’re not telling you anything you haven’t already seen for yourself.

We talked to Carla about her deceptively strong performance so far, her involvement with local causes, and some of the things she’s got in the works:

Capital Spice: You’ve really come out swinging this season!  Three Elimination Challenge wins, three big prizes.  How does it feel so far?
Carla Hall: It’s great, but I really don’t know when Matthew [her husband] and I are going to get a chance to take all those trips.

CS: Beyond the trips, you seemed really excited to win Jimmy Fallon’s challenge.  Are you that big a fan of his?
CH: There were two things going on there.  I’m definitely a fan of Jimmy’s, and it was so much fun to be on his show.  He really is just like you’d expect him to be.  But I’ve got a personal connection to chicken pot pie as well: that’s the first thing I ever tried to cook for myself back when I was modeling and going back and forth to Paris.

CS: So this was a recipe you’ve made before?
CH: It was, though I’ve never tried to make the upper crust by forming them around cookware like I did.  I’m glad it worked out!

More of Carla’s projects in the works after the jump.

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Image by Bravo

When the list of competitors for this All-Star season of Top Chef was announced, we were excited to see Washington represented by three of the most memorable characters from their respective seasons.  As the season has gone on, we’ve been cheering ever more enthusiastically as two of our three local cheftestants demonstrated that they have what it takes to go the distance (or at least as far as the Bahamas).  Our chefs now represent 40% of the Final Five, and the smart money is on at least one of them making it into the Top Three.

We got a chance to chat with both of our local chefs after last week’s episode, and what we heard from Mike Isabella and Carla Hall made us even more excited for what is yet to come – both on the show and in their local endeavors.  Check out our interview with Mike today, and then join us tomorrow for our chat with Carla before watching the first of the finale episodes tomorrow night.

Capital Spice: Congratulations on making it all the way to the finals, Chef.  You’ve been a solid competitor throughout the season.
Mike Isabella: Thanks.  It was definitely tough competition to get there.

CS: Let’s talk about your new restaurant, Graffiato, first.  How’s everything going?
MI: It’s going good.  We’re still under construction, putting in the duct work, the heaters, the framing.  Next week we’ll be laying the pipes for the water and gas.  I’d say we’re looking at a later spring opening at this point.

CS: Being in the middle of all of this construction, it must have been hard to travel and stay focused for the finale episodes as a result.
MI: Actually, I was really focused.  I have a great team working with me on Graffiato, including a lot of chefs and staff who are coming over with me.  That freed me up and allowed me to focus [on Top Chef] again.

After the jump, we talk Quickfire wins – both satisfying and controversial – and find out who Isabella thinks went home before their time. (more…)

If you’ve had a chance to check out the first two weeks of the new Top Chef season, then you know that the producers have chosen to bring back competitors from each of the first seven seasons who came *this* close to winning it all.  This “All-Star” season, set in New York City, pits some fan favorites (and some favorite villains) against each other in a rematch to see who has grown the most since their initial Top Chef appearance.

Here in Washington, we’re lucky enough to have THREE local competitors vying for our slavish loyalty.  In order of original appearance, they are:

• Spike Mendelsohn (Season 4 – Chicago), chef/owner of Good Stuff Eatery and We, the Pizza.  In his first season, Spike came across as…arrogant.  Has wisdom come with age?
• Carla Hall (Season 5 – New York), owner of Alchemy by Carla Hall.  She’s transitioning from catering to gourmet sweets and savories.  Hootie hoo!
• Mike Isabella (Season 6 – Vegas), who has moved on from his position at Zaytinya and is in the process of opening his own place, Graffiato.  He had trouble with leeks last time around (what…that’s NOT what you remember about him?).

Over the past two weeks, we’ve had a chance to chat with each of them.  We asked about what they’re doing professionally, the differences between their first appearances and this season, and what made them decide to subject themselves to the pressure cooker competition again.  Sure, a victory would be big for any of them, but each brought a sense of perspective to the show that they may not have had at first.

Check out some of our conversations with the cheftestants – including big news from each about the directions their projects are heading – after the jump. (more…)

Image by Bravo

When we woke up from our Top Chef-induced food-TV coma last week, we realized that we forgot to save room for dessert!  Top Chef: Just Desserts has been on for three weeks now.  It’s hosted by Gail Simmons and it even features a local competitor, Hook’s Heather Chittum.  How could we ignore it?

If you’ve ever dreamt of walking away from your day job and getting into the restaurant business, Chittum should be an inspiration.  She came to Washington from New York to work on the Hill.  After four years she took a job with Share Our Strength, and then in 2001 her passion led her to L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg.  She has since built a reputation as one of the top pastry chefs in the Washington metropolitan area, winning the award for Pastry Chef of the Year from the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington in 2008.

We caught up with Chef Chittum last Friday and talked about pastry chefs in the spotlight, the interplay between entrees and desserts, and – of course – whoopie pies.

SPOILER ALERT – if you haven’t watched last week’s episode, you may want to stop reading now.  But just until you have a chance to watch it.  Then come back.  We’ll be here. (more…)

Image by Bravo

We missed you!

Sorry for the post silence lately – we promise we’re still keeping an eye on openings, eating around town and trying some delicious dishes at home.  We’re just a bit behind on letting you know about it.

So…how about that Top Chef DC?  Yeah, definite wasted opportunity.  It had its moments: Sam Kass and school lunches, for example.  But Washingtonians and viewers in general pretty much agree that this season was lackluster.

Oh well – they’re off to Thailand and we’re ready for the rumored-but-not-officially-confirmed Top Chef All Star season that may or may not be currently filming in New York (more on that later – some familiar faces from DC may be involved).  We’re also rooting for the home team on Top Chef: Just Desserts when it debuts this week, cheering on Hook’s Heather Chittum as she takes on a field of eleven other pastry chefs.

And we’re also looking back at some more enjoyable Top Chef memories, as well.  Top Chef Season 6 gave fans plenty of talent and competition – and gave DC fans a favorite to root for clear to the end in VOLT’s Bryan Voltaggio.  The first season of Top Chef Masters provided a fun twist on the format and a winner who’s just such a darn nice guy.  And then there was the Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook – everything you need (except years of training) to duplicate some of the most inventive dishes from the show’s first five seasons.

They’re all available for purchase now…or you can win them right here.  That’s right – we’re having another Top Chef Finale giveaway contest this week.  The winner gets a prize pack that includes Top Chef Season 6, Top Chef Masters Season 1, and the Quickfire Cookbook!

Want to win?  Leave a comment with three components (one for each prize):

1. A celebrity chef you’d like to see as a judge next season
2. The competitor you would MOST like to see in an “All Star” season, were there to be one
3. A challenge from a previous season you’d like to see brought back

We’ll announce a winner (selected at random from all eligible entries) on Thursday morning, just in case you don’t get your fill of Top Chef with Wednesday night’s back-to-back episodes.

And thanks for reading!