District Dining: Two Very Different Takes
Ron Tanaka of Cork.
Marian Burros, a former New York Times reporter and restaurant critic, wrote a piece for Politico that attempted to rank the ten best restaurants in Washington, just in time for all those inaugural visitors. But apparently there aren’t even 10 restaurants in D.C. she deems worth visiting, since her final list only came to eight. The article singles out staples of the area's fine dining scene, like Citronelle, CityZen, Inn at Little Washington, Restaurant Eve, and D.C. outposts for celebrity chefs like Eric Ripert (West End Bistro) and Wolfgang Puck (The Source). Yawn.
She makes the typical New York complaint that D.C. restaurants simply don't compare to those in Gotham, and apparently she had to do a lot of "digging" to find the eight she felt were worthy of praise. Beyond just claiming that the District lacks decent restaurants, she went a step further and decided to take a few swipes at some of the area's celebrated spots. Art and Soul (the new restaurant by celebrity chef Art Smith) got knocked for being "too new" and having a celebrity chef that doesn't spend much time in D.C., which is interesting since his fellow celebrity chefs, Ripert and Puck, don't spend much time in Washington either.
She also criticized Marcel's, saying she wondered if "the chef was off duty" but doesn't really explain why the restaurant wasn't up to par and what the problems were during her visits there. The widely celebrated Komi didn't make her list because she felt that Chef Johnny Monis's dishes were "all thought and not much flavor." Another curious absence from her list was Michel Richard's bistro, Central, which won a 2008 James Beard Foundation award for Best New Restaurant, beating out nominees from L.A., Philadelphia, Dallas, and New York.
Burros's slam on the D.C. food scene is especially frustrating since the city has a huge spotlight on it, with millions of people expected to visit for the inauguration next week. It's even more interesting when contrasted with an article published on the same day by her former colleague, Kim Severson of The New York Times, on the emergence of restaurants in the "Real D.C."
The Times' take on District dining isn't focused on a celebrity chef or a particular restaurant, but instead describes a restaurant renaissance occurring in the city. The piece explores the emergence of a vibrant restaurant scene in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, U Street, and H Street NE (just to name a few), profiling restaurants like Cork, Marvin, and Granville Moore's.
We do have our little nitpicks: The description of the upstairs bar of Marvin as having "a cool, P. M. Dawn feeling during the week" is a bit creaky (c'mon, they were on Hit Me Baby One More Time), and Cork's 14th Street location just can't reasonably be seen as having been a gamble only a year ago. But the Times' piece is at least a more thoughtful look at dining out beyond white tablecloth, big budget restaurants and includes actual insight from long-time chefs and restaurateurs like Ann Cashion and Gillian Clark, who have long been part of the community. It explores non-expense account D.C., with a number of planned restaurants in previously under-served neighborhoods, and is a nice departure from the standard lists of places that tend to focus on big names in the more established parts of the city.
Hopefully visitors to the city will take a look at what the Times has to say and venture to the neighborhoods and restaurants highlighted. Just as there are many places to visit in New York outside of Manhattan, it’s good to see that D.C.'s diverse and vibrant neighborhoods are getting recognition for breathing new life in to the area food scene.