Chef Haidar Karoum (Proof, Estadio) was crowned the champion of last night’s Capital Food Fight. But the real winner was DC Central Kitchen, for which the event raised over half a million dollars.

The Source‘s Scott Drewno came out on top at D.C. Central Kitchen’s 7th annual Capital Food Fight, which took place last night at the Ronald Reagan Building. The Fight pitted Chefs Victor Albisu (BLT Steak), Will Artley (Evening Star Cafe), Spike Mendelsohn (Good Stuff Eatery and We, the Pizza) and Drewno against each other in an Iron Chef-style cooking competition.

Dinner with a bear, a silver fox and a noisy Spaniard sounds like the punchline to a good joke. But if you happen to have nine friends with more than a thousand bucks to burn or have a really awesome sugar daddy, you can bid on a private dinner for 10 with Chefs Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert and Jose Andres on November 10. Bidding on eBay starts at $10,000 — or you can “Buy it Now” for $25,000.

D.C. restaurateurs and food fanatics alike turned out in droves for this year’s sold out Capital Food Fight to benefit D.C. Central Kitchen–although it’s unclear whether they were there for the food, the fierce competition or to see how long it would take José Andrés to lose his voice. (For the record: it started to give out sometime after Round 2.) Chef Michael Mina, creator of Bourbon Steak and the only out-of-town chef participating in…

Garlic scapes have a milder flavor than regular garlic. (Alicia Mazzara) Dish of the Week: Garlic Scapes When picking through the sea of papery, white garlic bulbs in the supermarket grocery store, it’s easy to forget that garlic was once a fresh, green plant growing in the earth. I’m reminded every so often, when I let a bulb of garlic go too long in my kitchen, only to later find it growing a little…

Dish of the Week: Butternut squash This week Gourmet’s Ruth Reichl called butternut squash fall’s finest vegetable. “Its sweet flavor and silky texture make butternut squash a star in many of our favorite fall recipes,” she wrote. The only problem is that most of the time, it seems to find its way into overly sweet soup. Luckily our intrepid DCist food staff came through with some of their other favorite uses for butternut squash. Alyse…

So where does Anthony Bourdain – chef, writer, traveler – spend his night after bumping elbows with six of D.C.’s top chefs? Unsurprisingly, at Ben’s Chili bowl. Keeping true to his inclinations for “adventurous” eating, Anthony Bourdain visited famed Ben’s Chili Bowl Tuesday night after having MC’ed D.C.’s annual Capital Food Fight. “I loved it, it’s the kind of food I like,” responded Bourdain to a question during the Q&A session of his sold-out talk…

The Secret Ingredient: Flaxseed Iron Chef is combing through the restaurant ranks here in Washington once again, this timing tapping Agraria’s chef, Ricky Moore, for America’s culinary entertainment. Following in the footsteps of D.C. chefs José Andrés, Morou, and Roberto Donna, Moore will be strutting into the kitchen stadium in the near future in an attempt to assert Washington’s dominance in the field of one-hour off-the-cuff television cooking. The Washingtonian has an exclusive interview with…

D.C. Battles It Out In The Kitchen One of Washington’s best food events, the Capital Food Fight, is a little over a week away, and I expect there is wanton smack-talking between the competition’s 10 food-fighters. Bebo’s Roberto Donna, Mie n Yu’s Tim Elliot, Kinkead’s Bob Kinkead, last year’s winner Ris Lacoste, Jamie Leeds of Hank’s Oyster Bar, Taberna del Alabardero’s Santi Zabaleta, John Wabeck of Firefly, IndeBleu’s Vikram Garg, Anthony Chittum from Notti Bianche,…

Closed! Did anyone along Pennsylvania Avenue hear a door slamming loudly Wednesday night? If you did and are perplexed about it, let us fill you in. Signatures, the “lobbyist hangout” next to the Navy Memorial, closed its doors. And closed them abruptly, at that. It turns out that when you’re being investigated by the Senate, the Department of Justice, and the Ft. Lauderdale Police for connections to a murder, people aren’t clamoring to frequent the…