How DC Eats Reveals So Much About Who We Are

The Story:

Three eagerly anticpated restaurants open downtown:
-- Marcel's chef Robert Wiedmaier opens Brasserie Beck at 1101 K St.

-- Cintronelle's Michel Richard opens Central at 1001 Penn. Ave.

-- Three-Star chef Antoine Westermman consulted on Cafe du Parc at 1401 Penn. Ave. in the Willard Hotel

What It Means:

-- Downtown has changed with these more casual restaurants. Casual? I looked forward to quaffing beef with my enormous mussels at Beck, but felt compelled to order wine. The space was just too cold to do otherwise. As for Central, Richard is as warm as Hilary Clinton at a $10k fundraiser. (Unless, of course, you are Hillary Clinton and we're sure Richard warms right up.) Cafe du Parc is the only truly casul one of the three and people are confused by its plate du jour simplicity and sophisticated touches. (Which one is it?!?, they ask.)

-- So maybe DC hasn't changed. It's stuffy, even if the marketing crew at the latest restaurants say otherwise. Is it the town's southern roots that provides the formal edge? A lack of sophistication that requires a certain propriety or else eveyone's inner-frat boy emerges? Perhaps the answer is all of the above, plus a few other factors I have not thought of.

-- But things are different. The fact that three high-profile chefs chose to locate new businesses downtown, not in Georgetown or on K St., shows how far the center of gravity has shifted in DC. Every day it seems to move further and further east. It's not just downtown, but also H St. NE, where in ten years the newest crop of culinary imports likely will land.

Frat Boy Culture Sinking Adams Morgan

At least, that's what Alan Popovsky, owner of Felix at 2406 18th St. believes. "We have to look toward the future," says Alan Popovsky, "and Adams Morgan is not the future," he told the WaPo. Plus there are too many Pizza joints etc.

We agree a little. Adams Morgan has lost some of its off-beat character. Most of the Salvadorean restaurants are gone. There are more bars for suburbans on the prowl. But The Dinner and Design Within Reach show how the neighborhood can grow.

As for Popovsky, the West End is where Popovsky sees potential: bustle and affluence. "It's the next hot residential neighborhood," so he is taking over the David Greggory restaurant (2030 M St. NW) and turning the location into an all-day "contemporary American brasserie" called Hudson. (Eric Ripert of La Bernardin, NYC, also is looking at the West End, says Metrocurean.)

It is odd, though, hearing a bar owner complain about bars.

Not Your Average Burger Joint

Cintronelle chef, auter Michel Richard will open his second DC restaurant. Not another three-star aspirant or labrotorio, this will be a burger joint at 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Instead of being asked the usual "rare, medium or well-done," partrons of "Central" will choose from tuna, lobster or beef burgers. Interesting.

Richard (healthy man on the left) has a great reputation around town, particularly if the honorific in front of your name is "Sen." instead of the ususal "Mr." or "Ms." We were at Cintronelle once and when we asked to substitute on the cheese plate for something other than a goat cheese, a simple Brie perhaps, the waiter got huffy and told us that the plate was personally selected by Richard and could not be altered.

So if you want a half tuna/half lobster burger at the new place, be sure to reserve your table with the proper honorific. Given the Pennsylvania Ave. address, we recommend using the title of Ambassador and maybe then Richard will hold the dressing on the side if you ask nicely.