Capital chefs and their pilgrimages to the mother church of culinary America

By Jean Lawlor Cohen

October 2003--The cab heads for Greenwich Village and stops on narrow West 12th Street outside number 167. Tucked between nondescript apartment buildings is a quaint, four-story brownstone with the multi-paned windows of an English cottage. A plaque at the door confirms that WHERE has arrived at the most prestigious address in New World cookery--The James Beard Foundation.

Thanks to an invitation from D.C. chef Todd Gray and his partner-wife Ellen, my daughter and I are to experience an evening in the residence of the late James Beard, chef and cookbook author extraordinaire. For Gray, preparing dinner here must feel almost routine. He came six times as part of the Galileo restaurant team with his mentor Roberto Donna, and now he presides, for the fourth time, as owner-chef of Equinox (page DG 18). His success, cooking "Mid-Atlantic from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the shores of the Chesapeake," has earned him this latest invitation.

For the 5,000 or so people who belong to the Beard House, membership means receiving first-alerts for the almost nightly dinners. New Yorker-members frequently claim all of the seats, a capacity of 70 to 95, before out-of-towners get the word. No doubt the Manhattanites visit local restaurants on their own, but, since they pride themselves on knowing about top American chefs, they pay from $90 to $100 for multi-courses with wines here. As one guest this night says, "Of course, we know of Todd Gray."

All of which explains why, in an age of frequent-flyer miles and high expectations, a sophisticated traveler needs to know what's happening at a New York, albeit national, institution. Truth is, the chefs of the capital area have a particular stake in the Beard world--the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic award. This year's contest pitted a sole Philadelphian against four Washingtonians, including Gray and the ultimate winner, Jose Andres.

The House, The Dinner

Apart from fine food, the building itself has a strong, some would say sentimental, appeal. We are to dine, after all, in the slightly eccentric rooms where Beard entertained his storied guests and where, in recent times, Harrison Ford enjoyed a meal prepared by his son, a rising chef.

The foyer, lined with wallpaper (for some reason, black fronds on white!), opens into a parlor where waiters proffer champagne, and a staff member behind a podium checks a list for our names. Once vetted, each guest, with flute glass in hand, walks through a short hall into the fabled kitchen. Four chefs--Gray, his sous and two others--occupy most of the space on one side, working busily over burners or at a counter facing the passersby. Many of the attendees pause to ask questions or banter with the toqued crew.

Conversations continue in the back room, which doubles as a gallery of food-related artwork, this night a faux Matisse mural. Through the window we glimpse a walled garden. Bottles of wine bristle in the snow drifts, and somewhere out there is Beard's copper fountain in the shape of a pig. When the maitre d' announces it's time, guests ascend a flight of marble stairs and look for their placecards at tables nestled in what were once parlors and bedrooms on two upper floors. On each "parlor" wall hangs a portrait of the genial Beard himself, dramatically set off by a color the staff has dubbed "Campbell's tomato soup red."

Gray, following custom, has given his menu an appellation: "Day Equals Night: A Northern Lights Celebration." This implies his respect for the seasons (after all, he named his restaurant for the equinoxes--vernal and autumnal). His courses derive from regional recipes and ingredients, yet they reflect his time in Italian and French kitchens. A sampling of what he served: chestnut soup with duck confit and shaved foie gras; ravioli of Maine lobster with tangerine lobster cream; American red snapper on bok choy with littleneck clams; wild pheasant with apples and black currants; pinole-crusted lamb rack with white bean puree and Perigord black truffles; stuffed doughnut holes with chocolate anglaise--each paired with a French wine. The finale? Gray at the microphone, answering smart questions, introducing his crew, accepting all that New York applause.

The Awards

They call it "the Oscars of the food world"--the annual James Beard awards gala that's become the culinary world's biggest party. This year, themed to celebrate Beard's 100th birthday, the May 5 buffet and ceremony attracted 1,600 guests including a slew of D.C. chefs and restaurateurs. When Jose Andres won Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic and went onstage to accept the award, his first words were not "Thank you" but "Have you been to Washington, D.C. lately? You should. It's one of the great cities in America to eat out."

The savvy Spaniard became a star here with his tapas-rich Jaleo and Caribbean-kissed Cafe Atlantico. He recently opened the hip Mediterranean cafe Zaytinya, a nominee this year for Beard's Best New Restaurant in America. Besides Todd Gray, the other D.C. chefs on the short list were Ann Cashion known for her inventive comfort food at Cashion's Eat Place and Peter Pastan respected for his intimate Italian spot Obelisk.

The "Mid-Atlantic" title refers to a geographic region, one of eight designated by the JBF, and encompasses Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Panels of volunteer judges, drawn from the ranks of food and wine pros, past winners, critics and teachers, winnow large slates of award nominees by region to 20, then to five. An accounting firm oversees the weighting and counting of the ballots turned in by committee members.

Other locals made the final cut for national award nominations: Fabio Trabocchi of elegant Maestro for Rising Star Chef, Ann Amernick of Palena for Outstanding Pastry Chef and sommelier Michael Flynn of Kinkead's for Outstanding Wine Service.

Past Winners

1999--Jeffrey Buben won regional best chef, making his mark at two venues here--Vidalia with a Southern-accented menu (and now "magnolia wall") and Bis with its glam bar and spins on French bistro food.

1996--Roberto Donna, the master of Piedmontese cuisine and a mentor to many fine chefs, earned the prize for his inventive Galileo, now with a dine-in "laboratorio."

1995--Bob Kinkead of Kinkead's received the award for his single-minded reinvention of American seafood. In Washington, he also earns credit for the impact of his kitchen's alumni.

1992--Patrick O'Connell cinched the Mid-Atlantic chef title and then 1993 Restaurant of the Year honors for the extraordinary Inn at Little Washington in rural Virginia. It surprised no one that, in 1998 and 2000, the Inn won for its wine program, in 1997 for its service or that, in 2001, O'Connell won the ultimate national Beard award, Outstanding Chef of the Year.

Getting in the kitchen

How does a chef get invited to cook? Those with and without PR firms can nominate themselves by letters of recommendation and press clips. More often, food writers alert the JBF scouts, or chefs already on Beard radar recommend a peer. Some believe that if a chef opens a second restaurant, that carries some weight; others say "publish a cookbook."

Enzo Fargione of Barolo, who has cooked at Beard a dozen times, credits friendship. Jean-Louis Palladin long ago recommended Roberto Donna, Donna then brought Fargione, and later Fargione introduced Caseare Lanfranconi whose Tosca won a local title, best new restaurant of 2002. "It's a chain," says Fargione.

After Beard committees decide which chefs to invite, staffer Mildred Amigo, who once studied with James Beard, books a date, months in advance. Restaurants shoulder all the expense--the costs of transport, lodging, ingredients and staff. (Most enlist a wine supplier to share the costs and limelight.) Although the JBF offers a small per-diner stipend, chefs rarely, if ever, accept it. They figure that the foundation supports the industry, bestows prestige and provides an experience that's priceless.

Since supplies can't be stored at Beard House overnight, chefs either go the day before and stash food in a borrowed refrigerator or head out at 5 a.m. in a well-packed van. Trabocchi and his crew did prep work in their Ritz-Carlton kitchen the day before, then, unlike most delegations, went to New York and claimed refrigerators and rooms at a Ritz.

What to Cook

Most chefs rely on a menu of "greatest hits," but they often reconfigure favorites to fit a theme. Vidalia's Jeffrey Buben, for example, experimented with an onion meal--from hors d'oeuvres through dessert and petit fours. "The Beard dinner inspired our annual Vidalia Onion Festival, where we do an all-onion tasting menu for the month of June, paired with onion-friendly wines." Martin Saylor, who went most recently as chef of Butterfield 9, prepared a holiday dinner inspired by the quince.

Susan McCreight Lindeborg, now chef-owner of Alexandria's Majestic Cafe, went to Beard with three other chefs, each preparing regional courses. "We didn't even attempt to be cutting-edge. We just wanted to feed our guests really well."

For her third visit, Ann Cashion served an Eastern Shore Dinner, her focus at Johnny's Half Shell near Dupont Circle. After two years of menu planning with Alsace's Weinbach winery, she satisfied her self-imposed limits: summer fare, no red wines. "If you travel all that way, you want to make a statement."

Rob Klink (on our dining guide cover) went to Beard this summer as part of a chef team from the four outposts of upscale Oceanaire Seafood Room. Matched to Duckhorn wines, their "seafood indulgence" menu featured his crispy Maryland soft-shell crab with morel vinaigrette. Though Klink's D.C. base has a spacious, Art Deco oceanliner feel, he adjusted to Beard scale. "The house was bigger than I expected. We've been asked to come back!"

The Joy of Cooking

John Wabeck first cooked for a Beard event in Napa when he was based in California. Yet by 2003, as head of his own kitchen at Firefly, he went to New York (pictured, page DG13). Despite the pressure to be dazzling, he thinks "simple is the best way to go." The dessert truffles showed up just as the first guests arrived. "It's definitely an honor," says the young chef, "a rite of passage."

Richard and Peggy Thompson run Morrison-Clark Inn and Coeur de Lion here. They decided their menu of winter dishes first, then selected wines in a 300-bottle tasting. Although many joke about the dimensions of the kitchen, Richard Thompson calls it "a breath of fresh air. I'd heard that it was very small and not well equipped, but to our surprise it was perfect for our production." Except for gas burners instead of Beard's electric range, the space replicates his era--dish-loaded shelves, an oversize spice cabinet and map-of-the-world wallpaper.

Ris Lacoste, chef at Georgetown's 1789 and a past nominee for Mid-Atlantic honors, has been at least three times and will go again in 2004. For that she plans a "farmer's market" dinner, complete with articulate farmers in attendance. She recalls that once volunteers showed up to help peel potatoes and another time guests asked her to pose with them for pictures.

Roberto Donna may have cooked at the Beard House more than any other D.C. chef -- almost twice a year since 1990. "Some times there were themes like truffle dinners," he says, "and some times it was just my cooking." Certainly the latter proved dazzling enough. He recalls that guests showed respect and appreciation and later that fellow chefs let him know they'd like to go there too. And why wouldn't they? "I remember the ambiance--just full of electricity."

Years ago, when Bob Kinkead was a sous chef on Cape Cod, he met James Beard. After Kinkead went on his own, he attended an early Beard Foundation event that took 200 chefs on a boat ride around New York City. That was before the house dinners. "Now it seems that every chef feels he has to cook at Beard. Everyone's in contention, has to get his name out. "

But does it matter that a D.C. chef has cooked at Beard? Some say they feel no impact on business. Yet for Buben, "We have people visit us in Washington because of the connection we made at a dinner." Fabio Trabocchi says, "Guests sometimes identify themselves as Beard House members when they call for reservations or sit down to dine." Cooking there may have also raised Trabocchi's visibility for the short list of this year's Mid-Atlantic Rising Star Chef.

Most believe that a trip to Beard makes an award nomination more likely. But not necessarily, says a longtime staffer. (D.C. nominee Pastan, for example, has never been there.) What a stint does earn a chef is a document to post and, for award winners, prizes to show for it. Kinkead displays his medallion, scroll and bottle of champagne in his restaurant. Buben lines the entry stair of his newly redesigned Vidalia with sleekly framed, official Beard papers. "It looks good on your resume," says Ris Lacoste. "It's recognition that you're at the top of your game."

Esprit de Corps

Sometimes a Beard trip puts playing that game into perspective. Buben recruited some former colleagues to help, and "we made it a reunion and had a lot of fun." Lacoste agrees that "it's fun to cook out of your realm and good for your staff." For Bob Kinkead, winning an award boosted his team's morale. "They took pride." For Gray, the Beard House experience "raises the bar. It's our platform. It makes us work harder, makes us realize we want to evolve." Enzo Fargione is even more philosophical. He admits, "I have the same fear each time--fear of not doing better than before. I take chances. Only you know how well you performed. You do it for yourself."