By: Cori Sue

Chef Nate Garyantes is the man behind the culinary magic in the kitchen at Cleveland Park hot spot Ardeo Bardeo. Garyantes comes from a restaurant family and has experience at kitchens across the nation including Shoebird Restaurant in Waikiki, Hawaii, Vault Steakhouse and his own Restaurant 821 in Wilmington, Delaware. Prior to joining Ardeo Bardeo earlier this year, Garyantes worked with José Andres at Café Atlantico. He bitched at us about brunch, Bennys and bunny bouillabaisse from the kitchen.

What does brunch mean to you?

It means a whole lot of work, to be honest with you. When most people are enjoying their weekends, weekends are the busiest time for the people that work in the industry. There’s definitely a stigma that brunch is not one of our favorite things. But, what we try to do at Ardeo Bardeo is create something that is interesting for the guests, but that guests don’t need to think about too much. We offer a $25 prix fix, and you can look down the menu and see all your favorites. But the difference is here we’re making our own English muffins, poaching the eggs specially, doing different things that people can appreciate.

What is your brunch dish?

To cook, right now we are doing a rabbit bouillabaisse that we serve over grilled rustic bread and with soft poached eggs with shaved Parmesan cheese and extra virgin olive oil. I like to cook it because it’s a whole long process that you see come to full fruition over a few days—we’re getting whole rabbits and butchering them, making stock with the bones, and marinating before cooking the dish.

To eat, I’m a sucker for a good Eggs Benedict. It’s my favorite brunch dish. I like making English muffins from scratch. In the kitchen, you’ll see me grabbing them when they’re fresh out of the oven, ripping them apart, slathering them with butter and eating them right there.

How do you feel about D.C. brunch scene?

It’s thriving and popular for the restaurant community, but I don’t get to participate in it very much because I’m always working. I think there’s a great scene—the Tabbard Inn and Oyamel both do very nice brunches. Oyamel is my favorite Jose restaurant.

Tell me about the restaurant scene in Cleveland Park?

What Ashok [the owner] wanted to do with the renovation and hiring me was to create truly a neighborhood restaurant and be a real neighborhood spot. There is a real sense of community here in Cleveland Park. If you look at our menu, we offer an option for everyone on every occasion—whether it’s coming in for a glass of wine and cheese plate or for a four-course tasting menu. I love the neighborhood, I’m happy to be here.

Do you like what you do?

Of course. You have to. It’s a lot of work, a lot of hours, but it’s also very rewarding. It’s one of the most honest ways to make a living—you’re producing food and feeding people—I like to say I make an honest living.

Any upcoming changes happening at Ardeo Bardeo?

We’re gearing up for the Holidays and we’ll have a menu change. Being in the neighborhood, you have a lot of regular guests. We have people that are in two-to-four times a month, so we like to keep it interesting for them. We like to change things on the menu regularly to keep it interesting for everyone.

Check out our review on Ardeo Bardeo, and visit Nate and the gang up in Cleveland Park.

By: Becca

She’s the woman behind the oysters at Hank’s Oyster Bar in Dupont and Old Town Alexandria—she even closed her gastropub Commonwealth earlier this year to focus on what she calls her love, Hank’s. Now Chef Jamie Leeds is serving her famous seafood at tomorrow night’s Signature Chef’s Auction, which benefits the March of Dimes (get tickets here before they sell out). I got a few minutes of her time recently, and she told me about what’s she’s preparing for the event. Plus, she Bitched at me about brunch in D.C. and how her son, Hayden, is a budding restauranteur.

Photo credit: Photo: Antoinette Bruno

What are you planning for tomorrow’s Signature Chefs’ Auction?

We’ll be serving scallops, probably with a parsnip puree. But, I always change things at the last minute. I’ve done it every year, and it’s a great event. I’m happy to give back. Everybody’s there for a good cause. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a good group of people. Everyone is happy to give, and they feel good about it.

What is brunch to you?

It’s food that people like to eat after they’ve been out drinking all night. Just kidding; but that’s always part of it. For brunch I like to offer a variety of home-style, really delicious, fresh food. That’s our style and philosophy for dinner as well. We like to incorporate seafood.

For brunch, the crab cakes eggs benedict is a big seller—one of our most popular dishes. I just changed up the French toast to make it more homey and rustic with thick sourdough bread and Grand Marnier egg batter. Also, I serve it with berries and bananas and maple syrup from Virginia. Always really good ingredients.

What do you think of the D.C. brunch scene?

I think the D.C. brunch scene could be better. I think there could be more options for brunch. I love Cashion’s and independent, smaller-style restaurants. I know the quality of the food at Cashion’s. It’s going to be attended to, not mass-produced. They have good quality ingredients that have rustic flavors. There’s a difference; I can’t quite articulate it.

What’s your favorite brunch dish?

My personal favorite to eat is bagels and lox—smoked salmon on a bagel with cream cheese and onion and tomato. I eat that every Sunday morning at the restaurant. That’s why I have it on the menu, so I can have it.

I really love making French toast. I love the different flavors of the batter you can create; I love the bubbly butter around the bread. I’d like to make cream-cheese-stuffed French toast, or French toast with ham and Gruyère. I haven’t found the best French toast in D.C. yet.

I also love making pancakes. I make them with my son; he loves to make pancakes. My son Hayden is eight years old. He plays with the batter; he can pretty much can do it by himself at this point. We always make them with blueberries—his favorite.

So is Hayden a budding chef?

He likes to cook. I think he’s more a front-of-the-house guy, though. He’s got the personality, the looks. He’ll go up to tables and talk to people. He’s into baseball so he’ll ask people what their favorite teams are and make lists of the dining room.

Where do you get your oysters?

I always have three east coast and three west coast oysters on the menu. I have three or four farmers in Virginia, some farms on the west coast in California, and I get some from British Columbia and around those areas. I get deliveries every day; we sell thousands of oysters every week. The west coast oysters are very popular. We have a Sunset Cove that’s very popular, and the Dragon Creek.

Also, we have Hayden’s Reef, named after my son. We hooked up with a farmer who has been providing us oysters since we opened. He approached me and asked me if I wanted to help Chesapeake Bay Oyster recovery program. So we went out and built the reef. Now we dump all our shells in the reef, and he grows the oysters specifically for us. It’s a good starter oyster. It’s clean, fresh, meaty oyster.

But are oysters really good for brunch?

People like to have oysters and champagne. Oysters and Bloody Marys also go really well together. We serve a Hangtown Fry dish with oysters and eggs. That started out with the mining in San Francisco—oysters are so abundant there. I also love eggs and oysters. We turned that into a frittata with fried oysters in it, served with tartar sauce on top.

Do you get out to your Alexandria location much?

I’m in Alexandria a little bit, but not as much as in D.C. I have a great team in Old Town that runs it just like their own—a husband and wife team. They do an amazing job of running the place. They take care of everything. I don’t have to go out there as much as I normally would. I go out there a couple times a week.

I named the restaurants after my father, Hank. We have pictures of him around the restaurants. He wasn’t a chef but he loved to cook. I got my love of cooking from him. He loved seafood, and he loved to fish. This was a tribute to him. I thought it would be a nice thing to do.

Do you love what you do?

It’s a hard business. It’s a hard choice. It’s the kind of thing where it was my passion. I fell into cooking. I was an advertising copywriter before I started cooking. That’s what I went to school for. I had gotten fired from my writing job. I needed to find a job and there was a restaurant in the bottom of my sister’s building in New York City and they needed a cook, and I went in and told them I could cook. I had never done it professionally. They took me in, and I just took to it. I loved it so much. It took off from there.

I feel very lucky that I am able to do something that I love so much. But you really have to have a passion for it because it’s a very hard business. I almost feel like it chose me rather me choosing it.

By: Becca

He’s the mastermind behind  Marcel’s, Brasserie Beck, and BRABO, and now Chef Robert Wiedmaier is the honorary chef at next month’s Signature Chef’s Auction, which benefits the March of Dimes (get tickets here before they sell out). I got a few minutes of his time recently, and he told me about what’s he’s preparing for the event. Plus, he Bitched at me about brunch in D.C., and whether or not he’s going to (finally) launch brunch at Marcel’s (horray!). 

Robert Wiedmaier

What’s your brunch philosophy?

Brunch is a funny thing. Some people are coming for breakfast items; other people are coming for a lunch item. So it has to be a good mix of both when you’re writing the menu. People are going to want great egg dishes. They might want the classic steak and eggs. At Brasserie Beck we offer brunch and breakfast dishes and then you can order off the menu too, so it gives the diner the option. You don’t have to hold them hostage just to brunch.

What’s your favorite brunch dish?

When I go to brunch I have steak and eggs. Think poached eggs with a nice New York steak with sautéed spinach and hollandaise sauce. And a side order of fingerling potatoes with rosemary. I like to be served. I like to sit down and order: I’ll take my double espresso and I’ll have this this and this.

What’s your favorite brunch dish to prepare?

My spinach and Gruyere cheese omelet. I have fond memories of making it with my father. There’s a great technique to making the perfect omelet. It can’t have any color. It has to be light and perfectly folded. I can test young cooks by how they fold an omelet. There’s an art. For me, I learned when making it for my father when I was young. I have it on the menu at Becks.

What do you think of the brunch scene in D.C.?

For years, brunches were only in the hotels. You’d go to the Ritz, the Park Hyatt, the Four Seasons. But hotels had a stigma for banquet cooking, as if they were not any good. That’s changed through the years, and there are great restaurants in hotels now. Brunch is bigger and better in D.C. The city has exploded with restaurants. Every time you turn around there’s another restaurant opening up. There’s a lot more for diners to choose from.

So who does it right?

I think Brian at Blue Duck Tavern in the Park Hyatt does an awesome job at brunch. There’s a short beef hash that’s to die for. I’m not a big brunch eater, but when I go, I go to there or the Four Seasons. On Sundays, I’m just so beat tired I don’t go out to brunch that often.

So what do you do instead?

My wife Polly cooks French pancakes. It’s my grandma’s recipe, and it’s been in my family for years. My aunt made them every Sunday in California. You take sugar, whipped egg, add flour, and pull them in really slowly so they’re super light. Then put powdered sugar and fresh fruit on them. Roll them up. Delicious. They’re really frothy and really light.

But what do you drink with that?

When most people go to brunch they want mimosas. I think it’s sacrilegious to take good champagne and put orange juice in it. Take a prosecco or sparkling instead. Or have a bloody Mary. Wine wise, I would say a good sauvignon blanc or chardonnay would go well with brunch. Otherwise, if you’re having meat, go with pinot noir. Pinot noir is neither masculine nor feminine. That’s why pinot noirs are so great with food. It used to be you can only have white wine with fish, only red wine with meat. And that’s such a fallacy.

Why don’t you serve brunch at Marcels?

We’re thinking about starting. We do Mother’s Day and Easter, and they’re always sold out. I’ve talked to my maître d, and they’re like, ‘lets do it!’ And I think, don’t you guys want to have your Sundays off? But we’re contemplating it; it’s a thought.

What would you serve?

We would offer egg items, like poached eggs on toasted brioche, with sauvignon sauce, chives, tomatoes and goat cheese. I would stack it: toasted brioche, then pork belly, then the goat cheese, then poached egg. Match that with a really light sauvignon hollandaise. I would offer some type of omelet. Some type of steak. A salmon dish. A chicken dish. Three different types of dessert. Five appetizers, five entrees, three desserts. Two being very breakfasty. But people don’t come to marcels for that. They come there for something fancier. So, I’m still thinking about it. But it might come sooner than 2012.

Why do you love being involved with the Signature Chef’s Auction for the March of Dimes?

I’ve always thought [the March of Dimes] is a great cause. I’ve chaired the event several times. There are a lot of good charitable events out there—I’m asked every day to do a hundred of them. But the March of Dimes has been around for a long time, and I’ve always thought very highly of the organization. I’m happy to help out. That being said, I’m not even sure what I’m going to be preparing for the event yet. One year I did my Napoleon of smoked salmon; I’ve done my beef carbonnade with potatoes. But I’m still not sure what I’m doing to do this year. People should come because it’s going to be a lot of talented chefs putting out great food and more importantly donating to a great cause.

Buy tickets here!

By: Becca

Thus begins a new series called “Bitch At Us,” where we chat with owners and chefs at D.C. area restaurants to get the secrets behind great brunches …

I was so floored by the sheer fun I had at L’Enfant Café & Bar’s La Boum brunch, I simply had to find out where it all came from. So I stalked the owner (Christopher Lynch, who actually co-owns L’Enfant with Jim Ball) and made him spill his secrets, his inspiration for the brunch, and what’s to come (hint: DC’s “sexiest brunch” won’t be around for long).

Becca: What the hell is ‘La Boum’?

Christopher: It’s a French slang term that means teenage house party. It’s something that teenagers would do when their parents would go away for the weekend. Kids would invite all their friends over from high school, smoke pot, drink all the liquor, have sex in the parents’ bed. There was a movie about it called ‘La Boum.’ It was about exactly that: a teenage coming of age. Of course there is none of that at the brunch, but imagine the freedom of having fun without the parental supervision.

Becca: And where did you get this crazy idea?

Christopher: There’s a place in New York that I frequent called Le Bilboquet, on the upper East side just off Madison. It’s a tiny little French café, but every time I would go in, there would be a really long wait, and only 40 people inside, but I’d always be sitting next to people like Bono or the Olsen twins. It was very hush hush and it would get crazy—young Hamptonite rich kids. I was always the odd ball in the room. I thought, D.C. could really use something like this.

Becca: So how did you make it happen?

Christopher: Well, I like the size of L’Enfant Café. You only need a certain amount of people to fill up the space. I thought, surely you can find 60 people who want to party once a week. There are only 60 seats. I had to deconstruct every element that made that party what it was in New York. I did storyboards—the music, the look, the food, the type of people who would come. I started cutting stuff out of magazines and doing vision boards.

Becca: Yeah, but how did you make it so cool?

Christopher: Put a girl with pasties on the bar and send out shots? Just kidding. It was a slow start, but all of a sudden it hit like crazy. It’s all viral. No one has blogged about it until now. I haven’t reached out to the press or invited writers to have brunch there. I put the breaks on that. The charm of this is that it’s local and viral, and you don’t have people driving in for it from out of town. We started practicing it in November and then kind of got out of our practice mode in December. Mid-December I did the first one where I went all out. I invited a lot of people and filled the room. It’s spread from there.

Becca: Why Saturday afternoon?

Christopher: When I would always go to New York, I would always brunch on Saturday. You can go and party and then go home and take a disco nap and then get up and go again, and you don’t have to worry about going to work the next day. I mean, why not? There’s nothing going on Saturday afternoon. I’m not competing against anything else. Also, I changed the menu. We added more lunch-ish items. It is such a late meal, I wanted to have not just pancakes and eggs but also steak frites and mussels and burgers.

Becca: Yeah, I don’t remember the food. But I do remember the music, the dancing, the burlesque.

Christopher: I’ve changed performers several times. I’ve tried not to make it just burlesque, but it seems to weigh that way. The performance has to come in, do its thing, and move out of the way. It’s just a nice little extra. The DJ is a pretty essential element. You have to have a good-looking DJ who is playing some familiar music so people can have fun. Also, with drawing the blinds. I wanted to make it intimate and change it from the regular atmosphere that you have there. So, let’s close the blinds and darken it up. It wasn’t to make it nighttime, but to sex it up, change the look of the room.

Becca: How much did we drink?

Christopher: We went through six cases on Saturday. And not everyone was drinking champagne. A lot of people drink bloody marys. We tend to get a lot of birthdays, that’s what organically happens. We’re the Chuck E Cheese of birthday parties.

Becca: So how hot is this brunch?

Christopher: I am booked five weeks in advance. We keep a wait list. You always get people who don’t show up, but I try to curtail that by reconfirming. What some people don’t know is that we have an open-door policy at 4 p.m. So if you’re in the neighborhood, you can come in and dance.

Becca: Please tell me this will be in D.C. forever.

Christopher: I anticipate shutting this down mid-spring. I wouldn’t say early spring because as the daylight changes, the room changes. I get afternoon sundown. I think it affects the ambiance a little bit. It’s going to change the mood. Also, when the patio actually opens for the season, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with that. Should it be available to La Boumers? Or for regular customers who want late afternoon snacks? So, I’m going to shut it down in the spring and open it back up in November. Refresh it. We are also testing a new concept,  D.C.’s only original midnight brunch house party. Our first La Boum Boum Roum is Saturday, April 9, and promises to have “all of the fun and none of the sun” of the regular La Boum. Eventually, this could be the summer version of the now classic formula.