Z vs. K

When my über-foodie sister was visiting last fall, we went to a high-end restaurant that had just opened in the D.C. area. Running the kitchen is a New Young Chef who formerly worked for a Very Famous Chef at a Very Famous Restaurant in California (of which, my sister is a Very Big Fan). The meal was wonderful, but as can be expected with a newly opened establishment, the execution of some of the food still needed a bit of work (specifically, the distribution of salt – too much in some things, not enough in elsewhere). As to the taste of the dishes… even with the glitches, they were still fantastic with the big, yet elegant, pure flavors that made the Very Famous Chef very famous.

Since I had not been back in over a year and RWT went to Hawaii last week without me (what a bum), I decided it was a good time to go back to the year-old New Young Chef’s restaurant with some of my food-group friends. My overall impression... while the cooking during my previous visit was more uneven, I liked the food better last time. Not that my more recent dinner was anything other than great (and everything was cooked perfectly), but it was just not quite as breathtaking.

Why? On my first visit, (according to my know-it-all sister) the New Young Chef was mainly cooking variations on dishes he cooked under the tutelage the Very Famous Chef at the Very Famous Restaurant. I suspect that now the New Young Chef is coming up with his own recipes and they are just not the same caliber as those of the Very Famous Chef. Or, are they just different?

Perhaps the real question is if it is fair to expect the New Young Chef to forever cook food in the style of the Very Famous Chef. The New Young Chef could certainly continue to cook things à la the Very Famous Chef and have a very successful restaurant. But I would think the he’d want to develop his own repertoire and eventually step out of the shadow of the Very Famous Chef. Hmmm, I cannot help but wonder if the New Young Chef lays awake at night fretting over this exact thing.

But regardless if the New Young Chef's stays with the tried-and-true or progresses on to something else, I won’t be going back for another taste of his food for another year or so at the earliest because of the cost (after all, we are just poor military folk). And, even then, maybe I’ll save my pennies and instead go to the Very Famous Chef’s Very Famous Restaurant the next time I’m in California since that style of food is that I'll really be craving.