Posts Tagged ‘Cafe MoZU’
Two Things Y&H Didn’t Expect to See at Sou’Wester’s Opening Party: Frank Ruta and Dancing
Ruta emerged from Palena’s kitchen, pictured with Maddy Beckwith
So how unique was last night’s opening reception for Sou’Wester? So unique that Frank Ruta showed up. In all the years Y&H has been covering the dining scene in D.C., I’ve never seen the semi-reclusive Palena chef and owner at an industry event. I barely recognized him out of his whites.
“This is only the second time I’ve been to one of these,” Ruta told Y&H.
“Only the second ever?” I asked Ruta, knowing his years on the scene.
“No, this is the second time this year,” he responded.
Ruta’s presence wasn’t the only unusual thing about this dual-themed party, which celebrated both the fifth anniversary of CityZen and the launch of Sou’Wester, the latest project from Eric Ziebold, chef of the City Paper’s reigning Best Restaurant. There was a tattooed DJ spinning rap and funk tunes in the CityZen dining room, one of the most formal spaces in town, where food stations had been set up to pass out samples of Sou’Wester’s menu. That’s right, people were dancing in the CityZen dining room (including Y&H, but it’s best not to think about that). The cognitive dissonance was palpable.
Mandarin’s South by Southwest Is Running Behind Schedule
When last we checked in with Eric Ziebold — to hear him defend the name of his latest project, South by Southwest, which is actually a restaurant, not an excuse to get drunk in Austin — the esteemed chef said the Southern-minded operation would open in early summer.
Scratch that.
During a phone conversation yesterday, Ziebold said that South by Southwest, which replaces Cafe MoZU at the Mandarin Oriental, wouldn’t open until September. The problem, Ziebold said, is that the original designer envisioned a “bold, bright” space. Unfortunately, that wasn’t Ziebold’s vision.
“We were looking to make a statement by not making a statement. You know what I mean?” Ziebold told Y&H. “I’m a less-is-more kind of person…It wasn’t going in that direction.”
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Eric Ziebold Responds to Y&H’s Pot Shot at South by Southwest
Imagine Y&H’s surprise when, just two hours after posting this item, chef Eric Ziebold was on the phone defending the decision to rename Cafe MoZU and identify it by the restaurant’s location within the District.
Ziebold was not at all defensive. He even agreed with my basic premise: that MoZU’s new name, South by Southwest, said more about the hotel where the restaurant is housed than the cuisine itself, which presumably will funnel Eastern Shore flavors. But he wanted me to understand where he was coming from. His concept, as you might expect from the City Paper’s top toque, was pretty well thought out.
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South by Southwest at the Mandarin: Love the Idea, Hate the Name
The Post’s Tom Sietsema broke the news yesterday that the Mandarin Oriental and chef Eric Ziebold will be transforming Cafe MoZU—the pan-Asian restaurant best known as the place everyone wanders into when looking for CityZen—into a more modestly priced outlet featuring Eastern Shore flavors.
CityZen’s second-in-command in the kitchen, Rachel Harriman, will be the chef de cuisine at the revamped MoZU, which will serve, according to Sietsema, “blue crab soup, chicken and dumplings, braised rabbit leg with grits and hush puppies with honey butter,” not to mention desserts like “carrot cake, strawberry shortcake, peach cobbler and grasshopper pie.”
Simply put, Y&H loves the idea of a white-tablecloth restaurant embracing local/regional flavors. We can only assume Maryland fried chicken will have a place on the menu, too.
What Y&H doesn’t love?
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