Michel Richard

“I sold them the recipe,” was all the chef offered. And he stressed that “we must try harder every day,” a not-so-subtle hint that things could be better. Otherwise he was mum.

Photo by Chris Shott

For a concept as prosaic as ground meat shaped into savory spheres, the new Penn Quarter eatery simply called Meatballs sure has generated a lot of buzz.

Part of the hype is probably due to the restaurant’s brash marketing strategy. Consider the eye-catching signage out front, which heavily emphasizes the word “balls” in large capital letters.

Another big attraction is the famous chef at the forefront of the project: Michel Richard, the celebrated French toque behind acclaimed fine-dining destinations Citronelle in Georgetown and Central in Penn Quarter, as well as the newly opened Central Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace.

This unique combination of culinary celebrity and cheeky advertising has provided the place with a slew of pre-opening publicity. Virtually every food blogger in town had posted photos of the interior, weeks before the planned launch this week. The restaurant was expected to open Wednesday, but city inspectors had yet to give it the green light. Leading up to the long-awaited opening, it seemed, the whole D.C. food scene had been talking about Meatballs.

Well, except for one guy.

“I really don’t want to be in public involved with this,” says Mark Bucher—a pretty strange request for someone whose name and notarized signature appears all over public records on the project.

Bucher is the creator and operator of Cleveland Park’s popular steak frites spot Medium Rare, as well as the founder of BGR: The Burger Joint, with locations in Dupont Circle, Bethesda, and elsewhere.

Ask him or his PR rep about his possible involvement in the new meatball shop and you’ll get a pretty firm denial. Neither “Mark nor BGR is involved in this,” Bucher’s publicist told me last week. “[N]ot/never,” she later clarified via email. Contacted by phone, Bucher, too, initially denied any involvement.

Then why has he taken such an active role behind the scenes?

The restaurant’s application for a liquor license, for instance, notably lists only one owner or partner in the business—and it’s not Michel Richard. That lone proprietor, according to the application: Mark Bucher, described as the “managing member” of Meatballs E St, LLC, who also, as the paperwork helpfully notes, holds licenses for BGR Dupont LLC and Medium Rare Cleveland Park LLC. (See the documents below.)

The number listed on the application as Meatballs’ business telephone rings Bucher’s cell. Placards posted in the windows of the restaurant appear to have been doctored with correction fluid to conceal Bucher’s name as the listed contact, but the posted phone number is the same.

Lest you think this stated managerial role carries merely a minority interest in the actual business, the application pegs Bucher’s stake in the venture at 100 percent.

Yet, despite having certified in writing “under the penalty of perjury” that he is the “true and actual owner of the business,” Bucher still insists that he has zero ownership stake in Meatballs. “If there is something that says otherwise, that is inaccurate,” he says.

According to him, the real “true and actual owner” is a company based in New York called Food Research Corporation. “Michel Richard is the front man on it. We all like him to be the front. It’s important for lots of reasons, but they’re the ones that have put the money up, and they’re the ones that have backed it,” he says.

Bucher describes his role as merely advisory. “I’m helping my friend,” he says. “I’m helping Michel. I’m not an owner of this thing at all. I’m just helping him get coordinated.”

Contacted for comment, Richard’s usual rep at Central and Citronelle, Mel Davis, curiously referred me to Bucher.

That Bucher and Richard are somehow collaborating on the concept isn’t much of a surprise. Richard was often mentioned as a consultant on the launch of Bucher’s Medium Rare restaurant this past spring; its opening chef, Cedric Maupillier, previously worked for Richard at Central. Bucher also credits Richard with helping him launch BGR.

Neither restaurateur can really take credit for coming up with the idea for Meatballs. The menu submitted alongside the liquor license application isn’t even original—it’s a print-out of the offerings at the similarly themed Meatball Shop in New York, which also seems to be the inspiration for all the D.C. eatery’s ballsy humor. “You’ll get thirsty eating our balls,” the New York menu reads in its drinks section. A different menu, inviting patrons to “pick your balls” from a list of classic beef, chicken, lamb, crab, or lentil, was posted in the windows of the D.C. restaurant on Wednesday.

What’s odd is Bucher’s caginess about the whole thing. Given his résumé, he would seem an ideal candidate to help spearhead the development of this kind of project. Like Meatballs, his prior restaurant concepts, BGR and Medium Rare, are both tightly streamlined operations, focusing on a single food form—burgers and steak, respectively—served in fashionable but casual surroundings. And both appear to be thriving enterprises. BGR currently boasts 17 locations either open or in the pipeline from Arlington to Alabama, according to the company’s website.

Meanwhile, stop by Medium Rare any given night of the week, and you’ll see a location bustling with diners, despite its limited menu of gravy-smothered sirloin caps, fries, salad, and bread. Ask Bucher about the steak frites place, and he isn’t the least bit shy in talking it up: “People love it. It’s consistent. It’s a rule-breaker. And it just continues to do great.” His biggest concern seems to be whether to expand the concept to other corners of the city or simply keep it as a single location.

Bucher’s pedigree is also more in sync with the style of service planned for Meatballs. BGR, in particular, is a similar quick-serve sort of joint, complete with the vibrating buzzer to signify when your order is ready for pickup and the DIY satisfaction of self-busing your tray to the nearest trash bin when your meal is over.

Contrast that with the résumé of Richard, whose other restaurants are the sort of fancy full-service places that refold your napkin every time you leave the table.

French chefs aren’t typically known for their meatballs. But Richard has shown a real knack for elevating Americanized comfort foods. His burger at Central, topped with a crispy potato tuile, is often mentioned among the best in the city. And his take on fried chicken inspires similar raves.

For a chef of Richard’s caliber, mastering the meager meatball shouldn’t present much of a challenge.

Getting a handle on the assembly-line pace of a quick-serve business, though, could be a different story.

According to Bucher, any behind-the-scenes effort on his part is purely to help ease his chef buddy’s transition into this altogether foreign form of food service.

“I’m helping him learn quick-serve,” Bucher says. “Learning quick-serve is very different than Central and Citronelle for him—staff and training and speed of service and line set-up and equipment. There are lots of things in quick-serve that move differently than in a fine-dining restaurant.”

That certainly explains why Richard might seek Bucher’s help in developing the concept. It doesn’t explain why Bucher is putting his neck on the line legally for a business that he claims to have no actual financial interest in. “Friends help friends,” he says.

No matter what the forms say, Bucher says he couldn’t be an owner in Meatballs because it too closely conflicts with BGR. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for my partners and investors in Burger Joint,” he says. Burgers, meatballs—it’s all ground beef, right?

As for why Bucher’s name and signature are on the legal documents for Meatballs instead of Richard’s, Bucher says it was sort of an oversight. “He probably should’ve been, to be honest with you,” Bucher says. “I think it was a speed issue and we just moved fast.”

Whatever his official level of involvement, Bucher can’t seem to distance his public persona from the project fast enough. Following this week’s planned opening, he says, “my work there, my help there, is done.”

He insists his future ground-beef ambitions come purely in patty form: “Burger Joint’s on a huge trajectory—that’s my full-time focus and attention.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Meatballs, 624-A E St., NW

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Deviled eggs, like the common hot dog and macaroni and cheese, are one of those classic comfort foods that have lately taken on a sort of contemporary chic—and, in some cases, sheen.

To wit: One recent evening at Boundary Stone in Bloomingdale, a plate of the $3 hors d’oeuvres arrived in the standard fashion—hard-boiled, bisected, and served cold. Except for one glaring element: The yolks were frickin’ pink! What horrible deformity had befallen that poor chicken embryo?

Thankfully, the blushing semi-orbs didn’t taste all that abnormal. They were just slightly sour and a tad tangy. It seemed no genetic mutation was at play here, nor was this some ill-conceived promotion to benefit the Think Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness. “I take some pickled beet juice and add that in with the yolk to make the deviled mixture,” chef Vincent Campaniello later explains.

When I made a return visit a few weeks later, the eggs had changed from bright pink to a sort of greenish gold. They smacked of heavy salt and spice, as well as a more subtle flavor that I couldn’t immediately identify but eventually found out to be dill.

This sort of guessing game has become commonplace at the increasingly hip neighborhood’s newest boîte.

A woman sitting next to me at the bar, who described herself as a “deviled egg snob,” claimed to have previously tried three different colors of eggs at Campaniello’s rustic-looking restaurant on Rhode Island Avenue NW: pink, orange, and purple. Her favorite? The orange—though she added that she had no clue what was in that one.

“My deviled eggs will change nightly depending on what I feel like playing around with and putting in them,” says Campaniello, whose Sunday trips to nearby farmers markets often dictate what sort of creamy egg filling his patrons will be eating for the next week. “I try and give the people something new.”

Despite the mystery, or maybe partly because of it, the bar snacks have become quite popular sellers, according to the chef. “I get a lot of questions sometimes,” he says. “But once [customers] try them, they fly out of here. I get in trouble stocking them. I’ll think I make enough orders and they’ll be gone with plenty of time left in service.”

Campaniello’s eggy experiments underscore a larger trend. At D.C.-area eateries, the summertime picnic staple has become as common an appetizer as fried calamari, yet as varied in preparation as pizza.

Perhaps the local standard-bearer of the genre is 2Amys in Cleveland Park, where deviled eggs have been listed on the menu since the restaurant first opened in 2001. Peter Pastan’s place is best known for its traditional Neapolitan-style pizza, but the eggs are outstanding. They win my vote for best in the entire city. The yolk filling tastes of curry, but not overpoweringly so. And, the accompanying oily green sauce—whipped up with chopped parsley, pickles, anchovy, capers, and mustard seed—piles on the salt.

Prior to the pizzeria’s opening, Pastan, also proprietor of Obelisk in Dupont Circle, had served the dish at local fundraisers. “Either people would get it, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, who doesn’t love deviled eggs?’ or, they’d be like, ‘What? Deviled eggs?’ like it was nothing special,” says 2Amys co-owner Amy Morgan.

Between the deviled delights and other egg-laden recipes, 2Amys generally goes through about five cases of eggs each week, she says. That’s 150 dozen.

In recent years, other venues have tried to elevate the old cold egg in weird ways, with varying degrees of success. At Ray’s to the Third in Arlington, the latest establishment in beef-centric restaurateur Michael Landrum’s empire, the traditional yolk mixture is tossed out entirely. Landrum instead fills his white ovals with steak tartare and smothers them in Hollandaise. The powdery yolks are scattered about the plate as a sort of garnish along with some pickles, capers, and diced onion. Call me old-fashioned, but the yolk is where the payoff is. Relegating it to the side is just plain wrong.

Retro-chic comfort food, like overpriced pet food, seems to cause marketers to break out the puns: At Ray’s, the classic deviled descriptor is altered to “devilishly good” on the menu. At Founding Farmers, the Foggy Bottom church of farm-to-table dining, eggs filled with lobster, crab, and salmon-infused mixtures are labeled “devil-ish.”

* * *

Economics may help explain the ascension of the old-school, albumin-rich dish to prominence on local menus. Eggs are cheap. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average retail price of a dozen grade-A eggs in September was less than $2. Slice each of ’em in half and your profit margin on the main ingredient instantly doubles.

Another financial factor: Prominent local chefs I’ve interviewed give me the distinct sense that they think the cure for our current national economic malaise involves healthy doses of mayonnaise, plus yolk.

“In these times, people are looking for what comforts them,” says Boundary Stone’s Campaniello. “I’ve done the five-star fine dining and everything. People aren’t really looking for the white linen service anymore. They want to come in and just enjoy the simple things that spark a little memory.”

And yet, even some of the city’s finer dining establishments are churning out deviled eggs. Consider Central, where fancy French chef Michel Richard serves what his compatriots calls œufs mimosa, a quartet of creamy egg halves topped with marinated anchovies called boquerones, for $7. They are quite good. The seafood topping is neither too fishy nor too salty.

At Richard’s even fussier Georgetown location Citronelle, a more traditional version of deviled eggs also appear on the menu of a special pre-theatre promotion honoring the Washington Ballet’s upcoming production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic jazz-age novel The Great Gatsby. (The story’s action, you’ll recall, takes place in fictional West Egg.) It seems that what was good for the dapper gents and flapper-clad gals of the roaring ’20s is also perfectly suited to the 21st-century high rollers still raking it in within the Beltway’s yet-unburst bubble.

On the flipside, you find the same style of finger food getting hands sticky inside some of the District’s dingier dives. At DC9, where former Frank Ruta acolyte Amber Bursik now helms the kitchen, deviled eggs help ease the sting of whiskey shots and ear-ringing indie rock.

Bursik infuses her egg filling with pimento cheese. It’s a natural extension of the chef’s go-to morning-after remedy: grilled cheese filled with the pimento spread. “That’s one of my favorite hangover foods,” she says.

Add some paprika and a sliver of real pimento on top and you’ve got one potent bar snack. “It’s got a little bit of a smoky flavor to it, then it’s kind of sweet, a little salty, a little cheesy, and a little eggy,” she says.

Beyond the homey appeal of the dish—“They remind you of your childhood, they’re tasty and they’re kind of a guilty pleasure,” the chef says—Bursik floats another reason why folks flock to local restaurants for their deviled egg fix: “They’re a pain in the ass to make for yourself.”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com.

Boundary Stone, 116 Rhode Island Ave. NW

2Amys, 3715 Macomb St. NW, (202) 885-5700

Founding Farmers, 1924 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, (202) 822-8783

Ray’s to the Third, 1650 Wilson Blvd., Arlington

DC9, 1940 9th St. NW, (202) 483-5000

Michel Richard

Items reportedly on the menu at Meatballs include traditional, lamb, crab, fried chicken and vegetarian meatballs topped with your choice of sauces: marinara, alfredo, morel mushroom and one that will rotate.

Photo by Albondigas_de_lentejas/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Photo courtesy of Michel Richard Citronelle

But, you probably could've guessed all of those.  As the Baltimore Sun duly points out, "Think of this an update of the previous edition, with 119 new listings. But established restaurants have not been re-rated and re-ranked—that happens every other year."

Read Y&H alum Tim Carman's definitive piece on the survey, "Dear Zagat," here.

Late at night, while the rest of the city dreams of illicit encounters and lost loved ones, I dream about the perfect Reuben sandwich. In my nocturnal haze, I’m at a bar, my fingers wrapped around two lightly buttered, not-so-greasy, perfectly toasted pieces of rye. My teeth sink into meltingly tender slices of corned beef bound by a single slice of cheese that’s actually from overseas.

The sauerkraut — spiked with juniper berries that echo my dream sandwich's other seasonings — has a firm bite and a pleasing tangy flavor. Reminiscent of the German Gourmet's 'kraut in Falls Church, it resembles nothing of the bagged flaccid grocery store versions. The whole sandwich is liberally slathered in a Russian dressing that has character and punch, awakened with lemon and muddied by a touch of Worcestershire in addition to standard ingredients of ketchup, mayonnaise, and pickle relish.

My dream sandwich, of course, is no more a reality than the buxom blonde who visits my slumber when my subconscious has decided to be kind. If it was real, however, I’m fully certain I would eat at least one a week.  I’d likely blog about it daily.

Tunnicliff’s Tavern on Capitol Hill is the closest I’ve come to Reuben utopia.  The staff brines raw brisket in the basement with pink salt and pickling spices before boiling and slicing it for sandwiches.  The finished product isn’t as tender as Central’s masterpiece, but just as flavorful with heavy notes of cinnamon and spice.  Tunni’s version is also assembled more humbly and runs $7 cheaper.

The melted Swiss is the same lifeless variety that fills most grilled sandwiches and the 'kraut could use a boost, but I’m far from complaining. Sandwiches like this define the bar food I’ve been searching for, using decent ingredients  and applying the proper techniques, while relying on the traditional recipes we’ve all grown to love.  Comfort food this comfy is almost soothing, inducing a beer-assisted carbohydrate haze that lulls me back to sleep.

I was curious to see how the toque known for his creative spin on a Kit Kat bar (oh, excuse me, Michel's chocolate bar) would interpret the deli classic. The sandwich turned out to be traditional, but still featured the elevated execution one would expect when ordering a $17 dish.

With the exception of the rye bread purchased from Ottenberg's Bakery, the entire plate is produced in house and served with hand-cut french-fries.  Even the cucumber spear is pickled on site, but the real star is the corned beef.

The kitchen cures fresh briskets in a house-made brine before cooking the meat overnight at the laziest of simmers. It results in thick slices of deli meat with almost no discernible fat or gristle. They're exceptionally tender, too.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve eaten a number of corned beef or pastrami Rueben-style sandwiches marred by overly buttered bread or coleslaw and sauerkraut abuse, not to mention careless construction that ends in a greasy, soggy mess. I’ve heard that Pam Ginsberg up at Wagshal's delicatessen serves up a mean corned beef, but I want to eat my sandwich at a bar, not a deli counter.

Now I’m asking the readers of Young and Hungry, where do you go for a well-executed Reuben, a place that serves a cold bottle of beer and doesn’t break the bank? Or has D.C.’s corned beef sandwich standard been set by a Frenchman?

Time to play catch-up here late on a Hump Day, which can mean only one thing: another round-up of food-related links. First up is the big news of the new year: the sudden departure of Cedric Maupillier from Central. WaPo's Tom Sietsema broke the news.

Interestingly enough, Philly.com reported in November that Maupillier's replacement, Arthur Cavaliere, was heading to D.C. Unfortunately, the source couldn't say where exactly he was moving to. The interesting thing to Y&H is Cavaliere's experience at El Vez, the Stephen Starr property that deals in modern Mexican-American food. Could any of that influence wiggle its way into Michel Richard's Americanized French bistro?

In other news:

• U Street Girl reports that former Tabaq chef, the underrated Daniel Labonne, has opened his own place, Bistro La Bonne on U Street.
• Prince of Petworth notes that the former Asmara Cafe space is being transformed into Bella Restaurant.
• PoP also lets us know that one of Y&H's best new restaurants, Masa 14, is already looking to expand.
• Zagat Buzz gives us a list of places that are extending Restaurant Week.
• Foodservice Monthly names Lynne Breaux, president of Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the "foodservice leader of the year."
• Obama Foodorama has the recipe for the sweet potato tart from Iron Chef America's most recent winning team.

A couple of weeks ago, Y&H asked you to nominate the entrees and appetizers and desserts that you felt were worthy of inclusion into a D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. Y'all tore into the assignment like a pack of wolves on a dead carcass.  I received Tweets, personal e-mails, and lots of suggestions via the comments section.

Then for this week's Young & Hungry column, I contacted a few chefs for their input on HOF dishes. All told, between the public and chefs, you nominated more than 100 dishes, with very little overlap. I've narrowed down the list down to the 30 dishes that could represent D.C. well, if elected to the hall.

Now it's your turn. You can vote for three dishes and three dishes only. The top five vote-getters will be part of the inaugural class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. You have until Dec. 11 to vote.

Pass the word around!

Photo by Darrow Montgomery