On a recent Friday morning, Bryan Duggan is asking the dozen or so people assembled in front of him what they think the grounds of an Ecuadorian roast smell like.

Self-professed coffee philistines and scruffy, plaid-bedecked twentysomethings I recognize as baristas at Filter Coffeehouse and Big Bear Café offer up “tamarind,” “sweet potatoes,” and “moss” to describe the coffee, dubbed El Gavilan. The weirder the descriptor, the more pleased Duggan seems.

We are in the light-filled, Ikea-furnished Counter Culture training center in Adams Morgan, where Duggan and his fellow customer service representative, Alex Brown, run free “cuppings” every week. Tiny clipboards with sheets of paper to mark down tasting notes have been distributed, and Duggan and Brown explain the various ways to understand coffee: the fragrance and aroma of the grounds, as well as the flavor, body, and aftertaste of the brew.

Don’t be fooled by the local address: Counter Culture’s headquarters are way out of town in Durham, N.C. Yet given the dearth of local roasters to compete with, the company has become the District’s dominant upscale coffee distributor.

A cursory examination of Counter Culture’s business model helps explains why: As long as a shop sells Counter Culture coffee exclusively, the company will provide that place with extra service—at no extra charge. Want your baristas trained in espresso-making and milk-frothing? How about your espresso machines installed or serviced? What about a course instilling staffers with the all-important fair-trade, single-origin, organic ethos? Sell Counter Culture, and only Counter Culture, and you get all that for free.

For so-called third-place businesses like cafés and coffee shops that encourage hanging out rather than rapid customer turnover, that package deal seems like a smart business decision. Rather than taking the time to close shop and train staff, operators can ship their charges off to Counter Culture for classes like “Beginner Espresso Lab” and “Brewing Science.”

For the customer, however, Counter Culture’s vast reach engenders a monochromatic coffee scene where two of every three cups from specialty java joints in the District taste the same. Even if you’re avoiding Starbucks, chances are you’re still supporting caffeine hegemony with every skinny latte you drink.

* * *

Counter Culture, which first entered the D.C. market in 2004 with a single account at the now-defunct Murky Coffee, supplies beans to at least 25 different cafés and restaurants in the city. Its clients include tiny indie shops, such as Peregrine Espresso and Big Bear, the Tryst-Diner-Open City triumvirate, and a number of big-name D.C. restaurants like Komi, Zaytinya, and Rogue 24.

In D.C.’s tight-knit café society, the company’s tentacles run especially deep. Peregrine owner Ryan Jensen, for instance, is also a former Counter Culture customer service representative. Jensen describes the company’s sales strategy as seductive—and, ultimately, matrimonial. “The way we set up our approach is much like a marriage,” says Jensen. “By being faithful to them, we get certain benefits. There are very clear discounts that you get if you purchase a certain amount per week. The more any of their accounts buy from them, you can get more savings. That adds up pretty quickly.” Jensen points to 2-percent discounts on orders between 30 and 100 pounds and 7 percent off those over 100; he estimates that Peregrine’s two locations go through about 500 pounds of coffee per week.

And just like a love affair, the initial wooing comes easy. “I knew the whole deal, the way they do their training and their service,” says Mike Visser, proprietor of Mount Pleasant’s Flying Fish Coffee & Tea. Before opening his own shop last year, Visser worked at Tryst, a Counter Culture client, as well as Baked & Wired, which served the same beans before switching purveyors about two years ago. “Machines are expensive, training people is expensive,” Visser says. “If you want it in a nutshell, it’s good coffee and it’s an unbeatable relationship, like, ‘We’ll service your machine for free if you serve our coffee.’ It was easy enough as a starting point because I knew what they offered from the help side.”

And again like a marriage, the structure of the client-supplier relationship promotes dependency and makes breaking up difficult. “I would always love to bring something else in when I’m better off down the road financially,” says Visser. “I’ve considered bringing in other local roasters, but that voids the warranty.”

Full disclosure: I, too, once worked in a Counter Culture shop—Annapolis’ Hard Bean Coffee & Books. But I never loved the coffee (I find it a bit sour and watery) and, since moving to D.C., have actively sought out shops that serve other beans. This exercise has made me notice just how extensively Counter Culture has saturated the local market. And I’m not alone.

“D.C. has an interesting relationship with Counter Culture. It’s kind of bad in a couple of different ways,” says Jonathan Riethmaier, who blogs about the city’s coffee culture at District Bean. “Some of the coffee shops here wouldn’t be where they are without Counter Culture. To some degree, the level of consumership wouldn’t be where it is without Counter Culture because of their commitment to training and education. ”

The flip side: “If you’re someone that loves coffee and going to different cafés, do you really want to go to the coffee shop on the corner and have their featured coffee of the month, and go to the next one and have their featured coffee, and have it be the same coffee?” says Reithmaier. “That’s the kind of risk you run, that you see a lot of the same coffee in different shops.”

* * *

As widespread as Counter Culture coffee might seem, there are alternatives. You just have to look for them.

There’s M.E. Swings, the 80-year-old roaster downtown. Qualia Coffee in Petworth also roasts its own. Illy, an Italian coffee purveyor, has a shop in Foggy Bottom and now supplies the recently opened Lot 38 near Nationals Park. Local start-up Vigilante Coffee Co. sells beans at Eastern Market and distributes to Smith Commons and Granville Moore’s.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to Counter Culture’s D.C. dominance could come from Ceremony, the rebranded roasting arm of Annapolis’ Caffé Pronto, which offers an exclusive contract that’s comparable in its perks to Counter Culture’s. Ceremony’s roasting operation is 225 miles closer to D.C. than Counter Culture’s Durham headquarters. There’s no training center here yet, but owner Vincent Iatesta says he’s considering it. In the meantime, Ceremony staffers travel to the D.C. area to train baristas at places like Filter and Restaurant Eve.

Ask the guys at Counter Culture about rivals encroaching on their turf and you’ll hear all about the benefits of competition—a position easily espoused by the dominant player in any industry. “If a coffee roaster comes here, and it’s good quality, it’s just going to push the bar up,” says Brown.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

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

Michel Richard may soon join fellow D.C. chef Robert Weidmaier in opening a restaurant—perhaps even three of them—in Atlantic City. [Eater DC]

Shaw's forthcoming Bistro Bohem could open earlier than Shaw's Tavern. [Prince of Petworth]

Next week is D.C. Meat Week. Alexandria's Pork Barrel BBQ is taking the opportunity to unveil its new Carolina vinegar sauce. [PR Web]

Hollywood starlet Drew Barrymore is turned away at Komi. So she hits up Shake Shack instead. [Glitterazi]

Chef Geoff Tracy warns his customers to watch out for D.C.'s speed cameras: Tickets cost $150, which, he helpfully points out, "equals FIVE three course dinners at Lia's during BCC Restaurant Week." [NBC Washington]

Komi

Take a peek inside the new and improved Great Wall Szechuan House [Prince of Petworth]

Black-eyed peas may have little to do with good luck—but at least something to do with slavery. [WaPo]

Prediction: Asian dumplings will be huge in 2012; $26 pasta dishes not so much. [Esquire]

Lots of exciting restaurant openings to look forward to in 2012. None in D.C., apparently. [The Daily Meal]

Here's something different: a restaurant with a "cash tips only" policy [The Bad Deal]

Some tantalizing food porn from the past year [Serious Eats]

Photo by Chris Shott

Metrocurean

Says Monis: "Whereas Komi is a natural extension of my heritage and the food I grew up with, Little Serow is a passion project....Isaan food has a flavor profile that I love eating on our days off and have been cooking for our staff family meal and behind the scenes for the last few years. Traveling through northern Thailand with Anne (my wife and the other half of Komi) furthered solidified the fact that we wanted to do this."

Photo courtesy of Komi

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.

Standard Bearer: Cable television reality culinary personality and Capitol Hill restaurateur Spike Mendelsohn is representing the District in Eater's national best burger contest. [Eater D.C.]

Openings: A new bar/restaurant opened up in the Crystal City Marriott. Yay. [ARLNow]

On the Spot: The Washington Post's food editor, Joe Yonan, tries to name his favorite restaurant in the greater Borderstan region: "Okay, I’m going to narrow it down to just two, because that’s how I roll. Quick/easy weeknight: Bar Pilar. Splurge: Komi. Duh." [Borderstan]

Watch Your Belongings: Hanging out at Starbucks gives patrons "a false sense of security." [Eater Nat'l]

Next Step? Food Truck? Two bloggers are "joining creative and culinary forces" and will sell pies and tarts at the 14th & U Farmers' Market. [Metrocurean]

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last week, the Washington Post announced the final results of its annual Beer Madness tournament. For the past five years, the Post's food section has put together a panel of local beer enthusiasts and had them position dozens of beers against each other in a blind tasting. The Post then shares the bracket results in a multi-week series that mirrors college basketball's March Madness.

Unlike previous years, I am taking note of the 2011 Beer Madness winners. Here's why:

My bad attitude about the beer competition isn't over not being selected for the panel, which I applied for back in 2008 before I started my tenure at Y&H.  (I thought my story about hiding and successfully retrieving a nice bottle of Belgian beer outside RFK Stadium after failing to smuggle it into a Nats game would get me in, but no dice.)

My initial excitement and desire to participate quickly waned when I saw which brews were selected, and worse yet, how they were organized. Year after year, the list of contenders seemed to me a bizarre mix of primarily mass produced beers, the kind that are light on carbs and even lighter on the palate (think of your typical grocery store beer aisle). Among them was only a sprinkling of brews with actual flavor.

And often beers were seated in pairs so different from each other that they seemed impossible to compare. For example, in what has to be the worst matchup ever, Ommegang's delicate but complex Hennepin artisanal farmhouse ale was put head-to-head in the 2008 bracket with Miller Chill (as in "chelada"), a mass-produced light American lager spiked with lime and salt. Whether a panelist chooses the subtle grass, earth, and citrus flavors of the saison or a margarita-themed light beer is likely a matter of personal preference.

"Within the groups it seemed like they picked beers out of a hat and randomized which beers were put up against each other. It didn’t seem like there was any logic," says Raul Arroyo-Mendoza, who sat on the 2010 Beer Madness panel.

This kind of nonsense led to winners like Brooklyn Lager (2007), Hook & Ladder Backdraft Brown (2008), Tröegs Hopback Amber (2009), and Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout (2010)–all decent beers, with Hopback Amber at the top of the list, but none worthy of a championship title in my opinion.

But this year Beer Madness was run differently. The organizers at WaPo partnered with Birch & Barley/ChurchKey beer director Greg Engert. Together he, food section editor Joe Yonan and beer columnist Greg Kitsock, who has orchestrated the event each year, made some significant improvements.

First, they decided to choose only American craft beers, meaning those from breweries in the U.S. producing under six million barrels per year. There were no Budweiser, Miller, or Coors products, or lines of beer owned by affiliated large companies like Rolling Rock or Red Hook (AB-InBev) or Blue Moon or Leinenkugel's (SAB Miller).

Engert suggested categorizing the beers by flavor profile, similar to the way he organizes his beer menus, rather than by ales and lagers, a grouping that means little in today's terrain of innovative brews mostly dominated by ales. Within each profile, he wanted to pair beers of similar styles and alcohol content against each other to avoid early round mismatches.

"I wanted to leave that subjectivity of preferred style to the end, in the later rounds," says Engert.

Engert himself selected the breweries and made a list of styles in each flavor profile he wanted to cover. This year's tournament would be a four-quadrant bracket with eight to ten styles in each flavor category, represented (when possible) by two breweries each–for a total of 64 contestants. He then started the grueling process of filling the slots with a beer from each brewery's year-round offerings.

The organizers also split the tasting into two sessions on separate nights instead of one marathon evening of boozing. This counteracted palate fatigue and allowed for not only more beers than in previous years, but also the inclusion of brews with higher alcohol levels, which tend to be the most popular ones. According to Engert, the organizers actually wanted to spread the tasting across four nights and are likely to do so next year.

Finally, the organizers had a different way to choose the panel, which included industry professionals with developed palates as well as the usual Joe Sixpack. WaPo recruited Kat Bangs, sommelier at Komi in Dupont Circle, JP Caceres, mixologist at Bourbon Steak in Georgetown, Brian Robinson, executive chef at Restaurant Three in Arlington, and Ellie and Bob Tupper, brewers of Tuppers' Beers and celebrated local beer enthusiasts. Along with these four panelists (the Tuppers counted as one vote), five readers were selected from this year's application pool: Justin Garcia of Centreville, Hiromi Kowaguchi of Arlington, Whitney Meager of D.C., Duff Gillespie of Kensington, and Christina Hoffman of Arlington.

The panelists received a crash course in beer judging before participating. "I wanted to turn things away from pure subjectivity, but didn't want to tell people what to think," says Engert. "I told them it should be a balance between what you prefer but could incorporate some ideas of what makes certain beers more palatable or interesting than others."

The upshot of all this thought and effort is a winner's circle worth noting. The victors in each profile, which are each champions themselves, include:

• MALT – Misery Wheat Wine Ale from DuClaw in southern Maryland
• FRUIT & SPICE – Exit 4 American Trippel from Flying Fish in New Jersey
• ROAST – Rise Up Stout from Evolution in Delaware
• HOPS – Maximus IPA from Lagunitas in California

These four brews then competed against each other for the Beer Madness title. Misery and Exit 4 faced off in the semi-finals, as did Rise Up and Maximus. The victors, Exit 4 and Maximus, then competed in the championship round, with Flying Fish Exit 4 American Trippel, a 9.5 percent alcohol by volume Belgian-style ale, grabbing the win in a 6-3 vote.

Personally, I would have flipped the semi-finals bracket to pit the Malt and Roast champs and Hops and Fruit & Spice winners against each other–just to see how the final result may have been different. Other than that, this year's tournament took most of the madness out of Beer Madness, and for the first time I am looking to the winners list and seeking out the late-round beers I have yet to try.

Image courtesy of WashingtonPost.com

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The editors promptly tore it apart, word by word. I’m not sure how many editors had a say on my first draft, but it felt like management was treating my Y&H debut as the journalistic equivalent of a tackling dummy. I figured it was a test of my mettle, particularly when an editor told me I wasn’t brilliant enough to use metaphors. I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting, but I knew for certain that if I were to survive as the City Paper food columnist, I was going to need to develop thicker skin. This was no place for wallflowers who want to craft their prose in monk-like solitude, guided only by their “muse” and some arch, overly precious sense of the food world. The editors stood steadfastly against preciousness on all fronts.

Half a decade later, I look back on the edit of that first column (sample comments: “Fuck this; I hate this equivocation. Forget what I said up top about you keeping a strong POV throughout this piece” and “I don’t give a flying fuck what your entrée was!”) with a mix of nostalgia and bile-churning, spit-hurling anger, which was probably the whole point. Editors had time back then to find your pressure points and see if, by pressing them, they could make you a better writer and reporter.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to turn my farewell column into some sentimental, revisionist claptrap about how journalism needs more editors who treat their reporters like Bo Pelini treats his star quarterback. No, I’m just reflecting back on how much things have changed in five years, starting with the very job I’m leaving. Back in February 2006, when I officially became the paper’s next Young & Hungry, I wrote exactly one column a week. I went through at least three drafts on each column. I answered further questions from the copy desk. I didn’t blog at all. We didn’t even have a blog at City Paper. And today? Well, let’s just say I miss the old work load.

The food and dining scene has experienced its own growing pains. Consider that in late 2005:

• Washingtonians had a president who never visited restaurants. George W. Bush was content to sit in the White House, choking down pretzels while watching football. By contrast, Washington now has a president who has stopped at some of the area’s most recognizable restaurants, both high and low end, from Komi to Five Guys Burgers & Fries. In one instance, the president’s visit propelled a popular eatery, Ray’s Hell Burger, into the stratosphere. Owner Michael Landrum was forced to put his planned seafood restaurant on hold and expand the Hell Burger empire. That’s a good problem for a local restaurateur to have.

• The District boasted restaurants by Todd English and Charlie Palmer, but our biggest celebrity chef was a Frenchman, Michel Richard, who dared to base his operations in D.C. In the intervening years, chefs of varying celeb status have decided to throw up a restaurant and drill down into our wallets. On one end you have a TV-generated, semi-celebrity like Spike Mendelsohn who has also made D.C. his home, while on the other, you have a Michelin-star hoarder like Alain Ducasse who thought he’d send some emissaries down to D.C. and start cashing in on his considerable reputation. There are benefits on both sides of this star spectrum, but there are also sinkholes. Some of these culinary carpetbaggers take dining dollars (and sometimes kitchen talent) away from the home team.

Michel Richard

• Roberto Donna still had his Galileo empire. He not only had the flagship restaurant, but also the Osteria and the Laboratorio. He was also hawking grilled sandwiches on the sidewalk outside of Galileo. Five years and one failed restaurant later, the chef returned to D.C. with a storm cloud over his head. He owes taxes to Arlington County, owes money to former employees, and owes the people a better accounting of his abuse of public money.

• H Street NE was a great spot for fried whiting and a tall boy. No strip has changed as much as this patch of Northeast. The Ohio Restaurant was one of the early pioneers on H Street, hawking chef-driven soul food from a ragged outpost at H and 14th streets. But other dining destinations soon popped up. Granville Moore’s, Taylor Gourmet, Sticky Rice, Liberty Tree, Biergarten Haus, H Street Country Club, The Atlas Room. These (and others yet to come) are turning the street into a dining destination. Imagine what the area will be like once the city completes that goddamn streetcar project.

• Unless you count those motorized hot dog wagons down by the National Mall, the District didn’t have a single food truck. D.C.’s streets have made a remarkable turnaround in the past two years, breaking the death grip of the depot owners who have controlled the city’s curbside eats for decades. If and when the D.C. Council ever passes new vendor regulations, you can expect to see even more variety on our streets. I know for certain that Kushi, my current favorite for Japanese cooking, plans to launch a yakitori truck in D.C. But what the District really needs, as a colleague recently pointed out, is a gourmet coffee truck. Nick Cho, are you listening? Have you paid off your tax bill yet?

• The craft beer craze was just in its embryonic phase in the District. We had brewpubs, of course, but if you wanted to sample the best of the world’s craft beer, you pretty much had to give your money to Dave and Diane Alexander, whether at the Brickskeller in Dupont or Regional Food and Drink in Chinatown. These days? You can’t wander the streets without running face-first into a Dogfish Head tap. Craft beers are everywhere. Rustico (two locations now, with perhaps more to come), CommonWealth Gastropub, Pizzeria Paradiso (three locations), Meridian Pint, Brasserie Beck, Granville Moore’s, Black Squirrel, Restaurant 3, and the mother of all beer emporiums, ChurchKey, have transformed D.C. into suds city.

• Peter Chang and Fabio Trabocchi were still cooking in area kitchens. At the time, Chang was mesmerizing diners at TemptAsian Cafe in Alexandria, while Trabocchi was blowing away patrons with his gourmet takes on Italian cooking at Maestro in Tysons Corner. Within two years, both Chang and Trabocchi were gone. But after a rollercoaster ride in New York City, Trabocchi is returning next year to open Fiola in the former Le Paradou space in Penn Quarter. And Chang? Well, after forcing his fans to follow him around the country like jilted lovers, the chef has apparently settled down in Charlottesville, where he’s scheduled to open Peter Chang China Grill in January. Has anyone started a pool yet to see how long it lasts?

• The Washington area had only three four-star restaurants, according to Tom Sietsema’s 2005 Dining Guide. They were Maestro, Citronelle, and the Inn at Little Washington. Sietsema’s latest Dining Guide listed five four-star performers. Citronelle and the Inn made repeat appearances on the list, joined by Komi, Rasika, and Restaurant Eve. A previous four-star restaurant, CityZen in the Mandarin Oriental, was nowhere to be found on Sietsema’s 2010 survey. No one can accuse the critic of ratings creep at the top end.

• The boutique pizza market had two main players: Pizzeria Paradiso and 2Amys (OK, and maybe Ella’s). The pie options today are stupefying, a reminder that the recession continues to force many restaurateurs into safe, cheap, and consumer-friendly choices. The new pizzerias are too numerous to mention, but here’s one indication of how ridiculous our pie market is today: Not one but two Frenchmen have opened pizza joints (Pizze in Woodley Park, and Seventh Hill in Capitol Hill), no doubt generating a small forest of raised eyebrows among the Gallic community, which tends to view Italian cuisine as something to feed the family pet.

• There was no Urban Daddy, no Thrillist, no Tasting Table, no TBD, no NBC Feast, and damn few bloggers ambitious enough to fight for every scoop that used to land like a butterfly onto the lap of print journalists. The competition for information today is fiercer than ever.

With this week’s column, I’m ending a City Paper tenure that has had its own mood swings. My beat and responsibilities have had to evolve and expand to reflect a changing media environment as well as a changing culinary one. This is the truth of modern journalism. We must find new ways to look at old subjects. We must venture beyond our usual circles to find the next person who wants to revolutionize what we eat. Anyone in my line of work knows that food can never, ever be treated like something too precious to withstand tough scrutiny. But my time at the paper, from that brutal first edit back in the one-column-a-week days to the radical shifts in job responsibilities that accompanied the old news media’s discovery of the Internet proves that we dead-tree types are more adaptable than you think.

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

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Fargione has made good on his word — to a point. He has just signed a letter of intent to open ELISIR at 427 11th St. NW in the same building at Central Michel Richard and Ten Penh. As promised Fargione will offer two different tasting menus — one with eight courses and another with 12-14 courses — but he'll also provide a la carte options for dinner as well as a $15 bistro lunch.

The restaurant concept expanded and developed "because of the area, and it's developed because of the economy," Fargione tells Y&H. "I had to be completely honest with myself, with what I can and can't do."

The chef says he never wants to dictate to his customers.  He says he doesn't believe in the philosophy: "You eat the way I want or you don't eat...I don't think that's a good way to do business these days."

ELISIR, which is Italian for "elixir," will be located in the space currently occupied by Via Cucina, which will vacate the spot soon. Fargione has hired the design and architecture firm, Grupo 7, to completely renovate the old space. It will be transformed into a 90-seat restaurant with a semi-open kitchen, a bar, a private dining room, and a wine cellar. Both the bar and private dining room will offer an additional 20-25 seats. The kitchen, incidentally, will also become something of a showcase for diners who want to watch the chef and his team work; it will feature HD cameras focused on work stations with feeds going to screens placed above the bar.

Fargione's long-time companion, Julia Saah, who operates her own money management company, will run the financial side of ELISIR, the chef says. Fargione noted, with admirable understatement, that some chefs aren't always so good with managing the financial side of restaurants.

The chef expects to re-introduce a number of modern Italian dishes that he made famous at Teatro, including his smoked branzino carpaccio and his tomato popsicles. He also wants to keep the prices down, or at least down for a restaurant devoted, in large part, to tasting menus. His eight-course menu will run about $75 per person, while the larger, 12-14 course menu will be around $100.

Fargione hopes to have ELISIR open by March of next year.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Cooper in the alley that will be the location of his first restaurant

When R.J.Cooper split from Vidalia earlier this year, the chef had his sights set on opening a place called Pigtails, a sly reference to his twin daughters and his love of all things pork. But an investor changed his  mind.

"I had an investor that called me and said, 'I would love for you to do '24' first," Cooper told me this morning over the phone. "24," of course, is a reference to the Beard Award-winning chef's former tasting menu at Vidalia, which was a tour-de-force of technique, cooking philosophy, and sheer kitchen creativity.

Cooper couldn't say no to found money, so he's just signed a lease to open his first restaurant, Rogue 24, a planned 52-seat operation dedicated exclusively to his 24 course tasting menu.  The chef is aiming for a winter 2011 opening date for the Mount Vernon Square establishment, which will instantly become one of a select handful of D.C. restaurants to focus only on tasting menus, along with José Andrés' minibar and Johnny Monis' Komi.

But the concept is not the only unique aspect here. So is the space and the attitude behind Rogue 24.

Rogue 24 will be located in an alley — Blagden Alley to be specific — in a 2,600-square-foot space that used to be an auto body shop connected to a car dealership. Cooper wanted a space that was urban and arty and gritty and not too formal.

"You can come in wearing a tuxedo or you can come in wearing a pair of khaki shorts," Cooper says. Regardless of which option, "you can enjoy it the same way."

The open kitchen at Rogue 24 will be located in the center of the room, surrounded by tables and chairs. There will be no formal bar. The cocktails, like the food, will be prepared in the diners' presence, sometimes right at the table. "We want everybody to...see and feel the experience," Cooper says.

It's one of his pet peeves about fine-dining: The diners never get to interact with the people who make the food and drinks. Rogue 24 will be a much more interactive experience, Cooper promises. It will even be a place for non-drinkers. One of the tasting menu options, the chef says, will include non-alcoholic drink pairings.

Rogue 24 is "not conventional, which is what I wanted to do first," says Cooper. He's not given up on Pigtails, either. He plans to open the casual restaurant in a nearby space, transforming this arty alley into what could become one of D.C.'s top food destinations.

Full draft press release is below:

Chef RJ Cooper will open his first independent project, Rogue 24, in the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood of Washington, DC. Projecting a winter, 2011 opening, Rogue 24 will be located in Blagden Alley at 1234 9th St., NW.

Executive chef/ owner RJ Cooper, a seasoned veteran chef and James Beard Award winner, is thrilled to bring this landmark restaurant to the developing neighborhood of Mount Vernon Square in Northwest Washington, DC. The 2,600 square- foot restaurant will be tucked away in one of the vacant buildings in Blagden Alley, currently a trendy alley that houses experimental art exhibits.

Blagden Alley, located directly west of the Washington, DC Convention Center, is in engaging new epicenter of revitalization. The project leadership of Norman Jamal of Douglas Development has lead a wave of recent development, from multi-million dollar condominiums to established art galleries, as well as a burgeoning social scene of coffee houses, bars and restaurants. This recent rehabilitation makes the neighborhood an excellent locale for the first fine dining restaurant in Blagden Alley.

“The space is a perfect fit for the intimate, yet edgy experience of Rogue 24,” says Cooper of the Blagden Alley location. “I look forward to joining the current and future independent retailers, artists and residents alike in developing this section of Mount Vernon Square as a distinct destination neighborhood.”

Celebrating Cooper’s stylized urban fine-dining cuisine, Rogue 24 will exclusively offer an interactive 24-course tasting menu. Guests will be served a progression of small dishes that excite the senses, tantalize the palate, and awaken curiosity. The multi-course meal will offer a place at the table where guests can dig deep into a culinary team’s philosophy: exploring their suppliers, cooking techniques and sources of inspiration.

Rogue 24 will provide an effortless space for the diner to enjoy the imagination of Cooper’s menu. The avant-garde beverage program will house a beverage director that will serve as both sommelier and mixologist and will prepare all beverages at a tableside cart, providing innovative pairings that will stimulate the entire experience. 8 beverage (a combination of wine, cocktails and beer) pairings will be offered throughout the 24- course meal.

“It is my vision that Rogue 24 will provide an emotional experience. That is what creates memorable meals—more than the food, the wine, and the service, the overall culture of the restaurant must evoke emotions in its guests.”

Working alongside Cooper, Harper McClure will serve as chef de cuisine. McClure hails from Atlanta’s renowned Bacchanalia restaurant and previously worked with Cooper at Vidalia as his sous chef for nearly five years. The two chefs look forward to reuniting for this groundbreaking new project.

###

Situated in the center of the 52-seat dining room, the state-of-the-art kitchen will showcase Cooper’s creativity and desire to interact with guests. This architectural design will allow every guest to have an individual chef’s table experience. Cooper has enlisted architects Brian Miller of edit and Lauren Winter of Winter Architecture, the famed duo behind Washington, DC’s most creative and functional spaces including The Gibson, U Street Music Hall and Dickson Wine Bar, to execute this vision.

Rogue 24 will be open for one dinner seating Tuesday-Thursday two dinner seatings Friday and Saturday evenings. The fixed menu price is $130, $140 for non-alcoholic beverage pairings and $170 for alcoholic beverage pairings.

About Chef RJ Cooper and The Kid Can Cook, LLC

Chef RJ Cooper’s Rogue 24 will be the first of several restaurants as part of his and wife Judy Cooper’s umbrella restaurant group, The Kid Can Cook, LLC. Rogue 24 will be followed by a variety of projects, including a more casual concept, Pigtails, to open in Washington, DC. Cooper is a seasoned veteran chef who has worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the nation, and has served as an integral part of the development in Washington, DC’s fine-dining culture. Notable accolades include the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic in 2007, as well as recognition from starchefs.com, as the 2006 Rising Star Chef. Cooper also works with the national non-profit organization Share Our Strength®, as a longtime advocate in the fight against childhood hunger. Cooper is the Chair of Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation’s® National Culinary Council, is the founder of Share Our Strength’s Chefs on Bikes program and in 2008 was recognized with Share Our Strength’s Leadership Award for Chef of the Year. Chef Cooper also serves on the Advisory Board of the startup, DC-based non-profit organization Chefs as Parents that is working to transform DC-public school nutrition programs.