Kyle Bailey was shopping for wedding rings with his fiancee at a Jersey City mall last month when he got a call on his cell. He didn’t recognize the number, but he decided to take the call anyway.

On the other end of the line was Michael Babin, co-owner of Neighborhood Restaurant Group, who was phoning to see if Bailey might be interested in one of the most intriguing culinary positions in the District: executive chef of the forthcoming gastropub, Birch & Barley/ChurchKey near Logan Circle.

The call couldn’t have come at a better time for Bailey.

Less than two weeks earlier, Bailey had parted ways with the respected, romantic, candle-lit Allen & Delancey in Manhattan, where he was hired, just eight months earlier, to lead the restaurant’s kitchen. He had decided to walk away from his first-ever executive chef job when A&D’s owners apparently wanted to effect more cost-cutting measures than Bailey could swallow.

“I can’t do what I don’t want to do,” Bailey told Y&H this afternoon. A chef needs motivation to devote 16-hour work days to a job, he added, and Bailey knew that, with the pending budget cuts, he wouldn’t be able to summon up the necessary desire. So he left Allen & Delancey, despite making quick fans out of bloggers like Gothamist.

Read More “Birch & Barley Hires NYC Chef to Replace Frank Morales” »

Birch & Barley/ChurchKey, the long-delayed project from the ever-expanding Neighborhood Restaurant Group empire, should open in September, even though NRG still hasn’t hired a chef for the gastropub in the former Dakota Cowgirl space on 14th Street NW.

So says Michael Babin, co-owner of NRG.

“I say that with all the necessary anxiety and stress,” Babin adds, with a laugh. “I don’t see anything that will stop us from opening in September.”

And that includes, Babin says, the hiring of an executive chef after Frank Morales‘ surprising departure earlier this month.

Read More “Birch & Barley Should Tap Its First Keg in September” »

For reasons that don’t bear close scrutiny, I found myself last week wandering the streets around Logan Circle on an unseasonably warm afternoon. Like others in the ‘hood that day, I pressed my face against the window of the old Dakota Cowgirl space, hoping to see how far construction crews were on the forthcoming Birch & Barley/ChurchKey gastropub on 14th Street NW.

Not far, as it turned out. From my limited viewpoint, all I could see was drywall, trash, and exposed walls. One of the most highly anticipated watering holes in recent memory seemed nowhere near opening, despite the fact that it’s almost a year after the first announced launch date. So when, exactly, will the Neighborhood Restaurant Group (Rustico, Vermilion, EatBar, etc) open its first D.C. property, which is promising 50 draft lines, 500 bottles, and two different menus crafted by chef Frank Morales?

Read More “Birch & Barley Slated for Summer Opening. Maybe.” »

I just got off the phone with Kevin Tyldesley, director of operations for the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, who tells me that the company behind such eateries as Rustico and Vermilion will not be, as previously reported here and elsewhere, a partner in Andy Shallal’s upcoming Eatonville project.

Read More “Not So Fast: Neighborhood Restaurant Group Not a Partner in Eatonville” »