The D.C. Dish Hall of Fame leaderboard remains virtually unchanged after a week of voting, save for the flip-flop of the ninth and tenth place dishes. After a strong surge last week, Horace & Dickie’s  fried whiting moves up a notch into ninth place.

But I have to say, I think the list is still missing some great dishes. Plates like Frank Ruta’s roast chicken and Michel Richard’s lobster burger are nowhere to be seen, meaning they will not, at present, be part of the inaugural class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame. A shame that would be, to paraphase a certain elderly sage.

A comment we received this morning, I think, sums up the feelings of a number of voters, who seem to view this contest as an exercise in classism, not a genuine search for D.C.’s finest plates:

like most things in DC, the options show extreme class stratification. I’d love to know the percentage of DC residents who’ve enjoyed the CityZen Parker House Rolls or Komi’s spit roasted goat.

I understand that more people can afford to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl over CityZen. But I don’t think you should hold that against a great side like Eric Ziebold’s Parker House rolls. It deserves a place among the city’s best as much as the chili half-smoke. Well, almost as much.

So, c’mon, let’s try to put our prole resentments aside and vote for the best, regardless of price.  You can vote here.

The leaderboard:

1. Half-smoke with chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 298 votes
2. Hamburger at Five Guys, 142
3. Peruvian chicken at El Pollo Rico, 115
4. Falafel at Amsterdam Falafelshop, 107
5. Margherita pizza at 2Amys, 100
6. Burger from Ray’s Hell Burger, 89
7. Salty oat cookie at Teaism, 85
8. Palak chaat at Rasika, 80
9. Fried whiting at Horace & Dickie’s, 76
10. Pho at Pho 75, 75

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Bibiana has hired Douglas Hernandez, pastry chef at Central Michel Richard, to handle the desserts at the forthcoming downtown osteria/enoteca from Ashok Bajaj. Bibiana will have its “soft” opening on Monday, Sept. 7.

Hernandez has been with Central for more than two years, says Mel Davis, spokesperson for the celebrity chef. At Central, Hernandez has been in charge of executing Richard’s justly famous dessert menu, whether his clever, crunchy take on the Kit Kat bar or the chef’s luxe version of a banana split.

At Bibiana, Hernendez is expected to have complete creative control of the dessert menu. “He’s going to be reinventing classic Italian desserts, from Tuscany to Sicily,” notes Davis, who briefly spoke with Hernendez this afternoon.

Hernendez told Davis several times, she says, that he may return to the Michel Richard family one day.

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s

I absolutely refuse to feel ashamed that D.C.’s best taqueria is run by a Harvard-grad gringa with a James Beard Award to her credit. Hell, if that were the case, I’d also have to feel bad that one of the District’s best hamburgers is produced by a Frenchman (Michel Richard at Central). The truth is, Ann Cashion is a student of la cocina mexicana, and her tiny takeout behind Johnny’s Half Shell proves she has deep respect for a cuisine too often bastardized for an easy buck. (You listening, you Salvadoran-Mexican joints?) I’m still trying to figure out how her corn tortillas taste so fresh when they’re not even made in house.

Taqueria Nacional, 400 N. Capitol St. NW, (202) 737-7070

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Bill O’Reilly is all worked up about former President Clinton’s hypocrisy on healthy eating. I’d argue that food hypocrisy is just a natural part of the human experience: We know we should eat better, but we can’t keep our needy little paws off those burgers and fries. Far less forgivable is Clinton’s choice of patty providers: Z Burger.

Please allow Y&H to provide a plan of attack the next time you, Mr. Clinton, have a jones for a burger, fries, and shake: Stop at Central Michel Richard for the celebrity chef’s excellent burger and fries, then hop into the motorcade and go to Good Stuff Eatery for one of Spike Mendelsohn’s amazing, custard-based shakes, which you can treat as dessert.

Trust me, I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just trying to be realistic. Do you really need me—or anyone else for that matter—to tell you to eat at these places? I might as well tell you to wear clothes when you go outside.

Photograph of Palena’s Frank Ruta by Darrow Montgomery

As you might have guessed, traffic to Y&H spiked tremendously this week on the news that celebrity chef Michel Richard had plans to move his base to the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner. No other post this week had nearly as much traffic, despite the fact that Thursday was Food Day here at the paper.

1. Michel Richard Plans to Move His Home Base to Tysons Corner
2. Pepsi Throwback: Right Back Where We Started
3. The University of Florida Arrives, Dines, and Dashes
4. Watch the Deleted Eamonn’s Segment from Bourdain’s ‘No Reservations’ Show on D.C.
5. If Not Expansion Plans, What Is Ben’s Next Move? Think Shipping.
   

• Prince of Petworth sort of, kind of reports that Radius at the Ohio is on hold, which adds another chapter to the troubled history of the H Street NE location.
• Fritz Hahn over at Going Out Gurus says that Adam Bernbach, the mixologist behind our 2008 Best Cocktail Menu at Bar Pilar, will be leaving the 14th Street NW operation. But not before a final blow out on May 19.
• Frozen Tropics breaks the news that Derek Brown — this year’s Best Bartender and The Atlantic food channel’s resident distilled muse — has created a line of cocktails for Sova Espresso & Wine Bar. [Also of note in the item, Dan Searing is looking to open his own wine bar, Room 11, in Columbia Heights.]
• Speaking of the Atlantic,  the online food channel has mixed feelings about CityZen. Corby adores it. The chemistry dude: Not so much.
• Capital Spice caught Food Day fever and blogged their own “average” eating experiences. (They also stole my Facebook profile!)
• DCist was the first to announce that organic grocer Ellwood Thompson’s is putting its D.C. project on hold. The company still has a lease with DCUSA but can’t afford to build the store in Columbia Heights.

Richard: NoVa bound

Note: This story was updated on 4:36 p.m. Monday.

The rumors appear to be true: Michel Richard, the city’s most celebrated chef, will shift his “home” base to the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner, where he will open a new, fine-dining restaurant in the former Maestro space. It’s not clear yet what the move could mean for Citronelle, Richard’s current home at the Latham Hotel and one of D.C.’s most-honored restaurants, and whether the chef would abandon the spot completely.

Michel Richard Restaurants mailed a packet of information to potential investors last week, seeking nearly $2 million to develop the 5,000-square-foot, 110-seat restaurant inside the Ritz. The celebrity chef, according to the document,  “plans to enter into a 10-year primary lease on or about April 30, 2009″ for the dining space made famous by chef Fabio Trabocchi, who left Maestro in September 2007. The restaurant has been dark since then.

“Citronelle is not closing…Michel’s offices are still there, his kitchen that he loves is still there, and business is going on as usual,” says Mel Davis, PR coordinator for Richard. “I have to reiterate, there are no plans to move or close Citronelle from the Latham hotel.”

Mark Sherwin, general manager for the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner, emphasized that no contract has been signed for the Maestro space. “We continue to talk to a number of high-profile chefs,” Sherwin said. The Ritz has narrowed the list down to three different groups, the GM added, but Sherwin wasn’t at liberty to name any of them.

The investor packet, however, makes it sound like a done deal. The working name of the proposed restaurant is, simply, Michel Richard, and it will be considered, according to the investor packet, “Michel Richard’s home,” where the chef “will likely be in the kitchen most evenings.”

Those statements clearly imply either the death or the diminishment of Richard’s Citronelle, which has suffered some indignities in recent months. Last fall, the Post’s Tom Sietsema docked Citronelle a star in his 2008 Dining Guide; in January, the gastronomic temple laid off a number of employees and cut back on hours; and in March, long-time sommelier, Mark Slater, left Citronelle to work at Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington.

The statements also pour cold water on the rumors that firebrand British chef Gordon Ramsay will take over the Maestro space. Ramsay’s restaurant group was already facing serious financial troubles, and the chef recently sold his Los Angeles operation, Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood.

Whether Ramsay or not, however, the Ritz was obviously interested in a celebrity chef for the space. The hotel chain has done well with famous cooks in the kitchen, whether Eric Ripert at the Westend Bistro or Dean Fearing at his eponymous place at the Ritz’s Dallas property.

In preparation for Richard, the former Maestro space will be “re-designed in its entirety as a modern French-influenced restaurant” and “will change dramatically from its prior iteration, which, while luxurious, lacked a distinctive independent operator feel.” The restaurant’s open kitchen will be “re-tiled to have a more contemporary aesthetic,” while the once-expansive dining room will be broken up into spaces that look, based on preliminary architectural sketches, as if they could be sealed off for private dining. There will also be a chef’s table and a bar area with six stools and three cocktail tables.

Group Goetz Architects, the same company that designed Central Michel Richard on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, has been hired to design the Ritz space. No general contractor has been selected yet. Richard’s team at his namesake restaurant will include Carl Halvorson, currently the director of operations for Citronelle and director of operations/partner at Central.

The Ritz, according to the investor packet, is providing a “significant build-out allowance” for Richard, but it’s apparently not enough to cover all the costs. Richard’s team is seeking between $1.7 million and $1.8 million to construct what it hopes will be “Washington’s finest restaurant.”

Michel Richard is expected to open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

If the detailed investor packet weren’t enough to convince skeptics that Richard is moving his base of operations to the Ritz at Tysons, then the return address on the mailer itself all but confirms it. According to the envelope, Michel Richard Restaurants is located at 1700 Tysons Blvd. in McLean.

That’s the address of the Ritz-Carlton.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The biggest news of the day has been the sommelier shuffle in which Mark Slater, the 12-year veteran at Citronelle, has left Michel Richard’s venerable four-star restaurant in favor of Michael Landrum’s populist meat emporium, Ray’s the Steaks. Former 2941 sommelier Kathryn Morgan has taken over Slater’s old job at Citronelle.

Slater’s move, of course, is the real curiosity. He’ll go from a temple of haute gastronomy with a French-heavy wine list that’s dotted with such bottles as a three-liter 1986 Lafite-Rothschild ($5,600) to a steakhouse with a list that prides itself on selling good wine under $50 a bottle.

That approach won’t change much under Slater, Landrum said this afternoon over the phone. “As you can imagine, I’m looking to completely radicalize and subvert the way wine programs work,” Landrum said.

Slater, as director of wine and service for Landrum’s group of restaurants, will be tasked with building and expanding the vino lists, particularly at the flagship operation, Ray’s the Steaks, in its new location in Arlington. Slater will be adding between 200 and 300 labels to a list that numbers just 75 bottles at present.  Landrum foresees including some 1st and 2nd growth Bordeaux bottles, as well as some Burgundy grand crus, but at much cheaper prices than in your average high-end restaurant.

Landrum, in other words, wants to do for wine what he has done for steaks: reduce the markups to levels unprecedented in most restaurants. Bottles that wholesale for more than $100 will sell for “cheaper than at retail” stores, Landrum said. Bottles that wholesale between $50 and $100 will be sold at prices similar to retail stores, he added.

“We want to be a nationally recognized destination for wine lovers,” as much as for steak lovers, Landrum said.

So how did Landrum land Slater? The owner doesn’t want to get into specifics, but he said he and Slater have been friends for years. “We have five years of shooting the shit at Bistrot du Coin on Saturday,” he said.

But Landrum understands that Slater may not be in his employ forever. He understands that Slater might get wooed by some other temple of gastronomy; it might even happen sooner than he wants. “I love him to death,” Landrum said about Slater. “If I have him only for a month, that’s great.”

Meanwhile in a press release from Citronelle today, Richard said he was “very happy to have Kathryn join us at Citronelle… She is a talented wine professional, and comes to us with a wealth of information and a great experience of Washington, DC.”

The release continues:

Kathryn Morgan grew up in the presence of fine wine and great food. The only child of a wine collector and an amateur chef, “I tasted wines often at my parents’ dinner parties, and developed a palate early for classified growth Bordeaux and vintage port.” Kathryn honed her skills at top restaurants in Washington DC, including Occidental Grill, Ristorante Tosca, and most recently 2941 Restaurant. In 2003, Kathryn passed the advanced level examinations of the Court of Master Sommeliers, and both the theory and tasting sections of the Master Sommelier Diploma. Kathryn has also garnered awards, accolades and media recognition. She is featured monthly on the wine panel for Northern Virginia Magazine, has appeared on WUSA TV and Retirement Living TV, and is frequently mentioned in publications such as Washingtonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Hill Newspaper and The D.C. Examiner.

Photo by Charles Steck

Saturday was a vacation for me. I ate at home. Carrie and I made dinner for friends. She made a tomato tartare, based on the recipe from Michel Richard’s cookbook, Happy in the Kitchen, and I made osso buco with risotto alla Milanese, based on recipes by Mario Batali and Mark Bittman.

The tomato tartare, with its shallot dressing, performs a classic Richard trick: It fools the eye into believing the dish is something that it’s not, beef tartare in this case. (The photo above doesn’t do justice to Carrie’s dish; her initial presentation was gorgeous, but we were so eager to dip into it that we forgot to snap pics until four or five bites in. Did I mention wine was involved at this point?) The appetizer does share one thing in common with its meaty cousin, though: It goes down so damn easy.

I bought the osso buco from Wagshal’s Market, and they were beautiful, two-inch center-cut chops that even I couldn’t screw up that much. Photo after the jump.

Photos by Angela Potter