It's official. People have gone batshit for Select 55. Or at least batshit for our post on the beer. It tops the list once again this week.

I think I'll go drown my sorrows in a real beer.

1. Budweiser Launches Select 55, Light Beer Arms Race Gets Absurd
2. Looking for a Little Practice, Bibiana Jumps the Gun and Opens for Service Today
3. Oh, the Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise in Restaurants
4. 'Two Left Feet' for One Big Steak
5. Did Vidalia Use "Inferior" Ingredients During Restaurant Week?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

You can't throw a meatball — no, sorry, a gnocco slathered in goat ragu — without hitting some downtown Italian restaurant these days. I wrote about the crowded field in a recent Y&H column, but since that piece, Bibiana has opened and more Italian places are planned for neighborhoods just around the perimeter of downtown, including a Penn Quarter outlet of the NYC red sauce house, Carmine's, and a Cap Hill location of the Italian export, Acqua al 2.

What's going on here?

It's a good question, and it's one that host David Furst put to me during this week's edition of Metro Connection.  You can hear Furst and I delve into the subject today at 1 p.m. (and 5 a.m. on Saturday) on WAMU. That's 88.5 FM on whatever the hell device people use nowadays to listen to the radio.

I don't know what frequency that is for Rep. Joe Wilson. He'll just have to turn the foil-wrapped strainer on his head until the signal comes in loud and clear.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Here's a sampling of the commentary that has hit my inbox in the past 24 hours.

From Brooke, a 27-year-old female:

took my visiting dad and brother to marvin on a saturday night – a mistake which will not be repeated. conversation was almost futile... thank god my dad loved the ribs.

as an interior designer, it frustrates me to see otherwise well-designed spaces (marvin, zaytinya, among others) furnished without concern for acoustics. marvin had nothing but hard surfaces downstairs – the only upholstery was leather (and minimal at that), which does nothing for sound absorption. don't get me wrong – i love the decor. i just wish the noise level had been a bigger consideration in the design.

it's not just old people! as you said, conversation is supposed to be part of a great dining experience.

From Peter, a 62-year-old male:

We met friends for dinner at Faccia Luna, not realizing that the acoustics were so bad that we started using hand signals and just nodding when unable to hear what was being said.

Though I am 62, our friends were younger (including our young-adult kids), who equally complained about the noise.

From Elizabeth, a 27-year-old female:

Yes, you're absolutely right — Posto is oh-so noisy! I'm 27 and enjoy a good restaurant buzz, but both times I've been there it's been a dinner of shouting at my dining companions. Forget about it if there's more than 2 in your party. One more thing we all noticed — the place was, at best, half full. I will say, though, last time I was there... my bare knees grazed the underside of the table and I reeled with disgust — what was this squishy substance I'd encountered?!? I looked and discovered that they'd affixed egg crate foam to the undersides of the tables! Presumably an effort to dull some of the noise, but... I'm not sure which was worse: the noise or the revolting foam squish against my knees? At least the pizza is tasty enough to make it worthwhile.

You got a noisy-restaurant story to share? E-mail me at hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com. Give me your age, too. I’ll keep posting the best responses on the Y&H blog.

Photo courtesy of Zaytinya

Zaytinya: You practically get a metal concert with your mezze.

Y&H still remembers, more than  a year ago, when the dining critic at Brand X wrote a Sunday magazine cover story about noise in restaurants and even instituted a special feature measuring decibel levels at every restaurant he reviews. What a waste of time, I thought, writing about something that's so subjective. One diner's noise, after all, is another diner's buzz and excitement. (OK, critiquing food is totally subjective, too, but go with me here.) Only old folks and babies, I figured, care about noise in restaurants.

Well, I'm officially a geezer now.

Two recent dinners have convinced me that noise levels in restaurants have entered Motörhead territory. The first was at Ristorante Posto, where I sat across from my wife trying to read her lips over my platter of Margherita pizza. Then just last week, right before the Labor Day weekend, we snagged a two-top at the new Ray's the Steaks in Arlington and proceeded to yell at each other as if we were trying to conduct a conversation at an Indy 500 pit stop.

I'm sorry, but part of the dining experience is the ability to communicate with the folks at your table, not watch them eat their dinner as if they were zoo animals. But maybe I'm being a crank about this, which is why I want your input, readers. Tell me about your noisy dining experiences and whether they turned you off or not. E-mail your tales to me at hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com. Give me your age, too. I'll post the best responses on the Y&H blog.

Photo by Daquella Manera via Flickr Creative Commons

Bibiana Osteria and Enoteca, the latest entrant in the area's escalating Italian Restaurant Wars, will indeed serve pizza, just like a number of other combatants in this wide-scale skirmish, including Potenza, Ristorante Posto, and Kora. But owner Ashok Bajaj doesn't want pies to define his new place at 1100 New York Ave. NW, which will have its soft opening on Monday, Sept. 7.

Y&H spoke with Bajaj yesterday, and he told me that chef Nicholas Stefanelli's offerings will be purely regional Italian, none of this Italian-American silliness that creeps into some menus around town. The pastas, the owner added, would be made in-house, with prices ranging from around $14 to $20. Pizza will also be available, he said, but only at lunch and only at the lounge during dinner service.

So why downplay the pie?

Bajaj indicated that it's a matter of principle. He was envisioning Bibiana well before downtown D.C. became a competitive mecca for Italian dining — well before Potenza, Posto, and Siroc open their doors or even before Enzo Fargione transformed Teatro Goldoni into a mandatory destination. The owner has invested a ton of money into the project, both for talent and for the "high-style Milano design" of the restaurant itself, just to make sure Bibiana fits the Ashok Bajaj profile: an elegant downtown spot that can appeal to the fat cats and the alley cats (read: cash-strapped youth) alike.

"I don't want it to be known as a pizza joint," Bajaj said.

Despite a name that makes you think of eyeballs, meat, and contact lenses — always an appetizing trio, yes? — MeatCrafters was a promising partnership between one of the best charcuterie makers and one of the most successful distributors in the D.C. area.

The partnership is no more.

Y&H contacted Jamie Stachowski yesterday evening who confirmed that he and Mitch Berliner have parted company — at least as partners in the charcuterie business. Stachowski's name has already been scrubbed from the MeatCrafters' Web site, but he will still have a role in the company. Berliner is still selling and distributing some of Stachowski's sausages.

"I'm trying to pursue a full line of charcuterie, and he is focusing on the [farmers] markets," Stachowski tells Y&H. "Who knows? We might come together again at some point."

Stachowski paints the falling out as a disagreement over markets — the chef wanting to target the chef-driven restaurant scene and the distributor wanting to target the area's farmers markets. But Stachowski also hints that there may have been other issues, which he wouldn't discuss for the record.

"I'm not sour," he adds.

Instead, Stachowski continues to focus on his own charcuterie, which he now won't have to market under a name that sounds like a mall storefront.  At present, Stachowski says, his charcuterie can be found at Enology Wine Bar on Wisconsin Avenue NW, Willow in Arlington, Thirsty Bernie Sports Bar & Grill (where the chef once worked until his surprising departure last year), Ristorante Posto near Logan Circle, Veritas Wine Bar near Dupont Circle, the Willard Room downtown, Bar Pilar on 14th Street NW, Red, White & Bleu in Falls Church, and Napolean in Adams Morgan.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

When Galileo was forced to leave town in 2006, downtown D.C. was left with only a handful of decent Italian restaurants, including Tosca and the woefully underrated Spezie. But in recent months, the dearth has turned into a near glut. (Relax, you word mavens; I understand that "near glut" has all the contradictory overtones of "near miss.")

Just look at the newbies on the market: Ristorante Posto, Siroc (whose arugula salad with lemon-and-black-pepper vinaigrette makes my list of best salads of the young year), and even the resurgent Teatro Goldoni under chef Enzo Fargione, who has made the K Street institution seem suddenly new again.  And that list doesn't even include two other Italian restaurants yet to hit the area: Ashok Bajaj's forthcoming property (his seventh) in mid-town and Stir Food Group's Potenza, a 10,000 square-foot operation set to open later this month in the Woodward building at 1430 H St. NW.

Stir sent out a press release yesterday announcing its chef de cuisine for Potenza: Anthony Acinapura, former executive chef and owner of Prime 707 Steakhouse and Oyster Bar in Lake Worth, Fla., who will work under Stir's Executive Chef Bryan Moscatello. More from the release on Acinapura:

Prior to this position from 2005-2007, he served as Executive Chef/Owner of Aquaterra Ristorante in New York City overseeing the menu development for the 150-seat Italian restaurant.

Acinapura’s culinary career also includes working as Executive Chef of China Grill from 2003 to 2005, where he was responsible for fine-tuning the restaurant’s menu. Other important kitchens for garnering experience on his career path include Blue Ribbon Restaurant; Tribeca Grill; The Cub Room and Restaurant Bouley in New York City.

Chef Acinapura earned a Bachelor of Arts in Hotel and Restaurant Management in 1998 at the University of Denver. He then pursued his culinary degree in Hyde Park, New York at the Culinary Institute of America, graduating with an Associate Degree in Occupational Studies in 1992. Born and raised in Angie Cliffs, New Jersey, Anthony Acinapura’s hobbies include skiing, mountain biking and deep sea fishing.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2009/03/17/italian-eateries-are-getting-quite-famoso-in-downtown-dc/feed/ 0 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2009/02/11/so-where-the-hell-can-you-find-jamie-stachowski-charcuterie-in-this-town/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2009/02/11/so-where-the-hell-can-you-find-jamie-stachowski-charcuterie-in-this-town/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:21:54 +0000 Tim Carman http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/?p=2743

That was the question I put to the celebrated meat man when he called up out of the blue this afternoon, asking me what he should call his forthcoming charcuterie line. (For the record, I told him he should just name the stuff after himself, no matter how difficult "Stachowski" is to pronounce for people who spend all their damn time silently working a computer; the Eastern European surname would lend the meats instant credibility, at least for those who haven't already sampled Jamie Stachowski's sausage, pates, and cured products.)

But back to the question: The short answer is many places. You can find Stachowski's meats at the Kielbasa Factory in Rockville, the Lebanese Butcher and Restaurant in Falls Church, Enology Wine Bar on Wisconsin Avenue NW, Willow in Arlington, and even Thirsty Bernie Sports Bar & Grill in Arlington, where the chef once worked until his surprising departure last year. In the near future, look for Stachowski's charcuterie at Ristorante Posto, Veritas Wine Bar near Dupont Circle, and at the Willard Room downtown.