In his preview of D.C.'s upcoming restaurant week, which begins Jan. 9, WaPo critic Tom Sietsema talks to chefs about how they compensate for all those discounted meals during the biannual citywide promotion: "The trick, for [Ris owner Ris Lacoste] and her competitors, is to figure out food that reflects their style but isn’t 'going [...]

Short ribs and baby octopus may dominate many menus in the city, but that doesn't mean local chefs can't find love in an acorn squash. In our ongoing series, Chefs Veg Out, we'll prove D.C.’s chefs can play with more than just meat. Name: Ris Lacoste Title: Chef/Owner Restaurant: Ris Twitter: @risDC Cooking Since: Some 30-odd [...]

In the Mood for Some Soup? If you make your way through the West End, you might want to check out what Ris Lacoste has cooking, since she's developed a soup calendar for Ris. Call (202) 730-2500 for a complete schedule and to place pick-up orders. Pricing is $5 per cup, $8 per pint, and [...]

I have a love-hate relationship with pasta. I think a bit of my mother’s distaste for pasta-heavy dishes has rubbed off on me—her sourness was fostered in a Bavarian refugee camp with box after box of pasta from U.S. care packages. When I’m in the mood for something creamy, a bowl full of linguini carbonara [...]

The fruits of summer at the Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market While not-so-delicately sipping pea soup, topped with an aggressive layer of Parmesan foam, I knew it was over. With the arrival of fall equinox, J&G Steakhouse will soon rid its menu of any traces of warm weather, like this terrific soup and the watermelon salad. I started to [...]

Chef Ris Lacoste’s mentor, the Beard-winning Bob Kinkead, always pushed his prize pupil to open a diner. Kinkead wasn’t trying to suggest that Lacoste lacks the skills to lead her own fine-dining establishment. He was acknowledging something true about the woman who kept his restaurants humming for years: Lacoste always wanted her own diner—or, more [...]

During an interview I conducted late last year with Ris Lacoste, the fixture for a decade at 1789, the chef revealed some of the inspiration behind her new place, RIS, in the West End: Bob Kinkead, my dearest friend and mentor, said, ‘Ris, you look for an underserved neighborhood, you know.’ He would always say, [...]

All local foodies today were focused on the breaking news at Equinox, where a fire destroyed the downtown institution's kitchen. Y&H has fire department reports and pictures from the scene. In the meantime, here are the top blog posts of the week: Say Hello to the Inaugural Class of the D.C. Dish Hall of Fame [...]

Julia Child's kitchen, enshrined at the Smithsonian Right in the middle of my straight-forward, tightly scripted, 10-question interview with Ris Lacoste, the chef dropped a casual reference to "Julia," as in: "Julia told me that. She said, ‘Ris, you are going to have meatloaf on your menu, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes, Julia.'" I'm sorry, [...]

Chef Ris Lacoste cooked her last meal at 1789 on New Year's Eve 2005. She had decided to leave the Georgetown fine-dining  destination owned by Clyde's Restaurant Group to open her own place. Nearly four years later, she finally did. She and co-owner Mitchell Herman debuted RIS on Dec. 7 in the West End, forever quieting the tedious [...]