Kitchen Gossip

DC is abuzz with talk of Eric Ziebold's imminent arrival at the new Mandarin Hotel here in Southwest DC. (OK, not to mention the excitement over the Mandarin itself).

Ziebold started his culinary career in Washington at Vidalia Restaurant. He was most recently Thomas Keller's chef de cuisine at The French Laundry. Ziebold's arrival will probably be the biggest chef import since Michel Richard closed Citrus in LA to run Georgetown's Citronelle.

But it's even better than that. For a while now, DC has been enjoying an extraordinary increase in the number of fantastic restaurants, both in town and in our lovely Edge Cities. Two other talented transplants to the area (from NYC), Frank Morales at Zola and John Krinn at 2941, both say they came to DC from New York because DC was such an untapped market. Morales said DC is like the Wild West, the field is so wide open.

And evidence shows he is right.