 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
Capital Cuisine
By Christie Matheson
When Ris Lacoste was 12 years old, she began working at Gorka's Market, a little Polish delicatessen in her native New Bedford, Mass., helping Johnny Gorka slice bologna and do other odd jobs. Lacoste, who is now the executive chef at one of the most celebrated restaurants in Washington, D.C., 1789, didn't know at the time she had started down a career path in the food industry. In fact, it wasn't until she had graduated from college and was at La Varenne, the famous cooking school in Burgundy, France - not as a student, but as a receptionist - that she realized what she was meant to do. "I had been working in the food business since I was 12, and I loved every aspect of it," Lacoste says. "It finally occurred to me that I could really do this for a living."
|
|
 |
|
1789's signature dish: rack of American lamb with creamy feta potatoes, garlic spinach, and rosemary-Shiraz sauce. |
Could she ever. Lacoste returned to the United States in 1982 and began working closely with Bob Kinkead at the Harvest in Cambridge, Mass. In 1985, she journeyed with Kinkead to Nantucket to open 21 Federal. The two went to Washington, D.C., two years later to open a new restaurant with a familiar name, Twenty-One Federal, and then, in 1993, opened Kinkead's. Lacoste stayed at Kinkead's for two years. In 1995, she took the helm at 1789. She has been racking up awards, accolades, and James Beard nominations ever since.
At 1789, Lacoste creates seasonal American cuisine with signature dishes like her lemon-marinated rack of lamb with creamy feta potatoes, garlic spinach, and rosemary-Shiraz sauce; and her jumbo lump crab cakes on mustard cream with leeks, celery root remoulade, and mashed potatoes. Pastry chef Zoe Trillum Behrens whips up confections, such as warm cinnamon chocolate cake and maple sugar tart.
Alas, Gorka's sliced bologna didn't make the cut.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
