Two more DC restaurant departures

Only ONE restaurant in the DC/Baltimore area has ever followed the lead of Garrett Oliver and conducted a beer vs. wine dinner. That's a dinner in which each course is matched with a beer and a wine, and the diners vote on the better pairing.

That one restaurant was Colorado Kitchen. In 2007, Chef Gillian Clark called her take on the dinner idea The Battle of the Barrels.

Sadly, Chef Gillian Clark has just announced that she will be closing the Colorado Kitchen. Read more about her plans.

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In September of 2005, while at restaurant Cafe Saint-Ex, Chef Barton Seaver put together a Tomato and Beer Dinner as a coming-out party for the then brand new Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale of Clipper City Brewing Company.

Seaver was intrigued by the herbal character of the Loose Cannon, and proposed pairing a fresh cask of it with a tomato-based dessert. When I appeared momentarily skeptical, he laughed. "That's why I'm the chef and you're the beer guy", he said. Go here to see what he created.

Seaver left Cafe Saint-Ex to open an award-winning sustainable-seafood restaurant called Hook. Now, in a plotline worthy of television's Hell's Kitchen, he's just resigned his position at Hook.

More at the Best Bites blog at the online Washingtonian.

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And one more:

Jump here for a post on the departure of a long-time fixture of the DC brewing scene.