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Finally, Ron Tanaka is going out on his own, and will be running the kitchen at Cork Wine Bar. Cork will be opening in mid-January, and will be focusing primarily on old-world European wines. It will have 67 seats, and the opening menu will be written by co-owner Diane Gross. But the news here is Tanaka, who is widely admired among insiders as one of the greatest kitchen talents in all of Washington, DC. He's spent the past three years at CityZen, the past two as sous chef. Before that, he spent five years at Citronelle, where he rose through the ranks to become saucier, then sous chef. Sous chef at both CityZen and Citronelle! Tanaka is downplaying all of this, emphasizing that his opening role will be one of execution. "We're doing small, Italian tapas-sort-of plates," he said. "We're going to be doing simple things, like a Caesar salad. It's going to force me to use a different type of creativity." I nudged Tanaka to start thinking about some of his own dishes to slip onto the menu down the road. 'It will be a couple of months until things get into full swing,' he said, imploring me not to make a big deal about anything. Then he added that "all I'm going to be doing is running the kitchen." Maybe so, but finally, after years laboring in the shadows of giants, you've got your own kitchen to run. Congratulations, Chef Tanaka, and we'll see you next year.
