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Jose Andres on Iron Chef America


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Clearly Mr. Flay's floppy hangover demeanor and blue corn tortilla squirt-bottle brunch cookery Ying will match up well against the sober Yang tutelage of Senor Andres's El Bulli pedigree. Naysayers of Flay's abilities in the televised forum should note how he can effortlessly substitute confidence for skill and are taunted to recall how efficiently he has “burned” fellow competitors, and peanuts.

And pork belly.

and hamburger buns.

and jambalaya.

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Flay presents yet another iteration of his "here are 5 different entrees from 5 different world cuisines". Not to mention the ubiquitous squirt bottles.

Andres presents what could almost be imaginable as a logical meal prgression.

It may not mean squat in the "scoring" rules, but I award personal points to chefs who try to do what Andres did rather than just throw out a bunch of unconnected plates.

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I just want to get a hold of that bong-like contraption that Andres used to introduce applewood smoke in one of the dishes (suuuuuuure it was applewood!). I was really impressed with what he did - I'd like to see those items make the menu at Jaleo!!

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I just want to get a hold of that bong-like contraption that Andres used to introduce applewood smoke in one of the dishes...

MarionBarryWare from KitchenAid will be available soon at area kitchen retailers...not. :blink:

I figured Andres would pull a couple of tricks out of his avant-garde bag, natch, but the colors in his presentation were a total slam-dunk. Were those violets? Luckily he wasn't torpedoed too badly by too much salt (a common theme in Spain) in that one dish.

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Congrats, Chef Andrés, on the landslide win. I thought the rules were that you had to use the ingredient in every dish, though. Did you grind up the eyeballs in the yogurt?

I didn't see eyeballs, but IIRC, the yogurt was made with goat milk. Works for me.

It was a great win, and I congradulate Chef Andres and his team!

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Watching Chef Andres win the Iron Chef challenge was a great way to end a day that began with the Latino Dim Sum Brunch at Cafe Atlantico. The only familiar looking dish or preparation was the cauliflower "cous-cous" which was part of the brunch.

A few questions about the episode:

Is Steingarten always that big an ass? Too much salt is not subjective? And I'm surprised the female judge next to him didn't slap him at one point.

What else was in the red wine reduction that eventually became pearls of wine with the frozen goat yogurt? Something must have made it set up semi-firm, but I don't remember it being explained in the show.

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Watching Chef Andres win the Iron Chef challenge was a great way to end a day that began with the Latino Dim Sum Brunch at Cafe Atlantico. The only familiar looking dish or preparation was the cauliflower "cous-cous" which was part of the brunch.

A few questions about the episode:

Is Steingarten always that big an ass? Too much salt is not subjective? And I'm surprised the female judge next to him didn't slap him at one point.

What else was in the red wine reduction that eventually became pearls of wine with the frozen goat yogurt? Something must have made it set up semi-firm, but I don't remember it being explained in the show.

Yes, Steingarten is always that big of an ass.

I believe they added Sodium Alginate to the wine sauce to go with the yogurt. They mentioned sodium alginate earlier in the show and that's its purpose, though I don't think they discussed that on the show.

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...flay as a much better chef overall.
Overall, his goofy gameshow host personality and muddled imagination may very well nourish the entire nation's stock kitchen jokes volleyed between pimpled fry-cooks burning unnecessarily fried afterthoughts and cocky line-cook cowboys saucing their illegible signatures with jerked tri-colored squirts.

There is no definitive formula to calculate and rank the subjective work of tradesmen, but successful ingenuity can be measured by its imitation. Senor Andres is often recognized for bringing small plates and methodical delineations to the US, which some have shamefully copied verbatim, and Senor Flay has tried to emulate on the aforementioned TV variety show with his desperate, sloppy de(con)structions.

Bob's disturbingly ordinary Tourist's World Food Court vision knows no sensible regional boundaries, technique, study or focus and it is unlikely that his whimsical interpretations of generic Tex-Mex sustenance will be bootlegged by anyone other than resourceful “Chili's” part-timers in the hungry chaos of psychotropic dénoument. Perhaps Bobby could have dazzled über extro-deprecating Steingarten by commemorating the Exodus with BBQ goat shank knishes, matzos nachos and traditionally burning his 34 spice chametz biscuits.

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Overall, his goofy gameshow host personality and muddled imagination may very well nourish the entire nation's stock kitchen jokes volleyed between pimpled fry-cooks burning unnecessarily fried afterthoughts and cocky line-cook cowboys saucing their illegible signatures with jerked tri-colored squirts.

There is no definitive formula to calculate and rank the subjective work of tradesmen, but successful ingenuity can be measured by its imitation. Senor Andres is often recognized for bringing small plates and methodical delineations to the US, which some have shamefully copied verbatim, and Senor Flay has tried to emulate on the aforementioned TV variety show with his desperate, sloppy de(con)structions.

Bob's disturbingly ordinary Tourist's World Food Court vision knows no sensible regional boundaries, technique, study or focus and it is unlikely that his whimsical interpretations of generic Tex-Mex sustenance will be bootlegged by anyone other than resourceful “Chili's” part-timers in the hungry chaos of psychotropic dénoument. Perhaps Bobby could have dazzled über extro-deprecating Steingarten by commemorating the Exodus with BBQ goat shank knishes, matzos nachos and traditionally burning his 34 spice chametz biscuits.

Andres' work in the DC kitchens is a repetition of mediocrity at best in my mind. Minibar is a shameful repetition and immitation of better work done elsewhere more creatively, Zaytinya is uninspired, underseasoned, flavorless mediterranian tapas being charged at shameful rates, cafe atlantico is just plain bad for a variety of similar reasons in my mind, and Oyamel is simply the worst mexican food I've had on the east coast. Forget Flay's TV show, though he often demonstrates amazing technique on often improvised grills, and go eat in one of his restaurants where the quality of the meats and creativity of the dishes is clever, and the food is made with love and tastes of it.

Some may see Andres as having done a lot for the DC restaurant scene, but I think he's just turned the DC restaurant scene to a new level of mediocre corporate sludge no more worthy of praise than the "Chili's" you cite above.

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Andres' work in the DC kitchens is a repetition of mediocrity at best in my mind. Minibar is a shameful repetition and immitation of better work done elsewhere more creatively
You're entitled to your opinion about Andres, of course, but I have to ask, have you been to El Bulli?
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You're entitled to your opinion about Andres, of course, but I have to ask, have you been to El Bulli?
Nope, but I've been to a variety of the other MG restaurants that have been around for longer than Minibar and whose chefs have been incredibly influential in the field. We attempted to get in last year and will continue to attempt to attend until we get in. Which at this rate may be 2030.
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Andres' work in the DC kitchens is a repetition of mediocrity at best in my mind. Minibar is a shameful repetition and immitation of better work done elsewhere more creatively...

Really? Who's work is he imitating? I would really like to know so that I can experience it myself.

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Really? Who's work is he imitating? I would really like to know so that I can experience it myself.
I honestly feel like he's doing a lot of immitation of WD-50 and Moto- especially some of the things Moto is doing. I thought my dinners at these two were both more creative versions of similar dishes (things like using spun sugar, deconstructions, etc.) with better use of ingredients in better tasting dishes. If you want a real trip I'd highly suggest the 20 course at Moto.
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Nope, but I've been to a variety of the other MG restaurants that have been around for longer than Minibar and whose chefs have been incredibly influential in the field.
Which ones? I have not been to minibar (MG is not my thing) so I can't speak to the derivative quality of the cuisine, but it is spoken of very highly by people whose opinions I respect. Both Moto and Alinea opened after Minibar, not sure about WD-50.

He's always seemed like a pleasant guy the few times I have met him.

ETA: Minibar and WD-50 opened the same year (2003)

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as far as spanish cooking goes, andres isn't imitating anyone. the techniques at minibar are easy to find outside barcelona at restaurants like el celler de can roca and at abac in the city itself. and when you are watching his television show in your hotel you feel like he is a part of the scene in spain even though he isn't cooking there. minibar provides a great introduction to the wild side of spanish cooking, but for me the approach is too scattershot and i would love to be able to sit down and focus on just a few dishes like this. the obvious person in these parts for pursuing such an enterprise would be andres himself, and i believe there was some discussion a year or so ago that this was a route he was considering.

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Which ones? I have not been to minibar (MG is not my thing) so I can't speak to the derivative quality of the cuisine, but it is spoken of very highly by people whose opinions I respect. Both Moto and Alinea opened after Minibar, not sure about WD-50.

He's always seemed like a pleasant guy the few times I have met him.

ETA: Minibar and WD-50 opened the same year (2003)

My correction then- I've been to restaurants opened around the same time as Minibar who are cooking with more creative and unique techniques which Andres seems to be doing a poor impersination of at minibar (this qualifies as one of my more poorly written sentences)
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I think that Andres is trying to strike the food/avant-garde-ness balance a little closer to food and playing with flavors than Achatz or Cantu. Now is that because that is his sensibility, or is it because he thinks that's all he can get away with in this market? And minibar is a fair bit less expensive than Moto or Alinea.

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Oyamel is simply the worst mexican food I've had on the east coast.

I was never a huge fan of Oyamel. (Although it was mostly their service which sucked). And I, too, can name places I'd prefer to have Mexican. (Although when Oyamel was ON it was really ON!) But the worst? My guess is that you haven't had much Mexican on the east coast then. (And there's also only a limited number of places doing true Mexican regional cuisine and not Tex Mex.)

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grr i hate to see andres win this- not only was he rude to me, but i really do think of flay as a much better chef overall.

Perhaps you can elaborate on this rude incident?

As Heather pointed out, most of Andres' efforts have been highly lauded by some highly respected folks in the food "industry." I have only been to Jaleo, Zaytinya and Minibar myself and can say that these are fine establishments for what they set out to do.

And for those who watch ICA regularly, the defeat given to Flay was a spanking rarely seen by any challenger vs. an Iron Chef.

Andres clearly is talented and is well-respected by his peers and food critics.

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My wife and I got to know Chef Andres briefly before he became the star he is today. We went with him to poor neighborhoods in DC where he would show nutritious cooking techniques to young mothers as part of Share Our Strength. He was an unfailingly nice guy.

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Perhaps you can elaborate on this rude incident?

As Heather pointed out, most of Andres' efforts have been highly lauded by some highly respected folks in the food "industry." I have only been to Jaleo, Zaytinya and Minibar myself and can say that these are fine establishments for what they set out to do.

And for those who watch ICA regularly, the defeat given to Flay was a spanking rarely seen by any challenger vs. an Iron Chef.

Andres clearly is talented and is well-respected by his peers and food critics.

I'm not going to go deep into the details of it, but it stemmed from a terrible experience we had at minibar to which he sent a very rude response basically telling me to go take my business elsewhere and in essence to shove it (my words, not his).

If those establishments set out to make underflavored overpriced junk in trendy atmospheres, then yes, they do an excellent job. He may be well respected, but I'll never understand why.

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I'm not going to go deep into the details of it, but it stemmed from a terrible experience we had at minibar to which he sent a very rude response basically telling me to go take my business elsewhere and in essence to shove it (my words, not his).

If those establishments set out to make underflavored overpriced junk in trendy atmospheres, then yes, they do an excellent job. He may be well respected, but I'll never understand why.

I think we'd kind of like a few details, aside from generalizations. The food didn't taste good? The service was poor?

I think any response positive or negative, it's helpful to have elaboration. This isn't about getting the dirt, but about understanding and making our own determination.

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I think we'd kind of like a few details, aside from generalizations. The food didn't taste good? The service was poor?

I think any response positive or negative, it's helpful to have elaboration. This isn't about getting the dirt, but about understanding and making our own determination.

Awful service, terrible wine pairings, chefs not paying attention to us and when they did simply not answering our questions, silverware not being replaced, it was a litany of issues, those being the core of it
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Awful service, terrible wine pairings, chefs not paying attention to us and when they did simply not answering our questions, silverware not being replaced, it was a litany of issues, those being the core of it

I find it pretty amazing that there were so many service issues at Minibar. It is only 6 people. While I cannot speak to the wine pairings as I did not have them on my one and only trip, but the chefs were very attentive and answered all of our questions. Would I go again, I guess so since it has been over 2 years, but it is not at the top of my list.

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I find it pretty amazing that there were so many service issues at Minibar. It is only 6 people. While I cannot speak to the wine pairings as I did not have them on my one and only trip, but the chefs were very attentive and answered all of our questions. Would I go again, I guess so since it has been over 2 years, but it is not at the top of my list.
It was truly astonishing. We were in an early seating and from the moment we sat down it seemed as though they wanted us out. I was actually startled at points at how abrupt our service was.
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Awful service, terrible wine pairings, chefs not paying attention to us and when they did simply not answering our questions, silverware not being replaced, it was a litany of issues, those being the core of it

I have to say I'm a bit surprised to hear of anyone getting awful service at Minibar. There are two chefs for six diners: Seriously, how is is possible for them not to pay attention to you? I don't dispute your bad feelings about the place, but this is definitely not the Minibar I've experienced..

Cheers,

Rocks.

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I have to say I'm a bit surprised to hear of anyone getting awful service at Minibar. There are two chefs for six diners: Seriously, how is is possible for them not to pay attention to you? I don't dispute your bad feelings about the place, but this is definitely not the Minibar I've experienced..

Cheers,

Rocks.

It's not the experience most have gotten, but I can assure you it was the service we got. The chefs were abrupt when they paid attention to us- which was rare- the runners didn't listen to us when we made requests and the wine pairings were terrible. To top that off on an extremely rude response from Andres about the whole thing reall soured me on the minibar experience. Add to that, for me, poor cooking at his other restaurants and I've written him off.
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Jonathon, no doubt you were unhappy especially with one meal you had at the minibar and you feel the need to defend your original comments given how many fans of José Andres have taken the time to post here. In fact, you've been asked to explain your initial negative comments.

What I find puzzling is the decision to question the originality of the chef by claiming that he imitates other "cutting edge" restaurants in the United States. Andres remains loyal to Ferran Adria and open about the debt he owes the chef. In fact, the generosity with which he acknowledges all his influences strikes me as one of his strengths. He's worked hard to bring Spanish foods into the foreground in the United States and he deserves a lot of credit for his efforts. If you haven't seen it yet, I invite you to browse through this (baldly celebratory) report of a conference on Spanish Cuisine written by John Sconzo at eGullet, looking for references to Andres.

I won't echo comments about visiting his restaurants or very pleasant interactions with Andres. Instead, I will add my appreciation for his work with local farmers markets, especially in helping to launch the week-day market in Penn Quarter.

I'd also like to add that when chefs write cookbooks, they don't always succeed, especially when it's clear that personal ambition matters more than sharing knowledge and experience with home cooks. I've made a number of recipes from Tapas and was very pleased with the results. The best teachers are the ones driven by their own passion for their subject and the desire to make converts out of postulants. For me, Andres assumes such a role in recipes that pay homage to regional specialties, his wife, and his mentor.

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Jonathon, no doubt you were unhappy especially with one meal you had at the minibar and you feel the need to defend your original comments given how many fans of José Andres have taken the time to post here. In fact, you've been asked to explain your initial negative comments.

What I find puzzling is the decision to question the originality of the chef by claiming that he imitates other "cutting edge" restaurants in the United States. Andres remains loyal to Ferran Adria and open about the debt he owes the chef. In fact, the generosity with which he acknowledges all his influences strikes me as one of his strengths. He's worked hard to bring Spanish foods into the foreground in the United States and he deserves a lot of credit for his efforts. If you haven't seen it yet, I invite you to browse through this (baldly celebratory) report of a conference on Spanish Cuisine written by John Sconzo at eGullet, looking for references to Andres.

I won't echo comments about visiting his restaurants or very pleasant interactions with Andres. Instead, I will add my appreciation for his work with local farmers markets, especially in helping to launch the week-day market in Penn Quarter.

I'd also like to add that when chefs write cookbooks, they don't always succeed, especially when it's clear that personal ambition matters more than sharing knowledge and experience with home cooks. I've made a number of recipes from Tapas and was very pleased with the results. The best teachers are the ones driven by their own passion for their subject and the desire to make converts out of postulants. For me, Andres assumes such a role in recipes that pay homage to regional specialties, his wife, and his mentor.

We're going to have to agree to disagree- it's clear you enjoy his cooking and think that he is bringing something to the DC area and the United States, but I just think he's producing corporate schlock that isn't particularly good or original. I don't find his openness a strength in particular, and I find his work lacking at best.

I respect that people have had good experiences with his food, but I simply don't get it (not the food, the good experiences). For the money and the experience I find many places to be better, more chefs to have strikingly good talent, and more original food.

Clearly he's made a boatload of money and people enjoy his creations, I don't and am fine with being an outspoken critic of what I consider to be mediocrity.

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To top that off on an extremely rude response from Andres about the whole thing reall soured me on the minibar experience. Add to that, for me, poor cooking at his other restaurants and I've written him off.
This kind of reminds me how my girlfriend hates all Tom Cruise movies. I distinctly remember her liking A Few Good Men, Mission Impossible I, Top Gun, Risky Business, etc. etc. when we first got together. Ever since Cruise became the spokesperson for scientology (and crazy) the last few years and "brainwashed" one of her favorites (Katie Holmes) she loudly voices her negative reviews anytime one of his movies is replaying on TNT. Now I am not saying that she secretly still likes those movies but is lying because she hates Tom Cruise, I think her personal distaste of the man creates a pavlovian distaste in her response to him on screen. So she honestly doesn't like those movies. What I am wondering is when you take a bite of food you know was created by Andres, does your absolute distaste of the man hijack the synapse between your taste buds and the taste center of your brain and create the sensation of a dirty sock.

I'm not saying everyone has to or does like his cooking but it was just a thought...

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Blake: had almost the same thought as you.

My time at Minibar seemed typical of most I've heard on the board and in reviews: cutting edge food was mostly hits, some misses; service was efficient and the guys were always willing to answer questions given the chef to customer ratio.

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I've actually done a pretty good job of separating my feelings of the chef being rude to me from his food and I still find his food significantly lacking- I've been to 2 events at Zaytinya and 1 at Atlantico since the event and every time I've not been the only one to complain about the food being poor, so I'm not willing to write this off to a dislike of the chef personally. I think my point has been heard in this thread and I think it's understood what I think of his cooking, thus I'm going to step out of this one.

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You might think he's just a purveyor of corporate schlock, and you are certainly entitled to your beliefs, but 15 or so years ago Jose was not only a culinary innovator (how many tapas places existed in 1990?) but he was also a pioneer in revitalizing the Penn Quarter section of Washington.

If you could take a trip in the wayback machine to 9th street NW, circa 1986 or so, you would find peep shows, wig shops, boarded-up buildings, nightclubs, and drug dealers instead of a farmer's market, condos, museums, fine dining restaurants, and a big new arena. It was, in the words of Jaleo pastry chef Steve Klc, shitty and dangerous. Now, I frequented several clubs down there and harbor a great deal of misty-eyed nostalgia for the halcyon days of my youth, but no amount of nostalgia will convince me that, overall, the redevelopment of that neighborhood has not been a net positive for the city. And Jose was right there at the beginning.

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You might think he's just a purveyor of corporate schlock, and you are certainly entitled to your beliefs, but 15 or so years ago Jose was not only a culinary innovator (how many tapas places existed in 1990?) but he was also a pioneer in revitalizing the Penn Quarter section of Washington.

If you could take a trip in the wayback machine to 9th street NW, circa 1986 or so, you would find peep shows, wig shops, boarded-up buildings, nightclubs, and drug dealers instead of a farmer's market, condos, museums, fine dining restaurants, and a big new arena. It was, in the words of Jaleo pastry chef Steve Klc, shitty and dangerous. Now, I frequented several clubs down there and harbor a great deal of misty-eyed nostalgia for the halcyon days of my youth, but no amount of nostalgia will convince me that, overall, the redevelopment of that neighborhood has not been a net positive for the city. And Jose was right there at the beginning.

As Far as 1990 Jose was probaly still cooking at El Dorado Petite! Not anywhere near the Penn Quater. The Jaleo on 7th was all the Idea of Roberto Alvarez and no one else (maybe Ann Cashion was involved). The Props of Revitalizing Penn Quater should be givin to only Roberto Alvarez not Jose R. Andres!

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Personal disdain does not necessarily justify a meek review of overall prowess. Neither do bitter dinners permit revisionism of biography-based lineage that traces the “post-modern experimental cuisine movement” (“molecular gastronomy” being a popular marketing appellation for the basic scientific principles of cookery as per Herve This's book of the same name) back to Spain and consider Adriá as the senior ambassador, under whom Andres was an apprentice (Juan Mari Arzak being in the same progressive orbit ). Cantu is a freshman and mid way through this article appears to hold Adriá and Andres in high regard.

The impractical spectacle of Autoshow prototype vehicles is a pathetic fallacy to the Minibar thing. The meal focuses on innovative appropriations of texture, taste and juxtapositions of traditional pairings and should not be considered alongside conventional Bocuse hostelry. Beverages are secondary. Sparkling wine is nudged to keep grandeur palates clean, focused and unassuming. I endorse any proprietor who has the taboo conviction to personally encourage a patron to go elsewhere regardless of retributions, binary or other.

Jeffe Flay may be as affable as the Commander in Chief, but the manner in which he presents his craft is clumsy and random. Opening restaurants in New York, Vegas and Atlantic City seems engineered to please the plebeian palates and Bob's expansion is precocious as he is clearly cut from different palm timber than Messrs Mina or Ogden and such.

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As Far as 1990 Jose was probaly still cooking at El Dorado Petite! Not anywhere near the Penn Quater. The Jaleo on 7th was all the Idea of Roberto Alvarez and no one else (maybe Ann Cashion was involved). The Props of Revitalizing Penn Quater should be givin to only Roberto Alvarez not Jose R. Andres!
Another Andres hater crawls from the woodwork. :blink: I used 1990 as a marker, not as the year Jaleo opened. And I am not saying that Andres personally rebuilt the city with his own two hands. But he opened a business there - and Jaleo opened in '92 or '93, if my memory serves) when it was far from a dining destination. It was more than a little risky.
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Another Andres hater crawls from the woodwork. :blink: I used 1990 as a marker, not as the year Jaleo opened. And I am not saying that Andres personally rebuilt the city with his own two hands. But he opened a business there - and Jaleo opened in '92 or '93, if my memory serves) when it was far from a dining destination. It was more than a little risky.

According to this Internets thing, Jose arrives in '93 as Chef-Partner and was soon brought into the previously established Atlantico.

Personally, I think it was the art gallery people who led the way, or maybe all the hip restaurants that gradually encircled the area, pushing the perimeter in bit by bit. Bice, Yannick Cam's Brazilian churrascaria in Chinatown a decade before Fogo de Chao showed up, 701... And the clubs. And DC Space.

Whatever.

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Senor Andres is not the only person around whose personal abilities of a chef are less and less reflected in his empire of eateries (see Batali, M.). I remember being blown away by some of the dishes at the original Jaleo in the pre-empire days. Whether that is more because they were that good or that, at the time tapas was a relatively unique concept for the DC area is up for debate.

But seriously, Jaleo was the right concept at the right time. I think that Andres can be held up as being in large part the inspiration for the small plates concept taking hold in DC as much as it has.

A chef with a successful restaurant has that one sous that can be trusted to take over and maintain quality so that el Jeffe can open a second spot. After time the newly empowered sous wants el Jeffe to stake him/her for a place where they have some equity and a third person has hopefully been groomed by number two to maintain the flagship spot. Meanwhile the number two at the second restaurant is getting antsy for his/her own spot. When you up that to multiple Jaleos, Zaytinya, Cafe Atlantico with the Minibar a fall-off in quality is inevitable. It doesn't matter how great a cook the head man is, there's only so much talent to go around.

I still enjoy Jaleo from time to time, have found Zaytinya to be quite uneven, and have yet to make it to Minibar. At this point, however, I think that it is more appropriate to judge the abilities of Andres as a chef on his bio and his cookbook than the food in his restaurants. His ability as a restaurateur has to be judged by the success of his places. So far, I'd say he's a pretty effing good restaurateur.

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Personally, I think it was the art gallery people who led the way, or maybe all the hip restaurants that gradually encircled the area, pushing the perimeter in bit by bit. Bice, Yannick Cam's Brazilian churrascaria in Chinatown a decade before Fogo de Chao showed up, 701... And the clubs. And DC Space.
Yes, of course DC Space led the revitalization effort in the Penn Qtr. How could I have forgotten.

1993. Art galleries - you mean the smaller independents, not the Portrait and American Art (which had fallen into disrepair)?

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Yes, of course DC Space led the revitalization effort in the Penn Qtr. How could I have forgotten.

1993. Art galleries - you mean the smaller independents, not the Portrait and American Art (which had fallen into disrepair)?

Yeah -- that little strip on 7th, across from Shakespeare. That was the product of a mid-80s revitalization effort, I believe.And that corner building with the big plate glass windows (across the street from Atlantico, down the street from Rasika) was headquarters for some big local artist thingie.

The Portrait Gallery and the American Art were still bringing 'em in, too, even if they were a little tatty around the edges. And then -- dinner at Big Wong!

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