In celebration of National Pizza Month, Nycci Nellis of TheListAreYouOnIt.com joined WTOP to highlight the DC region’s diverse pizza scene. From Neapolitan favorites like 2 Amys, Pupatella Neapolitan Pizza and Bar del Monte to New York-style spots like Pizzeria Alfreda, Slice & Pie and All-Purpose, Nycci explored some of the area’s standout pies. She also highlighted New Haven, Chicago tavern-style and Detroit-style pizza, proving there’s a slice for every preference across the region.
Chip Sandground, Mel Davis, Cedric Maupillier and Mark Bucher sat down with me inside Central Michel Richard for this DC food podcast, the Washington DC restaurant insider landmark that just turned 20, to talk about the chef who built it. Michel Richard has been gone ten years. What these four told me about him has mostly never been said out loud.I have been covering the DC food scene since 2003 and I still think Michel Richard was the most magnetic person this city's kitchens ever produced. He was a pastry chef by training, a technician by obsession, and a showman by choice. He put a tuna burger on a menu before anyone in DC was charging 20 dollars for a burger, and that single dish raised the money that built Central.This chef interview podcast episode was recorded on location at Central, around a table with the four people who knew him from four completely different angles. Chip Sandground is the attorney who got Michel out of his Citronelle non compete and then became an original investor. Mel Davis ran his life and his press for 15 years across 11 restaurants. Cedric Maupillier was the young chef Michel handed his own kitchen to, and now runs Barbouzard. Mark Bucher built Medium Rare and Feed the Fridge, and named the first one after Michel without telling him.We get into the fried chicken, the trompe l'oeil, the 750 cover nights, the ego fights over a cassoulet, the ten years Cedric and Michel did not speak, and what it actually costs to keep a restaurant alive for two decades in this town. This is DC dining history from the people who lived it.Watch it here, or listen in here.