Karen Hayes, chef of Lock 72 Kitchen & Bar in Potomac
Chef Chat
In January, chef Karen Hayes, 52, took the helm of Lock 72 Kitchen & Bar, restaurateur Robert Wiedmaier’s American brasserie in Potomac Village. Hayes’ cooking pedigree, spanning a 23-year career, includes stints at many of Washington, D.C.’s better- known eateries, among them the Roof Terrace Restaurant at the Kennedy Center and José Andrés’ Zaytinya. We checked in with her to find out what she has in store at her new gig.
What was your first job in a professional kitchen?
It was 1995. Chef Ris Lacoste was going to 1789 [in Washington] and she took me on without any kitchen experience. The two sous-chefs there, John Wabeck and Jeff Eng, were unbelievably caring and nice and unselfish with knowledge. They taught me every little thing—breaking down a salmon, fabricating [butchering] meats and fish, how to make a fast soup. They were fun, too.
Your path crossed with Robert Wiedmaier’s many times in your career.
Doug McNeil [who was the chef of the Four Seasons hotel in D.C. from 1979 to 2001] told me that if I was serious about cooking, I should work for Robert. I did briefly when he was at Aquarelle in the Watergate in 1998. Then at Marcel’s [in Washington] from 2000 to 2003 and Brabo [in Alexandria] from 2009 to 2011. He has always been very supportive and very generous. There has never been a time when I wasn’t working for him that he didn’t ask, ‘When are you coming back?’
How much of the menu at Lock 72 have you changed?
About 60 percent at lunch; more at dinner.
In what direction are you trying to go?
A little bit more upscale. It seemed to me that the menu kind of mirrored one of our competitors and I wanted to make it different from that. But this is still a tavern and there are things people expect at a tavern. Like a burger. The bar menu has burgers, wings, fried calamari—that’s what people expect when they sit at a bar.
What are some of your new dishes?
I put on a house-cured salmon with crème fraiche, cornichons and capers. A very nice bouillabaisse of mussels, shrimp, scallops, monkfish and salmon; a braised short rib that mimics bourguignonne, with deep red wine sauce and mushrooms; pan-seared Moroccan spiced salmon; and a crab dip.
What’s coming up for spring?
I’m playing around with spring bounty salad with peas, asparagus, baby beets, cucumbers and radishes. Maybe an almond hummus to go with an asparagus salad. Lamb with house-made harissa [spicy red pepper sauce]. I’m bringing back an old dish of mine—halibut with Asian pesto of basil, Thai basil, cilantro and cashews, in kaffir broth.
Lock 72 Kitchen & Bar, 10128 River Road, Potomac, 301-299-0481, lock72.com
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Jaimie Mertz sells gluten-free fare, including cupcakes (below), at The Red Bandana Bakery.
Hold the Gluten
For 28-year-old Bethesda resident Jaimie Mertz, opening The Red Bandana Bakery, which specializes in gluten-free products, was a labor of love. When her younger brother was put on a gluten-free diet in 2011 for medical reasons, the pastry chef, who has a degree in pastry arts from now-closed L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, had an epiphany: She would focus her nascent baking career on gluten-free desserts. Putting her experience at Wagshal’s in Spring Valley and Just Cakes in Bethesda (now closed) to good use, she started developing gluten-free and low-in-casein (milk protein) recipes for baked goods. She created a website, started selling her treats at farmers markets, including the Bethesda Central Farm Market, and made plans to open a brick-and-mortar bakery.
“One thing I knew for sure from meeting so many people with celiac [disease] was that I had to have a dedicated kitchen,” Mertz explains, meaning one where gluten, which is most prevalent in wheat-based products, never enters the premises. She opened The Red Bandana Bakery in November.
The cheery space has an open kitchen and is decorated with bright red tiles, red walls and artwork from local artists. There is seating for 25 people. Among the baked goods are mini apple pies, chunky chocolate chip cookies, garlic herb rolls, buttermilk biscuits and a variety of cupcakes. Vegan products include coconut macaroons, banana chocolate chip muffins and black bean brownies. Most baked goods are $2 or $3. Mertz also makes custom cakes.
The Red Bandana offers breakfast (such as avocado toast, an egg sandwich and an oatmeal bowl) and lunch (soups and build-your-own salads and sandwiches), but not dinner. “I like to have the evenings open to have special events, like artist openings, a local band, or to show someone’s ceramics,” Mertz says. “I want this to be a real community gathering place here.”
The Red Bandana Bakery, 8218 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, 240-284-6523, theredbandanabakery.com
Diners can pick up veggies, noodles, meats and seafood from a conveyor belt, then add it to their bowl of steaming broth at Urban Hot Pot. Vivian Zhu (right) opened the Rockville restaurant in December.
Hot Stuff
There’s a new restaurant worth checking out for an all-you-can-eat adventure. Urban Hot Pot in the Galvan at Twinbrook apartments on Rockville Pike opened in December. For the most fun, ask for one of the tables that abuts a conveyor belt with a constantly moving array of alluring vegetables and proteins. This is a modern version of Chinese hot pot, where diners drop various ingredients in hot, flavored broth and then pick them out and eat them once they’re cooked. The broth, delicious on its own, becomes more and more flavorful as the meal progresses.
At 100-seat Urban Hot Pot, you order from a tablet computer at your table, then a server brings the broth, placing the pots on each diner’s individual infrared burner. Broth choices are spicy beef; “original,” which is chicken- and pork-based; two kinds of tomato broth, one vegetarian, the other chicken- and pork-based; pork and kimchi; and herbal chicken.
While your broth is heating up, head to the make-your-own-dipping-sauce bar to whip up a customized concoction, say with scallions, jalapeño, soy sauce, sesame oil and oyster sauce.
Back at your table, start picking vegetables, noodles and proteins at will from the conveyor belt, or order them from your tablet and a server will bring them. Among the dizzying and diverse choices are razor-thin slices of raw beef (they cook in an instant), head- and shell-on shrimp, tofu, squid, Chinese sausages, quail eggs, udon noodles and ramen noodles. A panoply of vegetables includes such items as taro root, broccoli, shiitakes, kombu (seaweed), pumpkin, watercress and spinach.
Each table is allotted a two-hour maximum stay. The price Monday through Friday is $18.99 for lunch and $25.99 for dinner. On Saturday and Sunday, the price is $25.99 for lunch or dinner. Some items come with a surcharge, including a whole chopped, shell-on lobster ($15), oysters ($1 each), scallops ($8 per half-pound) and King crab legs ($25 per pound). “I don’t want customers to have to spend a lot of extra money beyond the all-you-can-eat price to have the things they want to eat,” says owner Vivian Zhu. “We want a place for people to have fun and hang out with friends.” Mission accomplished. n
Urban Hot Pot, 1800 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 240-669-6710, urbanhotpot.com
Comings & Goings
The fast-casual Mexican fare chainlet District Taco will open in The Blairs shopping center in Silver Spring in the former Oriental East space in late 2018. The fast-casual burger chain Zinburger will also open in The Blairs, in the summer of 2019.
Brother-and-sister team Aki and Ken Ballogdajan (she’s front of the house; he’s the chef), both Clarksburg residents, will open Kenaki, a sushi restaurant, in the Kentlands in Gaithersburg this summer.
Slapfish, a fast-casual seafood chain, will open in Rockville’s Montrose Crossing this summer.
Also this summer, restaurateur Aaron Gordon will open Little Beast, a café and restaurant, in Chevy Chase. The café will be open from 7 a.m. to midnight seven days a week.
At Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Kusshi Sushi, a sushi and sake bar, will open this fall in the former Carluccio’s space, and Commonwealth Indian restaurant will open in the space formerly occupied by La Madeleine. No opening date has been announced yet for Commonwealth Indian.
On Rockville Pike in North Bethesda, Helen’s restaurant closed in January. Next door, Hank Dietle’s Tavern burned down in February. The owners plan to reopen by the fall. Corned Beef King food truck, which frequently served from the parking lot at Dietle’s, has adjusted its schedule. Its owner announced plans to open a 24-seat outlet in the Liberty gas station at 1900 Rockville Pike in Rockville in late spring or early summer.
Mix Bar and Grille in the Potomac Promenade shopping center closed in February. The Silver Spring location of the restaurant remains open.
The Classics restaurant in Silver Spring closed on Feb. 27.
Mediterranean restaurant Bistro LaZeez in Bethesda closed in February. Thelo Greek Grill is slated to take over the space. Yamas Mediterranean Grill, in nearby Woodmont Triangle, closed in January. The downtown Bethesda location of the Pi Pizzeria chain closed in January. Lebanese Taverna closed its Bethesda Row outlet in March after a 10-year run.
