Saturday, March 12, 2016

Still Life with Robin: An (Almost) Top Chef Springs Forth From Cleveland Park (Correction to the Previous Column)

Olive oil, fennel, cinnamon, and other spices
Photo by cyclonebill via Wikimedia Commons
by Peggy Robin

My bad. I got ahead of myself with my “Still Life with Robin” column this morning about the results of the Bravo show "Top Chef." Yesterday a friend of mine, knowing that I’m a huge booster of Cleveland Park restaurants, and also a fan of Top Chef, sent me a note saying how proud I must be that the chef of Cleveland Park’s own Ripple, Marjorie Meek Bradley, was the winner on Top Chef. Well, I knew she was competing, and I had been recording the shows, but I hadn’t yet watched my recordings. Still, I figured my friend knew what was up, and so I dashed off a column on that basis, and congratulated her for the win. It was a nano-second later that I got the first of many messages in response, telling me I’d got it wrong. Marjorie had advanced to the not-quite-final round, and then been knocked out at the end of the semi-final. Two other competitors made it to the final, still to be held in Las Vegas. And neither one of them is from Cleveland Park.

Next time, I won’t jump the gun (or the tape). But for all that, one thing remains true – it was an exciting competition – and MMB still deserve kudos for her culinary chops, even though she did not, in fact, make it to the top. The consolation is that she’s back in town, cooking up her magic right here in DC.

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays (and sometimes on Sundays).

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Still Life with Robin: A Top Chef Springs Forth from Cleveland Park

by Peggy Robin

If you’re a fan of the Bravo Network’s cooking competition Top Chef, and you watch it religiously, then you already know what I’m going to tell you. If you’re a fan but you save up recorded episodes and still haven’t watched the Grande Finale, then you don’t know what I’m about to say – so stop reading right now! If you’re not a fan of the show but you love good food, or you don’t know a thing about the show but you do care very much about our Cleveland Park restaurants, then this news is for you: Chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley, of Cleveland Park’s Ripple – and later, of Adams Morgan’s Roofers Union -- has beaten out all the competition to take home the title of Top Chef of 2016.

It was a killer finale, and you can watch the whole thing here:
(Note: You need to be a subscriber to a cable package that includes Bravo, so that you can log in to watch online.)

Whether or not you watch the show, you can enjoy the winner’s wildly innovative culinary creations at Ripple (http://rippledc.com/)  – or if you are up for a leisurely half-hour’s evening stroll in our fine spring weather, take a mile and a half walk down to Adam’s Morgan and visit Roofer’s Union. The view from the rooftop bar will be your reward after the exercise it took to get there on foot – but you might want to cab it home.

Whether or not you watch the show, visit the Cleveland Park restaurant, or the Adams Morgan gastropub, you might enjoy reading a bit more about the winner and latest celebrity chef, as written up in the journal of her original hometown of Ukiah, California: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/article/NP/20160226/NEWS/160229905.

Congratulations to MMB from CP!

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland ParkListserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.

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