Kevin Tien Named 1 of 10 Best New Chefs

Executive chef and co-owner Kevin Tien of Hitmitsu, 828 Upshur St. NW, was named one of the 10 top new chefs for 2018 by Food & Wine magazine.

Kevin Tien of Petworth’s Hitmitsu was named one of the top 10 new chefs for 2018 by Food & Wine magazine. (Photo: Rey Lopez)

The title has been awarded each year since 1988 to 10 chefs who have fewer than five years of head chef experience. The chefs represent the country’s best cooking right now, according to editor Jordana Rothman.

Hitmitsu, which is Tien’s first restaurant, opened just over a year ago and has a menu that changes daily. He started at the sushi counter at his family’s restaurant Tsunami in Lafayette, La., where he worked through high school and college. Then he moved to Uchi in Houston, where he was the sushi chef until he met José Andrés, who hired him for Oyamel, where he worked for four years.

“Tien was captivated by the ways the Asian and Latin-American pantries overlap,” Rothman wrote. “It was a realization that planted the seed for Hitmitsu, Tien’s first solo effort as a chef, a Petworth jewel where he connects all the dots of his life experiences. The menu leans Japanese, with shades of Tien’s Vietnamese heritage and Latin-American experience.”

Tien was also a finalist in the Rising Star Chef of the Year category in the James Beard Foundation Awards, but that prize went to Camille Cogswell of Zahav in Philadelphia. He also competed on the recent season of Food Network’s Iron Chef Gauntlet, but did not win.

“Tien has devised a highly personal, individualized style of cooking that’s as hard to categorize as it is to forget,” Rothman wrote. “But then again, why would you want to?”

Slate Wine Bar + Bistro hosts summer wine tasting

Slate Wine Bar + Bistro, 2404 Wisconsin Ave. NW, will host a guided summer wine flight tasting, from 4-8 p.m. on Thursday, May 24.

Guests will explore wines selected to complement the restaurant’s seasonal a la carte menu. Two wine flights will be available: a summer wine flight featuring four two-ounce pours for $20 and a bonus summer wine flight featuring three two-ounce pours for $25. Featured wines include 2017 Allan Scott, Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough, New Zealand; 2014 Alexana, Chardonnay Willamette, Ore.; 2017 Martin Ray, Pinot Noir Rosé, Sonoma Coast, Calif.; 2016 Annabella Russian River Pinot Noir, Sonoma; 2015 Pahlmeyer “Jayson” Chardonnay, Napa, Calif.; 2015 Joseph Drouhin, Pinot Noir, Chorey-les-Beaune, Burgundy, France; and the 2016 Ridge, East Bench Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma.

Vinoteca’s outdoor rosé garden reopens Friday

Vinoteca wine bar and restaurant, 1940 11th St. NW, will reopen its rosé garden for the summer season on Friday, May 25.

Vinoteca’s outdoor rosé garden opens for the summer on Friday. (Photo: Vinoteca)

Following its popular “Rosé All May” celebration last year, Vinoteca will devote the entire summer to one of its favorite wines, with its “Rosé Days” celebration with more than 20 different rosé wines, rosé cans and magnums, rosé spritzes, rosé sangria, rosé cider, rosé cocktails and rosé flights.

Vinoteca’s “Rosé Days” menu will be available throughout the entire restaurant and bar, but the backyard European-inspired outdoor plaza will be especially festive and transporting for the summer, offering a sunny enclave to enjoy rosé, spring fare and a round of bocce on its oyster-shell court.

More than 20 new still and sparkling rosés hailing from France, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Austria, New Zealand, Tasmania and the U.S. will be available by the glass, bottle, magnum and even can.

Canned rosé from Anywhere Cellars in Lodi, Calif., will be available by the single can ($12) or by the bucket of five ($50). Flights offer guests the chance to try three rotating rosé wines for $18. Cider lovers can get their rosé fix with bottles of Wolffer’s No. 139 Dry Rosé Cider ($11/bottle) made exclusively from apples grown in upstate New York. The restaurant has also created a special Rosé Sangria ($8 glass/$30 pitcher) made with La Nevera Rosado de Garnacha, Rock Town vodka, and fresh fruits by the glass or pitcher.

Two rosé cocktails include the Rosé Spritz, which combines house rosé, hibiscus syrup, soda water and handmade seasonal ice, which holds herbs and fruit; and the rosé gin & tonic, with Nolet’s gin, tonic water and Peychaud’s bitters. Both are priced at $14.

Rosé Days runs Tuesday through Sunday from May 25 through the end of the summer.

Zinburger serves spiked and non-alcoholic lemonades for summer

Zinburger Wine & Burger Bar has added new spiked and non-alcoholic lemonades to its menu for the summer with 50 cents of each lemonade going to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to help find a cure for childhood cancer.

Zinburger’s Citron blueberry lemonade and others are available all summer. (Photo: Zinburger)

The new made-to-order lemonades are available at all 15 east coast locations including Springfield Town Center and Arundel Mills Mall through Aug. 31. All are made with signature house-made lemonade made from scratch daily with fresh lemon juice, water and simple syrup.

Spiked lemonades include Hendrick’s cucumber lemonade with Hendrick’s gin, simple syrup, cucumber and mint; agave watermelon lemonade with Patrón Silver tequila, Monin agave syrup, Hiram Walker triple sec, fresh watermelon cubes, lemon, mint and salt; Citron blueberry lemonade with Absolut Citron vodka, Blueberry Reàl and a lemon wheel; and spiked raspberry lemonade with Grey Goose vodka, fresh raspberries, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, a lemon wheel and raspberries

Non-alcoholic lemonades include the house-made lemonade; a black & blue lemonade shaken with fresh blackberries, blueberry purée and lemon; cucumber mint lemonade muddled with fresh cucumber, simple syrup and mind; strawberry lemonade Monin strawberry syrup and fresh lemon juice; and half & half with half lemonade and half iced tea.

Red’s Table hosts Hardywood Park Craft Brewery dinner Saturday

Red’s Table, 11150 South Lakes Drive, Reston, will host a special four-course beer dinner featuring local craft brewery Hardywood Park Craft Brewery at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 26. The cost is $85.

The dinner includes a welcome beer of Tropication Tropical IPA. The first course is clam fritters with sweet corn purée and pink peppercorn paired with Hop Keeper Hazy New England-Style IPA, followed by foie gras torchon with ramp bread, plum chutney and sorrel paired with Peach Tripel Belgian-style tripel. The main course is veal osso bucco with rutabaga purée, braised carrots and rosemary demi glace paired with Bourbon Barrel Cru Belgian Quad. Dessert is banana cream pie with carmelia crèmeux, buttered pecans and vanilla pudding paired with Raspberry Stout.