Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features

Capital Chefs: Nate Garyantes of Ardeo + Bardeo (Part 2)

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‘Scallops small plate at Ardeo + Bardeo’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

There are often times when you go into a restaurant, eat a dish and say to yourself, “I wish I could have that at home.” The scallop schnitzel at Ardeo + Bardeo is one small platter that isn’t all that hard to make. If you’re short on time, or don’t feel like making the entire dish, you can still make the breaded scallops in this recipe and serve it over a simple salad with the cider vinaigrette dressing.

The dish is served with micro-red cabbage at the restaurant, but for the home cook you can use watercress or regular red cabbage. If you use red cabbage, be sure to let it sit in the cider vinaigrette for a little longer so the flavor takes hold. Also, when pound the sea scallop flat, go gently at first to make sure you don’t end up with mashed scallops. Bay scallops can be found at some grocery stores and fish markets, such as Blacksalt Fish Market, according to Garyantes. Again, if you can’t find bay scallops or can’t figure out how to clean them just stick with making the breaded scallops portion of this recipe. They’re delicious!

After the jump you’ll find chef Nate Garyantes’ recipe for scallop schnitzel.
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Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features

Capital Chefs: Nate Garyantes of Ardeo + Bardeo (Part 1)

Photo courtesy of
‘Nate Garyantes of Ardeo + Bardeo’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

When I talk to chefs about their lives and their careers, I always find it interesting how their upbringing and childhood plays a part. For Nate Garyantes, executive chef at Ardeo + Bardeo, growing up in a family that owned a restaurant made him hesitant to become a chef. “Initially, I felt it wasn’t for me,” he says. Seeing his father, the restaurant owner, work long hours and spend time away from their family made Garyantes pause before deciding to work in the restaurant industry.

So instead of enlisting in a kitchen crew, Garyantes joined the army for three years where he earned an Expert Infantry Badge. Afterwards, he moved to Hawaii where he started working in restaurants, at first in the front of house and later in the kitchen. “I fell in love with all of the fresh fruits, vegetables and fish Hawaii had to offer,” he says. It seemed that the kitchen was calling him.

After time in Hawaii, Garyantes moved to Delaware, where he became the executive chef and owner of Restaurant 821 which earned Zagat’s highest rating for food in Delaware. In DC, he was previously the executive sous chef at Jose Andres’ Cafe Atlantico and later worked at Minibar. Throughout all the different restaurants and cooking various types of food, Nate had one thing to say, “It doesn’t matter what I’m cooking, so long as it’s executed properly.”

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

This Week in Food

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‘Pork Loin with Kumquat Marmalade @ Ardeo’
courtesy of ‘jimcollins’

Talk about an empire. DCMud.com reports that restaurateur Ashok Bajaj, the man behind Bombay Club, 701, Rasika, and Ardeo + Bardeo could soon sign a lease for the retail space at 22 West in West End. Bajaj somewhat hinted at a new project in a chat last month with my fave food critic, Tom Sietsema.

My favorite news of the week comes via The Washington Post: Whole Foods Market and a D.C. real estate firm want to build a new store in Navy Yard, “but the developer says that luring the grocer would require $8 million in tax breaks.”  WaPo reports that William C. Smith and Co. is proposing a 39,000-square-foot Whole Foods in the 800 block of New Jersey Ave. SE as part of a building that would also include 375 apartments.

In other Navy Yard news, JDLand writes that a beer garden might soon be on its way to Southeast. The ANC6D (Advisory Neighborhood Commission) voted 6-0 “to support the Bullpen’s plans to open an additional 632-seat beer garden at Half and M, across from the Navy Yard Metro station’s west entrance just north of Nationals Park.”

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