New Year, Fresh Challenges

By Amy Loeffler

Courtesy of Thomas Schaver

Various Northern Virginia chefs have high culinary hopes for the coming year—many of which may test your personal resolve (good luck, dieters!).

Patrick Bazin (Bazin’s on Church) is looking to broaden his powerbase in Vienna with a low-key trattoria specializing in homemade pastas and wood-fired pizzas. “There’s a need for high-quality, family-oriented places,” he says.

Minor league baseball player-cum-restaurateur Mike Cordero (Caribbean Breeze, Prime Time Sports Grill) got his start at a mom-and-pop pizza shop two blocks from Yankee Stadium. He plans to revisit that bygone era by opening Bronx Pizza, a New York-style pizzeria, somewhere in Clarendon.

Chris Ford (Trummer’s on Main; pictured above) plans to indulge in pastry therapy. If his gourmet creations “remind you of what you ate when you were a kid,” Ford will consider his resolution met.

Conversely, Michelle Poteaux (Bastille) is hoping to slow things down before her bundle of joy arrives this February—making her resolution a no-brainer: “Try to get more sleep before my baby is born.”

(January 2010)