E4

brothers continued from E1

invested in the new U Street Mu- sic Hall and advised Eric’s wife, Tien Claudio, and partner Steve Kaufmann on the recently opened Dickson Wine Bar. The brothers have 200 full- time employees working for their projects, but “it’s not corporate,” says Ian, 38. “We don’t want to corner the market. We’re a fami- ly-owned shop.” They don’t ad- vertise, and they don’t pay for PR. Marvin, which opened in 2007, is the flagship, but it wasn’t the first. “I love the hospitality indus- try and have loved it my whole adult life,” said Eric, 44, who eventually found time for an in- terview between international gigs. He opened Eighteenth Street Lounge in 1995 as a venue for DJs and a burgeoning music scene in the District and as home base for Thievery Corporation and ESL records, helping secure the band’s place on the musical map. The brothers later opened Dragonfly, a sushi bar where “food was an amenity,” says Ian, but it has since closed. As the District’s music and food scene has matured, the brothers’ focus has expanded to include food as a priority as much as music and cocktails. (It helps that Eric’s stepson and Ian’s nephew, Jimmy Claudio, 26, trained at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and apprenticed in Italy and France for a year. As executive chef of the restaurants, Claudio develops the menus with the brothers’ consul- tation.)

Still, of the Hilton establish- ments, only Marvin offers a tradi- tional menu of appetizers, mains and desserts. The Gibson serves charcuterie, cheese, olives and the like (in addition to hand-

MG

KLMNO

It takes an entourage to launch their empire

Derek Brown, owner of the Pas-

senger and cocktail consultant for the Gibson, credits a certain je ne sais quoi tied directly to the owners. “Eric Hilton brings an el- ement of coolness without stand- ing in the center of the room in a pair of shades,” he says. It helps, Brown adds, that the

EVY MAGES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Patty Boom Boom opened recently along lively U Street NW, offering Jamaican patties and reggae music.

crafted cocktails); Patty Boom Boom sells Jamaican meat pat- ties; and Dickson offers snacks, flatbread and banh mi sandwich- es with cocktails, beer and an all- organic and biodynamic wine se- lection vetted by Jarad Slipp, res- taurant director at CityZen. Pared-down menus make good business sense. Traditional res- taurants’ profit margins hover around 10 percent or lower, while single-concept places such as the salad-focused Sweetgreen can earn more along the lines of 20 percent a year, says owner Nico- las Jammet. Jimmy Claudio, whose mother

and grandmother are Vietnam- ese, touts the banh mi as a Dick-

son house specialty. For the three renditions, pork belly, rib-eye and chicken are marinated in a mix- ture of fish sauce, garlic, lime and sugar. Rolls from Panorama Bak- ing (which also sells to chef Michel Richard and at the 14th and U farmers market) are slath- ered with house-made chicken liver mousse and garnished with pickled daikon, carrots, micro- greens and plenty of cilantro. Though Dickson is getting some buzz, Marvin’s food has re- ceived tepid critical reviews. “I really don’t know why we don’t get recognition,” Claudio says. Even so, Marvin feeds an aver-

age of 150 people every week- night and up to 300 on weekend

nights. Ian says one reason is the crowd-pleasing portions. “In a lot of places, your wallet is empty, and your stomach is, too,” he says. The halibut served with smoked cauliflower and greens is the size of a man’s hand. Scallops come five to a plate. The entree of chicken and waffles is gargan- tuan, plated with a side of chick- en gravy. Whatever the critics say, Eric considers Claudio and the kitchen staff to be the draw. “They completely hold it down. The food is good, consistent,” he says. “It’s so great to see them running the kitchen, since I’ve known Jimmy since he was 3 years old.”

The goal: A toothsome tomato in the supermarket

tomato continued from E1

bring home a nutritious, decent- tasting tomato. Scott, 61, is aware that mere mention of winter tomatoes be- ing trucked north from Florida is anathema to locavores, but he’s also a realist. “Consumers tend to be spoiled,” he said. “They go into the grocery store and they expect to see fresh tomatoes any time of year, even if they grum- ble about the quality. I want peo- ple to buy Tasti-Lees because they like them, not just because they are the only tomatoes there.”

During the warmer months,

large-scale fresh, field-grown to- mato production migrates north from southern Florida to the state’s panhandle, through the Carolinas and as far as New Jer- sey. In the depths of winter, Mexico supplies fresh tomatoes to the United States. These commodity fruits are the workhorses of the tomato trade, always in the local su- permarket and a mainstay of chain restaurants, where they are chopped into salsa, tossed into prepared salads and slipped between hamburger buns. In- creasingly, they find themselves sharing produce-counter space with branded, on-vine fruits grown in greenhouses in all parts of the country as well as new hybrids such as the trade- marked UglyRipe, which looks (and, producers claim, tastes) like beloved heirloom varieties. These newcomers cost four times as much as commodity to- matoes. Tasti-Lee is designed to give commodity farmers a toma- to that can compete in this pre- mium market. Like many plant varieties, Tas-

ti-Lee owes its existence to a combination of serendipity and the keen eye of an experienced plant breeder. In Florida, the summer of 1998 was a terrible season for anyone trying to grow a tasty tomato, Scott said. For some unknown reason — too wet, too cloudy, too hot? — Scott’s tomato field tests, which included hundreds of genetic lines, failed to produce fruits with any sweetness. Even vari- eties that had been sweet in pre- vious years tasted bland. But one morning while out in the field, Scott spotted a nice-looking to- mato called Fla. 7907. He picked a fruit, took out his pocket knife, cut off a wedge and popped it into his mouth. “Aha!” he said. It was sweet, but Fla. 7907 had one big flaw that made it a non- starter for commercial produc- tion: It was almost perfectly spherical. The industry demands tomatoes with flattened tops and bottoms that can be picked green, sorted on a conveyor belt, gassed with ethylene until they acquire the desired red-orange hue, and trucked for hundreds of miles, the path a typical fresh

JOSHUA PREZANT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The Tasti-Lee was designed to give commodity farmers a tomato that can compete in the higher-priced premium market.

Florida tomato takes to market. Not only do commercial toma-

toes have to be the right shape, but they also have to be hard, and 7907 was softer than most agribusiness tomatoes. To be successful, such varieties also must produce high yields of large, uniform fruit. They have to be able to resist diseases and tolerate extremes of heat and cold. And they need to have a long shelf life, according to Scott.

“Sometimes I wonder why we

even bother with flavor,” Scott said in an interview last month in his office, a cramped space filled with all manner of tomato- related kitsch: tomato-shaped coffee mugs, framed antique to- mato-crate labels, a vintage ad- vertisement for Campbell’s to- mato soup, a dog-eared stack of Tomato Magazines. “There is no easy way to breed for taste. It’s not like there’s one genetic marker that tomatoes must have to taste good,” he said. Tomato flavor, Scott ex- plained, is the result of the in- terplay of acids (primarily citric and malic), sugars and the ephemeral scents of 15 to 20 volatiles, the term for chemicals that can be smelled. The structure of a tomato

makes breeding for both taste and toughness a difficult balanc- ing act. The gooey part of a to- mato, called locular jelly, con- tains most of the all-important acidity, Scott said. The pericarp tissue, the walls of a tomato, give it strength and sweetness, but no acidity. The harder a tomato is, the blander it is likely to taste. Fortunately, Scott was also de- veloping a line of what he calls “ultra-firm” tomatoes. Among those was one called Fla. 8059. It was hard, with the right shape and a perfectly acceptable flavor. Sensing a match made in heav- en, Scott crossbred the sweet but soft and spherical 7907 with the harder 8059, and in the fall of 2002, the first of what was then

referred to as Fla. 8153 ripened. Scott thought the new hybrid carried the best traits of both parents. At trials conducted by the university, consumers on test panels agreed. Time after time, 8153 beat other tomatoes. Sub- sequent chemical analyses showed that the fruit had a de- sirable balance of sugars, acids and volatiles. It also had an un- planned-for bonus: Both of its parents possessed what Scott calls the crimson gene, giving 8153 a striking fire-engine-red color and an extraordinarily high level of lycopene, an impor- tant antioxidant. “It sounds like magic, doesn’t it?” said Scott. “It really is, in a way.” Good-looking, good-tasting

and good for you, Fla. 8153 had everything going for it except for a catchy, appetizing name. Scott christened and trademarked his new baby Tasti-Lee, Lee being the first name of his mother-in- law, a tomato lover who had en- couraged and supported his re- search. After four seasons of field trials and consumer tests confirmed that Tasti-Lee wasn’t just a one-season wonder, the variety was ready for its com- mercial debut. Four seed companies bid to buy the rights to produce and distribute Tasti-Lee seeds. The university chose Bejo Seeds. A large, family-owned Dutch firm with offices around the world, Bejo specializes in cabbage, car- rots and other cool-weather crops. “We felt that marketing would be a key to Tasti-Lee’s suc- cess,” said Scott. “It seemed like Bejo would be hungry to get into the tomato market and that they would push Tasti-Lee pretty hard.” The job of giving Tasti-Lee

that push fell to Greg Styers, Be- jo’s sales and product develop- ment manager for the southeast- ern United States. “We had a vision to start with a grass-roots movement,” Styers said. He approached Whitworth

Farms, which grows vegetables on 700 acres near Boca Raton; it’s a small player in the Florida tomato business, which is dom- inated by a few huge companies. “Whitworth was big enough to deal with some large retailers but small enough that they were willing to take a chance on Tasti- Lee,” Styers said. One of Whitworth’s customers was Whole Foods Market. Glen Whitworth, who owns the farm along with his sister and two brothers, approached one of the company’s produce buyers, who agreed to test-market Tasti-Lee. In February it began appearing in 16 Whole Foods stores in Flor- ida. “With Tasti-Lee, we are try- ing to compete with hothouse to- matoes,” Whitworth said. “Tasti-Lees are born to be sold as a premium tomato,” said Styers. Instead of being picked “mature green” and gassed with ethylene, Tasti-Lees are picked when they are first blushing pink and allowed to ripen natu- rally. In the produce section, they have their own PLU code and bear stickers identifying them by name. They were selling for $3.99 a pound at the Florida Whole Foods stores in March. At a competing supermarket, com- modity tomatoes cost only 99 cents a pound. Like all retail chains, Whole

Foods plays its cards close to its chest. Reached by telephone and then e-mail, the company de- clined to comment on how Tasti- Lee was doing. But by late March, reorders were coming in faster than Whitworth could grow Tasti-Lees, according to Styers. “I think the stars really lined up for Jay when he devel- oped this variety. It truly is re- markable.” Scott, who drawls his carefully chosen words with little inflec- tion and almost no emotion, didn’t go that far. “I stand be- hind it,” he said. “For a full-size tomato, it’s better in my opinion than what’s out there. Hopefully, it goes.”

If it doesn’t, Scott has plenty to

keep him busy. He’s now devel- oping heat-tolerant tomatoes, tomatoes with resistance to a virulent leaf-curl virus, and to- matoes that can be grown on the ground and, theoretically, har- vested by machine. And he hasn’t given up on fla-

vor. “In some work we’ve done, there is this fruity-floral note that adds pique to the sweet- ness,” he said. “We’ve crossed a big, crimson tomato with that trait into one of Tasti-Lee’s par- ents. The result is even better- tasting. The trick now is to im- prove size, firmness and yields with further crossing.”

Estabrook, former contributing editor at Gourmet magazine, lives in Vermont. He can be reached through his Web site, www.

politicsoftheplate.com.

staff has an eclectic look: creative types, less strait-laced than the D.C. standard of Brooks Brothers and button-downs. Take Sheldon Scott, general manager at Mar- vin. Recently featured in the nas- cent Worn Magazine for his giant glasses, Scott — also an actor and a performance artist — wore a black suit with a black skinny tie, a fork-and-knife tie clip and a pink shirt with cuff links on a re- cent day. Other staff members are inked, sporting bleached-blond buzz cuts or bangs, Afros or faux- hawks, studs or skinny jeans, fashion subgenres not seen in of- fices on Capitol Hill. The aesthet- ic “makes people want to be there,” says Brown. Eric’s idea for Marvin was

hatched around the same time the brothers found the real es- tate, but that’s not always how it works. “The concept of a restaurant is fluid until the very end,” Eric says. In fact, the next-door space for the Gibson came up before the brothers knew what they wanted to do there. And initially, it was to be a dive bar. “We were going to sell $4 Natty Boh,” said Ian, until a trip to a city with a speak-easy stopover changed the direction of the idea. “The craft cocktail thing just kind of happened.” Though he appreciates the nod as the idea guy, Eric names a handful of people who help, in- cluding friend and designer Bri- an Miller. “Our process starts with an exploration of atmos-

phere: what else is on the block, who lives in the neighborhood,” he says. “Brian, Ian and a few oth- ers and I talk about how the space supports an idea for a con- cept.”

Although the brothers typically open places in historic, funky old buildings, the one next to Marvin that’s tentatively named Black- bird Warehouse is new, and right now it’s a skeleton. Spaces for Palladian windows gape over the sidewalk. One wall showcases an Obama mural. A slew of kitchen supplies crowds the back en- trance. It was to have been a bakery, but the concept, and a definite name, are still in flux. Red tape, licenses and architectural barri- cades have encouraged the Hil- tons to return to the drawing board to make it happen. At this point, Eric says, it will be a laid- back coffee shop during the day and a performance space at night. “Obviously, because of my music background, I know a lot of great musicians, and I’d like to of- fer a place to perform: Afrobeat, jazz-funk, you name it,” he says. By the end of this year, the Hil- tons will have nine places. That puts them on a par with Michael Babin’s Neighborhood Restau- rant Group, which started in 1997 with Evening Star Cafe, most re- cently opened ChurchKey and Birch and Barley in 2009 and em- ploys more than 350 people. But Eric says he doesn’t want

to get much bigger: “At this point, I’m trying to slow down the proc- ess of opening restaurants and bars. But landlords have offered spaces, and opportunities have presented themselves, so we’re going with it.” In other words, it’s about keep- ing things loose.

food@washpost.com

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010

All we can eat

6washingtonpost.com/allwecaneat

Last week, the Park Hyatt hotel chain announced that it would bring its annual Masters of Food &Wine event to Washington, June 17-20. Chef Brian McBride of Blue Duck Tavern in the Park Hyatt in the West End will welcome chefs, sommeliers and winemakers from around the country for a weekend of food and wine that will “focus on the commitment to local farmers and to supporting sustainable agriculture,” according to a company news release. They will visit the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market and Virginia’s Chapel Hill Farm in Berryville, which raises heirloom veal from the Randall Lineback breed. The news release listed several top wineries from California and Oregon as participants, but no local wineries, which seemed strange for an event touting local agriculture. Blue Duck Tavern, after all, is a

restaurant so committed to local farming that it wants you to know the name of the rancher who slaughtered the lamb you are about to eat. But its commitment to local wine consists of a few selections buried in the list at markups (three times retail) guaranteed to render them window dressing. After we raised the issue in All

You Can Eat on Thursday, the Park Hyatt signed up Boxwood Winery, of Middleburg, to participate in food-and-wine tastings throughout the event. Boxwood, owned by former Redskins president John Kent Cooke, produces two excellent Bordeaux-styled red blends. The initial omission of local wineries is not unique to the Park Hyatt. Alice Waters, the doyenne of the “eat local” movement, has

organized a series of high-profile dinners in the District in the past two years to preach the eat-local gospel. Each time, only California or Italian wines have been served. The locavore movement in

Washington area restaurants ignores important advances in local viticulture that should make us locapours as well. This conundrum was a major topic at the recent DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 Conference at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg. The conference, which I helped organize along with Jeff Siegel, a Dallas-based wine writer who blogs as the Wine Curmudgeon, focused on how local wineries can get their message out without relying on the “winestream media” of the major wine mags, as well as how to persuade locavores to become locapours. The highlight of the conference was the Twitter Taste-Off, in which 30 wineries from Virginia and Maryland poured two wines each for about 100 participants, including wine bloggers and writers from across the country. A secret ballot revealed the crowd favorites to be the Breaux Vineyards 2002 Merlot Reserve for Best Red and Media Favorite; the Chrysalis Vineyards 2008 Albariño for Best White; and the Michael Shaps 2008 Viognier for Peoples’ Choice. Richard Leahy, East Coast editor of Vineyard & Winery Management magazine, said the Breaux merlot’s success demonstrated how well Virginia red wines can age, especially considering the strong competition from so many reds of the excellent 2007 vintage. Local sommeliers, take note. Your customers have.

—Dave McIntyre

TO DO

TODAY

 VEGETABLE GARDENING

TUTORIAL: How to start a home compost pile. Course number 101600. $39 nonmembers. 1:30-3:30 p.m. Brookside Gardens, 1800 Glenallan Ave., Wheaton. Registration required at www. parkpass.org. Call 301-962-1400 or

visit www.brooksidegardens.org.

THURSDAY

 BETHESDA CENTRAL FARM

MARKET: Opens its second season featuring local foods and cooking demonstrations by local chefs. 3-7 p.m. Sunday market available 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at a separate location off Elm Street between Wisconsin and Woodmont avenues. www.

bethesdacentralfarmmarket.com.

SUNDAY

 OLNEY FARMERS AND

ARTISTS MARKET: Opening day

with chef demo and book sale featuring Warren Brown, owner of CakeLove and author of a new cookbook. Free admission; $5 donation buys special discounts. 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Montgomery General Hospital’s Thrift Shop, Prince Phillip Drive and Route 108. www.

olneyfarmersmarket.org.

MONDAY

 AWARDS DINNER: The Jewish Council for the Aging honors Phyllis Richman, a former restaurant critic for The Washington Post, with its 17th annual productive aging award. $300. 6:30 p.m. Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Rd., North Bethesda. Purchase tickets at 301-255-4231 or e-mail mgordon@accessjca.org.

— Jean Hwang

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