Tom Sietsema Dining
★ ★ (Good/Excellent)
Michel In the Ritz-Carl- ton, 1700 Tysons Blvd., McLean. 703-744-3999. michelrichard
va.com
OPEN: Breakfast 6:30 to 10:30 a.m. weekdays, 7 to 11 a.m. weekends; lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays; dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; brunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Parking lots and valet.
Michel Richard E
bets on Tysons Corner Diners come up a little short
ven some of his friends suggested that Tysons Corner was a poor location for Michel Richard’s chic third area restaurant. No one will want to fi ght the suburb’s notorious traffi c, they told the acclaimed
French chef. Fellow boldface culinary names — Bob Kinkead, Jonathan Krinn — had already tried and failed in Tysons Corner, the skeptics reminded him. And didn’t the intended site, the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, home to the great, late Maestro, run counter to the way so many diners prefer to eat these days? I was a doubting Thomas myself. But that was before I drove
from downtown Washington to McLean on a rainy Wednesday in November in just 32 minutes and before I tasted the escargot tart at Michel, which, after several years of speculation, fi nally made its debut in late October. Chef de cuisine Levi Mezick, 34, whose talent was lost on the Jockey Club in the Fairfax Hotel, serves as the able executor of Richard’s latest project. About that aforementioned tart: Like so much of what Richard
creates at his other restaurants, the refi ned Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown and the bistro-style Michel Richard Central downtown, the fi rst course is described on the menu in just a few words, almost as if Richard hopes to keep secret its construction until it arrives. Those snails are served in thin slices rather than whole
morsels, and they line a delicate pizza crust spread with a vibrant pesto and decorated with fl ossy greens. The dish is a luscious step toward delivering “a good American restaurant with a small French accent,” as Richard put it earlier this year. That tart is one of multiple
dishes that can make a diner’s heart race with excitement (spoiler alert: Desserts are divine), but it keeps company with a few plates suggestive of a less signifi cant restaurant. One of the detractors is a school of shrimp whose spiky coats of shredded phyllo explain their “porcupine” billing. The seafood is fi ne, and the sound effects (a Richard hallmark; he loves to insert snaps and crackles in his food) are fun. But why does the show sit on mute white fl ageolets? Similarly, an entree of rockfi sh is bonded to a sliver of brioche, a clever technique marred by muddy- tasting fi sh and a crust that (Continued on Page 32)
PRICES: Lunch appetizers $8 to $16, entrees $15 to $27; dinner appetizers $12 to $32, entrees $26 to $40.
SOUND CHECK: 89 decibels/ Extremely loud.
SURPRISE! The sweet crunch in some of Richard’s desserts comes from Cocoa Puffs roasted in brown sugar and butter. “I take the cereal from my children!” the chef jokes.
Tom Sietsema chats live at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays at washingtonpost. com/
tomsietsema. DECEMBER 19, 2010 | THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE 31
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SCOTT SUCHMAN
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