Peter Brett - Pastry chef of Circle Bistro

A graphic designer finds art in food 

When Peter Brett, a graduate of Boston University's graphic design program, discovered his passion for baking might actually earn him a salary, he went back to school and learned to become a profession pastry chef.

“I was OK at graphic design but not great,” he says. A natural artist, he wasn’t getting from design the full sense of satisfaction that he now finds in the sensuous world of pastries and desserts.

“I had always loved to cook, particularly to bake. But I didn’t have a clue someone would pay me to do something I loved!” Brett still sounds astonished by the discovery.

These days, the seductive art of this pastry chef can be indulged in at the French restaurant Circle Bistro and the Italian trattoria Notti Bianchi, or examined in publications from the Washington Post Magazine to Food Arts Magazine. Photographs of wedding and celebration cakes on his Web site, PeterBakes.com, confirm his artistry, imagination and attention to elaborate detail. He bakes them in a space he rents in Alexandria, “though I really have to limit myself because I have a full-time job. A wedding cake can be a work of art.”

He describes his mother and both of his grandmothers as great cooks. Growing up in a little fishing town in Rhode Island, he loved helping them in the kitchen. One grandmother married a first-generation Italian immigrant and learned to cook her husband’s native cuisine. “She was a big influence,” he says.

Brett moved down to the Washington area in the late 1980s to enroll in L’Academie de Cuisine’s professional pastry arts course, and he became a student during White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier’s last year of teaching. “I was so lucky!” Brett says. He describes Mesnier as his mentor and says they keep in touch.

While going to school, Brett worked as a pastry cook at the Tabard Inn. “It was great training. Their fruit and vegetables were grown at a farm out in Virginia. I remember the truck would pull up and unload with whatever fresh produce there was. And I’d think, OK, what am I going to do with fresh peaches, or apricots, or plums and pears?”

He left to work at the Capitol Hilton, first as assistant then as head pastry chef. “It’s a 550-room hotel. You’d get 1,500 people for a banquet. When you are young and training, one of the great things is to go through a small restaurant [such as the Tabard Inn], then a big hotel. There are so many different approaches to the work people can take. You can find what you like and what is a good fit.”

Brett fit happily for four years. “But I really wanted to get back into something smaller.” So until this year(2007), for the next 15 he made the desserts and pastries for the Park Hyatt on M and 24th streets. In 2003, the Hotel Association of Washington named him Manager of the Year; the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington nominated him for Pastry Chef of the Year in 2004.

“It was a really nice experience,” he says. “I loved the scale of it; the biggest wedding was 250 people.”

In the kitchens of Circle Bistro, where he does all his cooking, he has scaled down even further. He is a staff of one — himself. Each day he makes nine different desserts — five choices for Circle Bistro, the restaurant of the hotel on Washington Circle, and four for Notti Bianchi, a sister restaurant in Foggy Bottom.

“One of the things I most enjoy about my current position is the direct connection with the food I am making. The level of detail that is possible in a small neighborhood restaurant is very satisfying. It is fantastic that people can still find places where the food is not made in huge quantities by a machine. I make my pastry dough in batches small enough to produce and roll out by hand.”

Some of the hardest work to pull off, Brett says, is the most basic, like making a good pastry crust. To taste what other pastry chefs are up to he would go to Paris, “and just walk down any street.”

Here in Washington he respects the work of several of his colleagues: “Heather Chittum at Hook; I really admire Noree Hatheway at the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City, Valerie Hill at Johnny’s Half Shell, and Brooks Headley at Komi. They are all working in different environments but producing great desserts that are really inspiring.”

So what is his favorite dessert? “Oh gosh. I’m a person who could sit down and eat a whole bowl of ice cream! I’m pretty partial to pistachio.”

Brett and his partner live in Chinatown. “We wanted to be in the thick of it. We got rid of our cars. I do the whole Zipcar thing,” he says. “I love to be able to walk everywhere.” From his restaurant kitchen he can stroll to Trader Joe’s, which, along with the
Cowgirl Creamery shop near his apartment, is one of his favorite food sources. “Their ciabatta is pretty great.” High praise from a pastry chef.

Circle Bistro (202-872-1680; http://www.thecirclehotel.com/circle_bistro.htm) is located in One Washington Circle Hotel, 1 Washington Circle NW. Entrees cost $19 to $37, and desserts cost $8.
Notti Bianchi (202-298-8085; http://www.gwuinn.com/NottiBianche) is located at 824 New Hampshire Ave. NW. Entrees cost $23 to $26, and desserts cost $7 and $8.

This profile by Current Correspondent Julia Watson first appeared in the NorthWest Current. Photo Bill Petros/The Current