Vidalia's Smith starts out on his own

In Peter Smith’s family, passion for food was passed down through the males. “Everyone was into food, but my father was a really good cook. So was my grandfather. He was Italian. I’d sit and watch him.” Growing up, Smith had a little step stool. “And I’d watch and taste, see the raw product go from raw to cooked. It was the coolest thing in the world!”

The executive chef and owner of PS 7’s was born an Army brat in El Paso. Until his father retired and he arrived in the Washington area as an elementary school kid, the family moved from place to place. So he was exposed to the dishes of Germany, Hawaii, Texas and Kansas.

Smith’s launch on the path toward chef-dom and restaurant ownership began, unplanned, when he was 14. His mother, a photographer, was hired to take pictures of a wedding at the Fairfax Country Club. “She talked to the chef and said, ‘My son’s into this.’ She told me, ‘Go and check it out.’ So I went along on a Sunday and found he took in apprentices.”It was the start of his first three years in a professional kitchen. 

Seduced by the action and artistry, he quickly decided cooking would become his career. When he left high school, he enrolled in the Hospitality Services Management course at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. He loved the pace, the chaos and the creativity. But he ran out of money to pay for the course. That didn’t stop him: He went back into restaurants and learned the business there. 

For eight years he worked under Bill Jackson at the Carlyle Grand Cafe in Arlington. At the same time he enrolled in L’Academie de Cuisine’s professional program in Gaithersburg. After graduating he did an externship in the kitchen of D.C.’s Occidental
Restaurant, where chef Jeffrey Buben was working culinary miracles. In 1993, Buben left to open Vidalia and, impressed by the young enthusiast, took Smith with him. Five years later, Smith became executive chef. 

“In 11 years at Vidalia I took one year out,” says Smith. “I went to San Francisco, cooked around out there. I wanted to see something else, find out what everyone else was doing.” 

On a monthlong holiday in 2001, he traveled through Tibet drinking yak butter tea, then spent a week in Nepal cooking for tourists at the Mount Everest base camp. He has also spent time in Peru, “checking that out.” He finds the South American influence on food interesting and talks of the cuy he ate. “Guinea pig,” he explains. “They have a pen and you pick your own pig.” 

In October 2005 he left Vidalia for good. “I was trying to find a place to do my own food,” which he describes as French-based. He says of a French-based culinary training and experience like his own, “If you learn the classics, the technique, you can pretty much make anything.” The time his family spent living in Hawaii has also influenced his cooking. Those big, bold, bright flavors — it’s so healthy.” 

Defining American food is difficult, he says, because it’s so varied. “With contemporary modern American, you have a broad palette to work on. Fusion is interesting; it has a place. But everything being fusion is a little much.” 

When he opened PS7s (his initials, with a reference to his building’s address, 777 I St. NW), he structured the menu so diners could order dishes across different categories in different sizes. This way, they can in effect create their own tasting menus, if they wish, from a series of small portions. 

“Appetizers sound so great. They’re perfect — so small, then you move on. You can experience different tastes; you’re not committed to the $30 entrée.” 

Smith is in the process of reworking his menu presentation. But he hasn’t abandoned the original concept. “I’m not sold on the idea that I’m not going to do this.” He will still sell wines by the half glass so people can sample several different bottles. 

He’s committed to supporting area farmers as much as possible, but he says it isn’t always easy. “You’ve got to use as many local people as you can. They have great stuff. But they don’t deliver. So if something is wrong with the produce, how do you get it back?” 

Just a year old, PS7s is still so new that Smith is usually found there from 8 in the morning until 12:45 at night. “If you are going to put your money on something, you’ve got to be there. If people come in to experience what you have, you need to be there.” 

It leaves him little time to see his two very small children. His wife, a lawyer, is currently on maternity leave. “She stays awake till I get home, so I go upstairs and say hello and she passes out 10 seconds later.” 

For three weeks after their second baby was born, Smith worked at the restaurant on two hours’ sleep a night. Now the worst is over and he unwinds for half an hour before bed in front of the TV. “Tivo is a great thing,” he says. 

He’s ambivalent about the influence of television on food. “Everybody watches the Food Network. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s educating people about food, but it’s kind of detrimental. It makes it very, very attractive to ... get into the business. But the reality is it’s a long, hard road. I’ve been 23 years in the business. Some days it’s a lot of fun, it’s great. But there are days when it’s beastly, nasty and hot. You don’t feel good, but you’ve got to keep working.” 

He won’t cook at home. He used to, but once the restaurant was up and running he told his wife, “You’re on your own, kiddo.” He grins ruefully. “She hates it.” 

The next place he opens will be when it’s time to retire, he says. But at 36, “that’s not any time soon. Right now I don’t have the opportunity to pick up and leave. The place is too new, it’s not yet the way I want it to be.” 

Still, what’s the retirement fantasy? “I’ll open a hot dog stand on the beach” — with homemade hot dogs. 

He’ll have had plenty of practice: He already makes his own hot dogs right now, along with the rest of the restaurant’s charcuterie. “It started as a complete gag. We made a batch to put on the bar menu. Now we can’t keep them in the house!” What about the trimmings? Does he fashion those too? “It’s such a long process to make [the hot dogs]. There are few things in this world I don’t make. Ketchup is one of them — Heinz has figured it out.”

PS7s (202-742-8550; http://www.ps7restaurant.com) is located at 777 I St NW. Main courses cost
$23 to $28.

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

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