Where the chefs are 

Ask Washington chefs to list where they like to eat out, and some will include award-winning restaurants like Citronelle, Palena, CityZen. But all of them, even those who pick the cheap and cheerful Vietnamese cafes Phô 75 in Hyattsville and Falls Church, will choose Marcel’s.

Robert Wiedmaier, its owner chef, looks stunned at the news. In a town filled with high-end competition, Wiedmaier recognizes the respect that lies behind his fellow chefs’ citation. He runs his hand quickly over his head, slightly bashful — a move that might surprise his staff. He’s known to be tough. But still, his workers are devoted.

They’re not alone in their esteem. The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington has nominated Wiedmaier for an award almost every year since he opened (he was nominated again last month for Chef of the Year). Marcel’s was named Fine Dining Restaurant of the Year by the association in 2004, and it has be in inducted into the Distinguished Restaurants of North America, the group behind the only anonymous inspection ratings in the United States.

It’s not such a stretch for some of Wiedmaier’s peers to pick both the Formica-table-topped Phô 75 and the fine-linened Marcel’s.

Phô is a spicy Vietnamese noodle soup containing shaved raw meats that cook in the boiling broth as it comes to the table. While a phô menu offers straightforward slices of brisket or flank, more to these chefs’ tastes are the soft tendon and tripe options. And Marcel’s is a rare restaurant in the capital where orders for not-so-beguiling animal parts like brains and unusual fish like skate fly out of the kitchen.

Wiedmaier’s cooking celebrates the best of French and Belgian cuisine, from mussels and lobster bisque en croute to duck breast with duck confit and Dover sole. Included on the menu is game like pheasant and grouse, which he sources from Scotland, where it is caught in the wild and hung long enough for its flavors to mature. (Commercial American game is farmraised.) He considers his venison from New Zealand top of the line.

“Most people can’t sell these things,” Wiedmaier acknowledges. “But over the years, people come to Marcel’s if they want to have sweetbreads or eel.”

This kind of food is hard-wired into him. His father is Belgian and worked for an American company in Antwerp while Wiedmaier was growing up. He learned to cook from his Californian mother, and then went to the Culinary School of Horca in the Netherlands. He apprenticed at a two-star Michelin restaurant in Holland before moving to Brussels and the celebrated kitchen of Eddie Van Maele.

In the mid-1980s, Wiedmaier came to the United States. His brother was attending the University of Maryland and his father, who did a good deal of business in Washington, thought it might round out his other son to go there, too. “But I didn’t care for school that much,” says Wiedmaier. So he got a job instead, as chef saucier at Le Chardon d’Or in Alexandria.

Since then, he has worked at Jean Louis Palladin’s Le Pavillion, spent eight years at the Four Seasons, and opened Cafe on M at the Grand Hotel (now Westin). He left there only to become executive chef at the Watergate Hotel when Palladin headed to Las Vegas. There he launched Aquarelle. Nine years ago, when Provence, on the site of Marcel’s, went bankrupt, Wiedmaier moved in, renaming his own first restaurant after his oldest son.

“I’ve always done the same type of cooking, always very classic, cutting-edge with Flemish influence,” he says. He says his clientele is a special group: “well-traveled, well-heeled; they know what they are eating. There’s only a small minority of diners that eat this kind of food.”

Asked if D.C. might follow the lead of jurisdictions that have banned foie gras, the rich, silken liver that comes from force-fed geese and ducks and one of his menu’s luxury dishes, he snorts. “That will never happen!” Then he amends it and adds, “You never know. I am totally against any inhumane way of slaughtering things. But foie gras has been part of my repertoire so long. People don’t realize what they do to veal! They never see sunlight; their feet never touch the ground. Start with one thing and what’s going to be next?”

Personally, he could eat cheese all day. “A good baguette, cheese, a good double espresso, I am set.”

Marcel’s doesn’t do lunch. That Wiedmaier can still make the restaurant pay is a sign of his success. “The problem with lunch in a restaurant like this is it already had a perception of being very expensive. It wasn’t true, but people don’t have time for a long lunch. It’s salads and ice tea. There’s no money in that. You still have to have the French linens, the crystal stemware, the Christophe silverware — for ice tea. And there’s no places round here to park, no offices round here.”

He calls closing for lunch six-and-a-half years ago “the smartest decision I ever made. Before that, I was working 100 hours a week since I was 18 years old.” Now he has more time to spend with his wife and kids at home in Kensington, Md.

He’s about to open a second spot, Brasserie Beck, named after his younger son, where both lunch and dinner will be served. “Mussels from Nova Scotia, and blanquette de veau — Belgian bistro food,” he says about his forthcoming restaurant on K Street. “And there’ll be 50 different Belgian beers! We’re going to be the first restaurant with a beer sommelier as well as a wine sommelier. It’s a gentleman who’s been selling Belgian beer for a living. He’s so passionate!”

But Wiedmaier is going to make sure he still finds time to ride his motorbike and take his boat out on the bay, to fish and smoke cigars. “It’s very important to have a good balance in life,” he says.

Marcel’s (202-296-1166; http://www.marcelsdc.com) is located at 2401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Main courses cost $29 to $42.

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

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