| DCDE Hospitality Group |
| The Mad Hatter, Front Page Restaurants, The Starboard and Bethany Blues Restaurants |
| Hours : 11 a.m. to midnight, daily |
If you were to bump into Bobby Varua, corporate executive chef of DCDE Hospitality Group on a Washington sidewalk, you would find a cheerful, mild-mannered guy who is as easygoing as, say, Chicago’s Rick Bayless or as the Food Network’s Bobby Flay. That’s Varua today. But he tells of another Varua, the hard-core workaholic from some of New York’s pricier, hard-driving, superstar kitchens: China Grill, Nougatine, Aureole, Restaurant Daniel and Brasserio, to name a few. And his colleagues? Charlie Palmer, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud and David Burke, all mega stars in the kitchen.
“I was as hard-working and driven as they all were,” Varua said of his Manhattan days. “Ten years ago, it was all about making great food as the motivator. Now I realize I must manage and lead people well. You can get your food on the plate … I can cook a great dish, but I can’t do it all.”
