After several intense years working in numerous high-profile kitchens, young and energetic executive chef Greg McCarty now directs the food scene at the recently opened nopa Kitchen + Bar in Penn Quarter. Although this restaurant is new, it joins its sister eateries in the Knightsbridge Corporation’s D.C. restaurant group, which includes 701 Restaurant, Rasika and the Oval Room. So this Newfoundland native will receive much scrutiny of his work. And likely many accolades as well.

But McCarty surely knows the culinary terrain, and it all began when as a youngster of 4, he planted his own vegetable garden. “Luckily it was good soil,” he said of his first crop, red radishes. He also merited the good fortune to grow up in a family where both sets of parents and grandparents cooked all the time. His grandmother in Arkansas, where he spent summers, even baked fresh biscuits every morning. “She also made awesome fried chicken and million dollar pie,” he said. In winters in Newfoundland, he enjoyed his mother’s codfish, lasagna and meat pies.