While restaurateur Michel Richard has never watched “Jersey Shore,” he certainly realizes that the Garden State’s coastline has become a popular tourist destination. The D.C.-based French chef is opening three new restaurants in Atlantic City come spring, as part of the all-new private resort Revel. There will be a breakfast place — aptly called The Breakfast Room — a bar named O Bistro and Wine Bar, and then a third location for his D.C. classic, Central.
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What enticed Richard to enter the Jersey market was the location, close to his home base in Bethesda and nearby other big cities like Philadelphia and New York. “I can go in the morning and go back in the afternoon, I can go and sleep in my own home,” he said. “And the view of the ocean is nice.” So nice, in fact, that Richard is threatening to take full advantage. “I’m going to have under my apron my bathing suit, every two hours I’m going to jump into the ocean, if you see a whale swimming around … it’s not going to be a real whale, it’s going to be Michel Richard swimming and having a good time in the ocean,” he laughed. “That will be an attraction.”
Closer to home, Richard recently closed his Tyson’s Corner eatery Michel, again, because of location. “It was tough for me too, if you have a good restaurant, but the access was impossible,” he explained. Though he’s looking forward to a new neighbor with Donald Trump‘s plans to renovate the Old Post Office Building, which sits across Pennsylvania Avenue from Central. “It will be good, it’s going to give us a New York accent,” Richard said with his French one. “Do you think he’s going to change his hairdo?” he mused.
The trio of Atlantic City restaurants are set to open April 2.
