Hello! Each month or so, I’ll be featuring excerpts from conversations I’ve had with dining companions in restaurants. Today, I’m including delicious snippets from a back-and-forth with the acclaimed photographer Tony Powell. Read on.
Every food critic I know has a place they frequent on nights when duty or deadline doesn't demand their presence in another restaurant. In most cases, the staff knows who they are and treats them like anyone else paying for drinks and a meal. During my run as a reviewer at The Washington Post, I could visit a mere handful of spots and not think about anything other than chilling out.
One of them was the long-running Buck’s Fishing & Camping, a short drive from where I lived and typically the one that leaped to mind when people asked, as they did daily, “What’s your favorite restaurant?”
After one visit a year or so ago, I went home and typed up some thoughts about it:
So easy to like, Buck’s. Nice, smart people to wait on you. American food that’s familiar and well-executed. A room that lives up to its name, with canoes overhead and a communal table suited for summer camp but in reality used by fans for cool, semi-private dinner parties.
I should admit that this is one of the very few restaurants where I’ve hugged a favorite waiter. I’ve made Buck’s as much of a habit as a food critic can, given a mission of covering the range of the DMV and, well, not playing favorites.
My diet doesn’t vary much. To start, I gravitate to the craggy fried oysters, piled like a pyramid, or a combination of chopped celery, radicchio and Gorgonzola, a lovely salad sweetened with raisin vinaigrette. If I’m not slicing into the golden chicken schnitzel afterward, I’m splitting the juicy burger flanked by hand-cut, twice-fried french fries. The chocolate cake tastes like a cross between Betty Crocker and Fannie Farmer — deliciously old-fashioned.
A neighbor to the beloved Politics and Prose flagship and a vision brought to life by tastemaker James Alefantis, Buck’s is a low-key magnet for the city’s movers and shakers. At its core, though, it’s a democratic club that welcomes anyone who sides with simple sophistication.
I feel the same way about Buck’s now. Because I no longer write weekly reviews, I actually get to drop by more often. I love how the lighting flatters everyone, and I never go that I don’t see someone I know (or want to meet).
While I’m more inclined to roam the menu and check out the seasonal specials, a constant for me is Buck’s celebrated toss of radicchio and celery, sharp with Gorgonzola cheese and excited with a sweet-sour raisin vinaigrette. The combination of flavors and textures is one that always calls to me.
Of course I asked Alefantis for the recipe — and of course I’ve played around with it, sometimes throwing in walnuts or remnants from the produce drawer. The salad, a Buck's classic, opens itself up to interpretation.
8 tips for becoming a welcome presence in a restaurant:
Enter a restaurant as if you know you’re going to have a good time; your positive vibes will rub off on staff.
Get to know the names of the people who take care of you.
Go at non-peak hours/days to support places when they’re less busy.
Identify a favorite server, then plot your visits around their schedule.
If time and money allow, visit often within a short period.
Offer your server a taste of any bottle of wine you might order.
Tip well, at least 20 percent in most cases (but be sure service isn’t already included)
Book a table for a return engagement on the way out.
Follow any or all the above advice and don’t be surprised if the chef brings out a gratis taste of a dish he’s working on; the sommelier pours an extra splash or two into your wine glass; the bar tender extends happy hour prices even when you're five minutes late; or the host saves your favorite perch even when the restaurant is hopping.
The goodwill goes both ways.
Buck’s Celery and Radicchio Salad with Raisin Vinaigrette
6 generous first-course servings
At Buck’s Fishing and Camping in Northwest Washington, D.C., a sweet-sour raisin dressing enlivens the color and crunch of this year-round salad, whose proportions can be adjusted to accommodate a little less or more of a favorite ingredient or even use up a lone carrot in the fridge. Any leftover vinaigrette can be used to grace future salads or roasted vegetables.
MAKE AHEAD: The vinaigrette can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Shake to re-emulsify before using.
For the vinaigrette
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 packed cup golden raisins
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 packed cup finely chopped parsley
Finely grated zest and juice from 1/2 lemon
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the salad
2 1/3 cups thinly sliced celery
3 cups coarsely chopped radicchio (from half a small head)
1/3 cup crumbled Gorgonzola dolce, for garnish
Thin slices of watermelon radish, for garnish (optional)
To make the vinaigrette: Cook the honey in a small saucepan over medium heat until it has thinned and reduced by half, or starts to foam, about 2 minutes.
Add the vinegar and increase the heat to medium-high; once the mixture comes to a boil, stir in the raisins and turn off the heat. Transfer to a liquid measuring cup or glass jar and cool to room temperature.
Add the oil, parsley, lemon zest and juice, stirring or sealing/shaking to form an emulsified dressing. Taste, and season with salt and pepper as needed. The yield is about ¾ cup.
To prepare the salad: Combine the celery and radicchio in a mixing bowl. Just before serving, dress the vegetables with the vinaigrette, a few tablespoons at a time, and toss gently to coat. (I prefer a less “wet” salad and don’t use the full amount.) Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Divide the salad among individual plates (a heaping cup per person) and finish with the crumbled Gorgonzola and optional watermelon radishes.
(Salad photo on top by Deb Lindsey)
At Dinner with … Tony Powell
Self-portrait by Tony Powell
The first of an occasional feature in which I share a meal with someone I admire.
If there’s a starry event in D.C., Tony Powell is probably there, camera in hand. Practically as famous as the celebrities and newsmakers he photographs, he has been called a “21st Century Renaissance Man” by The Washington Post and other publications. True that.
Before the visual artist snapped pictures for a living, the 1995 Julliard School graduate composed music, choreographed dance, and made avant-garde films screened at the Hirshhorn Museum. Powell’s workdays can start with a corporate portrait and end with an embassy event. For the high-octane guy at age 58, “it doesn’t seem like work at all.”
Perhaps that’s because he’s also one of the fittest people in my orbit. He eats a strict, plant-based diet and practices contrast therapy daily, alternating between a steamy sauna and dips in frigid water —no matter where in the world he might be.
Recently, we broke bread (naan, actually) at Rasika West End, one of his favorite restaurants in town, which delighted Powell with an all-vegan feast, or thali. The meal, prepared by executive chefs Vikram Sunderam and Rakesh Anand, involved a conversion of sorts.
“I hate eggplant,” Powell said as he polished up dinner. But the vegetable as prepared at the modern Indian restaurant won him over. Mashed and seasoned with flavor pumps of cumin, turmeric, fresh ginger, and Thai green chiles, he pronounced their baingan bharta as “the best.”
Herewith, some highlights from our conversation:
You attend the top parties in town. Do you have one you could call a favorite?
The Meridian Ball, which starts with dinners at different embassies around town and moves on to the Meridian’s twin historic mansions. It’s a favorite because in a city with wide international sophistication, it’s a perfect confluence of society, politics, and the diplomatic corps.
What’s a piece of advice you would give to amateur photographers, something to improve their game?
Widen the setting when taking pictures, to provide context. You can always crop a picture afterwards. With portraits, you want to make the subjects feel comfortable. If you’re relaxed, they’re relaxed.
You’ve been sober since 2009. What do you say to people who question their drinking habits?
If you have to set parameters around what, when, and how much you drink, thinking you can control it, you probably have an issue with alcohol.
You’ve met oodles of celebrities over the years. Is there one person you thought you might not like but proved you wrong?
Bigger-than-life Elizabeth Taylor, who I met in 1986 at an event celebrating Martin Luther King at the Kennedy Center when I was still a teenager. Somehow, I managed to get on stage at the Opera House and we talked for about five minutes. The most-photographed woman in the world at the time was so kind, so gracious. She told me that when she acted there previously, her contract stipulated a dressing room be built on the side so she didn’t have to walk so far to the stage.
A selfie for the memory books: Pope Francis and Tony Powell in 2015
Do you have a mantra?
Amor fati. It’s a Latin phrase translating to ‘love of fate’ or ‘love of one's fate,’ describing a mindset that embraces everything in life —including suffering and loss— as necessary, good, or fuel for potential.
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