Tag Archives: dan giusti

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Dan Giusti Makes it to Final Round on Chopped

Photo courtesy of christaki
cheesie
courtesy of christaki

Last night a tweet from Sam Grieder, caught my eye: Dan Giusti, formerly of 1789, was on Food Network’s Chopped. And since it was completely unexpected and I hadn’t heard any buzz about it earlier (no tweets from the chef himself indicating the episode was coming up or anything of the like), I had to turn on the TV and let out a Flava Flav-esque “Yeahhh booyyy” shout.

Back in August, Giusti left DC to head to Denmark to work at the “best restaurant in the world,” Noma. On last night’s episode, Giusti beat out two other chefs but ultimately lost after the final dessert round in which the ingredients basket featured masa harina, chocolate covered peanuts, frozen cranberries and white balsamic vinegar. Yeah, scratch your heads on what to make with that, too. Giusti opted for ice cream while his competitor, Adrienne Grenier, went with a masa harina shortcake. Grenier is the sous chef of 1500 Degrees in Miami.

Giusti joins a growing cast of DC chefs who have been on Food Network’s Chopped, including Andrew Markert, Allison Sosna and Will Artley (whose episode has yet to be aired).

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Chef News: Dan Giusti of 1789 Heads to Denmark

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‘Barely mixing the dough’
courtesy of ‘CathyLovesDC’

As Tim Carman and The Washington Post reported yesterday, executive chef Dan Giusti of 1789 is packing his bags for Denmark. The 27-year-old chef is heading to work at Noma, a two Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen. The restaurant has been listed as “the best” restaurant in the world for two years in a row by Restaurant Magazine.

According to The Post, Dan spent two weeks staging at Noma in July when he was told that there might be an opening there for him to come join their team. One thing led to another and now the chef is moving to Denmark. Dan will be staying at 1789 through August 28th.

Dan was the first chef I met in DC when I started writing about food and was still green on the restaurant scene. I always liked chatting with him at events when he would indulge any of my snarky comments about food and I liked to see a fellow New Jerseyan be successful in DC. No doubt Dan’s passion for food is what’s taking him to Noma, though DC will miss him. Best of luck, chef!

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Dan Giusti of 1789 (Part II)

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‘This just makes me want to eat more gnocchi, immediately, from this spoon’
courtesy of ‘CathyLovesDC’

As you read earlier, Katie and I spent yet another Saturday morning slaving away in the kitchen for you, dear reader. Not that we mind.

While we waited for potatoes to bake (no really), we made ourselves quite comfortable in the 1789 kitchen. We sort of started to feel like a part of the family.  The best part was snacking on the homemade sugar cookie bits, chocolate hazelnut-dipped waffle cone triangles, and sugared, Italian pistachios. We watched a tray full of huge crabs slide into the steamer and a salmon salad artfully prepared for a group event. La de da. How are those potatoes coming along? Not quite completely, perfectly tender? Ok, no worries. There are some pepitos in a Tupperware over here that I might sample.

My dinner party on Saturday night was sort of similar. If those gosh darn potatoes hadn’t taken 2 hours to bake, well, we might have had dinner before 10:00 p.m.

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