Chef Robert Wiedmaier’s Marcel’s Tops 2011 Zagat Survey
Top Food in Washington, DC
The people have spoken (all 6,484 of them), and of the 1,219 eateries in the area, they have named Marcel’s in its eleventh year, by chef Robert Wiedmaier, the top restaurant for food in Zagat’s 2011 Washington DC/Baltimore Restaurant Survey which includes Northern Virginia, Annapolis and Frederick, Md., and the Eastern Shore. Marcel’s was also included in the top five restaurants for top service.
Marcel’s, where the labor-intensive classic cuisine demands a very high chef-to-dinner guest ratio, reflects Wiedmaier’s European heritage – in particular his links to Belgium. Born in Germany to a Belgian father and Californian mother [“a great cook – she could make anything from anything!”] he grew up close to the land, milking cows, helping with the slaughter of sheep, and everything else that was required on a real working farm. He has been involved with food—from the source—his whole life.
Billed as a Full-Circle Chef – from stalking a deer in a duck blind to waiting for a fish to bite— Wiedmaier gains a whole new appreciation by completing the cycle and preparing for dinner the very animal he came face to face with in nature. “It is about living the dream of a sportsman, but doing so in a respectful manner as a chef, says Wiedmaier, with a grin!”