DC Magazine: Food Drink Dish

As you’ve been supping on Todd Gray’s Virginia Piedmont cuisine at Equinox, his 13-year-old dining destination near the White House, he’s been quietly burning the midnight oil. Or, maybe not so quietly, if yourecall the fire engines that descended upon Equinox after a midnight conflagration in 2009. What would have been a dream-wrecker for some seems to have fired up Gray.

Seemingly in a flash last year, the 2011 RAMMY Chef of the Year launchedWatershed, his regional-seasonal restaurant in the NoMa neighborhood; débuted Muse, his market-café at the Corcoran Gallery of Art;and advanced an edible agenda as culinary director of Sheila Johnson’s Salamander Hospitality Group, with properties in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and two new restaurants at the resort in the DominicanRepublic.Gray’s land grab may not be too surprising —for a decade he’s been toiling away with menus for Middleburg’s Market Salamander and the recession-delayed Salamander Resort (its opening has been pushed to 2013). But the angling chef, who is approaching 50, has been casting hisline for expansion opportunities. “I kept asking,‘How can I do this carefully? Would I take a deal in Vegas?’” Gray remarks. “I don’t think I’d even be offered one. So what can I do to reach more people?”

Indeed, his wheels have been turning—figuratively and literally. In addition to running the off-site catering outgrowth of Equinox, the chefand his wife, Ellen Kassoff Gray, have put their name on a few new catering vans, as well. Having recently acquired what is now the HamillGray Catering company, the Grays scooped up one of the most famous names in DC of which you’ve never heard. The grande dame, Becky Hamill, cooked up her Catering company while serving time in the Nixon administration. She’s quietly been the go-to person for the red-state set ever since. With Gray’s ties to the Obama administration and Hamill’s to the Republican presidential candidates, there won’t be too many fundraisers this election season without them.

With all this on his plate, one might expect Gray to kick back with a lager after a long day, but chef decided to hit the laptop with his wife, instead, to draft the forthcoming farm-to-Jewish-table tome they jokingly call You Say Potato... I Say Latke. The book, due out this fallfrom St. Martin’s Press, is a recipe-packed celebration of the merger of his goyish Virginia roots with her Jewish traditions. “Ellen is my spiritual director, and she inspires me in everything I do,” says Gray.

Roots—and not just salsify roots—are essential to the chef, who rose under Roberto Donna from humble saucier to the first American-born executive chef of Galileo. A legion of Gray acolytes are now successfully running kitchens across the city, from chef Phillip Blane at the just-opened Unum to chef Daniel O’Brien’s Seasonal Pantry, an inventive food market and supper club. “The hardest part is developing your own style,” says Gray. “People pushed me when I was coming up, and now it’s my chance to be a teacher. The question I asked myself is, ‘Do you want to spend your whole life at your range cooking, or do you want to spend at least some of your time sharing knowledge and inspiring cooks?’” Gray chose to do all of the above, and, now, a day at the rangelooks restful by comparison.