Want to know what to order from the new Café Frank, acclaimed chef Jose de Brito’s newest proving ground? Don’t ask acclaimed chef Jose de Brito.
“I am never happy with my dishes, and I usually do not taste my finished plates,” de Brito says. “I am way too scared to find out how bad I am. But it is not exactly my first rodeo, so I know pretty much what works or does not.”
The modesty is almost comical coming from de Brito, arguably C’ville’s most acclaimed chef. He began his career opening cult favorite Ciboulette in 2006, did stints at Trinity and Fleurie, and landed at The Alley Light, where he and restaurateur Wilson Richey drew accolades from the James Beard Foundation (Alley Light was one of 25 semifinalists for the coveted Outstanding Restaurant title; de Brito was a semifinalist for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic), Washington Post, and Washingtonian. After what would have been a pinnacle for many chefs, de Brito went to work cooking with Patrick O’Connell at the three-Michelin star Inn at Little Washington.
A second collaboration with Richey, Café Frank will give de Brito the chance to experiment with a seasonal menu of appetizers like meat pies, long-simmering soups, classic French salads, and entrées such as steak Diane and wagyu beef pot roast. According to de Brito, it’s all about flavor, not pretension.
“I do not have the team, time, space, and ability to make elaborate gardens on plates and play with tweezers, so my only saving grace is flavor,” he says. “I build and layer flavors like a maniac.”
Take Café Frank’s sauces. Each one starts with a base 20 years in the making—he freezes the bases and moves them from restaurant to restaurant as his career progresses. De Brito likens the strategy to the “solera” winemaking technique or the method for creating real balsamic vinegar.
“What is good about Café Frank is that I stay in my kitchen,” de Brito says. “I like dogs a lot, but I can really do without most people, so I rarely go into the dining room. I stay where I belong, talking to my shallots, listening to my sauces, getting aroused by my chicken stock, smelling my herbs. I like a perfectly silent kitchen so I can hear my ingredients.”
The food at Café Frank is classic and casual, “with a lot of TLC,” de Brito says. The new restaurant is truly an outlet for him to “get back into [his] madness.”
“Opening Café Frank was a way to fuel my obsession with making dishes. Hopefully in between I can give a few good nights out to some people. I am busy—extremely busy. I hope my wife will forgive me one day.”