Steve Chu’s Dear D.C.-Chesapeake
Rising Stars alum Chef Steve Chu of Ekiben speaks to the beauty of a region in flux.
illustration: bashel lubarsky
I’m honored to write a letter to the D.C.–Chesapeake region… and more than a little overwhelmed. Unlike other chefs who have been asked to reflect in these pages about the cities where they live and cook, I’ve been tasked with speaking to a whole chunk of the Eastern Seaboard—a geography that includes major metro centers, vast rural swaths (including a national park), a million types of cuisine, and, oh yeah, our nation’s capital.
Rather than say something super generic in an effort to tie this huge region together, I should probably start out by stating the very obvious: there’s a lot about this stretch of the Atlantic that makes us different, both from each other and the rest of the country. Here, fortunes rise and they fall, and our proximity to Washington—where they live and die in two- and four-year cycles—makes us feel that impermanence is just the permanent state of things.
But we’re not mad. Not even a little bit. Sure, we’ve all got that Chesapeake Chip on our collective shoulder. You know the one: we’re not NYC, or Chicago, or Seattle, or San Francisco. We’re not at the tip of anybody’s tongue when they start naming top-tier culinary destinations. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Because what that anonymity gives us—and what the perpetual flux proves to us—is that everything is possible all the time here.
From Charlottesville to D.C., from Rockville to Richmond, if you have a vision, a point of view, something to say, something to give, there is opportunity here for you. The barrier of entry is low. The cost of admission is whatever you’re willing to bet on yourself. Take a quick look at the breakthrough talents StarChefs has singled out for inclusion in this issue. To name just a few, we have a Japanese NFL cheerleading captain turned chef; a half Puerto Rican, half Black chef who grew up immersed in Korean culture and who now makes some of the best Korean food in the nation; and a vegan environmentalist turned world-class brewer. What I see in their stories is what I love about this place—there’s no path you were already supposed to have been on, no penalty for starting late, no shame in leaving behind something old to give your heart to something new.
Six years ago, the restaurant I co-founded, Ekiben, made its first dollar with a used hotdog cart at an open access Baltimore farmers market. Today, in that same city, we’re a few short weeks away from opening our third brick-and-mortar location. I don’t know where else in this country our story would’ve been possible. Where there was so little distance between the voice in my head and a future that was there for the taking. And for that, I’m so grateful. And to be from here makes me so proud. I don’t know what’s next—for our industry, for us as a region, or for the new stars you’ll read about inside—but I’m glad to be waiting and watching from here.
