A prime dining space located on the 50 yard line of D.C.’s glitzy Southwest Waterfront development that has struggled to keep a marquee restaurant has snagged a new chef to lead its latest attempt at success.
InterContinental Washington, D.C. just tapped tenured chef Jeffrey Williams to lead a new flagship restaurant at the foot of the fancy hotel. The team tells Eater the goal is to open by the end of the year, and the 152-seat, gold-toned space won’t undergo any major renovations (801 Wharf Street SW).
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Chef Jeffrey Williams will lead the Wharf Intercontinental’s new to-be-named restaurant.InterContinental Washington, D.C.
Details on the to-be-named restaurant are slim for now. The cuisine plans to swing “modern American,” per a release, with a hyper-seasonal menu centered around homemade pastas and mid-Atlantic ingredients sourced from local farms and waterways.
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The Philadelphia native returns to D.C. with 15 years of culinary experience, starting at InterContinental’s sibling D.C. hotel the Willard . He went west to work in Los Angeles kitchens like Lillie’s Beverly Hills, Jane Q, STK, and Tin Roof Bistro.
The D.C. hotel’s newly announced project marks a fresh chapter for a storied space that famously lost two top-rated restaurants in just six years, in part, due to a (now-settled) dispute over how the hotel allegedly underpaid its hospitality workers.
The posh, 278-room hotel opened in 2017 with culinary star Kwame Onwuachi’s Afro-Caribbean hit Kith/Kin, earning him the the 2019 James Beard award for Rising Star Chef of the Year. He suddenly resigned in 2020, in hopes of seeking an ownership stake in his next venture. (Onwuachi just made a big Southwest Waterfront comeback at Salamander hotel’s Dōgon.)
Chef Kevin Tien’s Vietnamese fine-dining destination Moon Rabbit moved in that fall, quickly earning Tien a James Beard semifinalist nod as Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic and Food & Wine readers naming it one of the 10 best restaurants in the country. Tien announced plans to part ways with IHG in early 2023, and the restaurant abruptly closed that May.
After allegations that hotel management misled Moon Rabbit staff about proper compensation practices, D.C. recently ordered IHG to pay Moon Rabbit employees $126,650. (Tien’s critically acclaimed, now-independently run Moon Rabbit reopened in Penn Quarter this year, and was not involved in the case.) The Wharf’s hotel staffers ultimately won the right to unionize, and the year-old placeholder replacement to Moon Rabbit is generic surf-and-turf spot Dockside Restaurant and Bar.
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The space’s latest life as a seasonal American restaurant hopes to stick under its newly named executive chef (third time’s a charm?). Williams comes to town from his most recent executive chef role at Omni’s NOÉ Restaurant & Bar in Los Angeles.
“While I loved the year-round sunshine in California, coming home to D.C.’s four distinct seasons allows for ever-changing menus and dishes that give a true sense of place,” says Williams.
The Food Network winner says he got the bug to cook from his grandfather, who opened a fish market in Philadelphia and ran a community gardening program. His cross-country background also includes stints at Social Club in Miami and Nios in NYC.
The hotel is owned by the developers of the $3.6-billion Wharf project (Hoffman & Associates, Madison Marquette) and Carr Companies.
Associated Students of GCU President Judah Floyd (left) and Vice President Gracie Zimbardi (right) participated in a workshop with Arizona Congressman Eli Crane at the Campus Victory Forum conference in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., has been a popular spot this summer, especially since it’s the nation’s 250th anniversary. And it’s where many Grand Canyon University students have traveled, including the campus’s student body leaders.
Associated Students of GCU President Judah Floyd and Vice President Gracie Zimbardi traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Campus Victory Forum conference and celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary of signing the Declaration of Independence.
“It was a humbling opportunity to be able to represent GCU and be poured into by so many admirable Christian leaders,” Floyd said. “It reminds me of the leader I want to be as a Christ follower and as someone who’s been put in a position to have influence on the students of GCU.”
Outside of conference sessions, Judah Floyd and Gracie Zimbardi explored Washington, D.C.
The three-day conference was organized by Campus Victory, an organization empowering collegiate leaders to step into civic engagement. It featured workshops, sessions and activities that equipped students with practical tools to step into their leadership roles.
Roughly 250 student leaders from universities all around the country traveled to the nation’s capital for the conference, where they met and heard from politicians and community leaders, including U.S. Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona.
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He addressed the young crowd with a personal testimony about his experience in public leadership and gave an empowering message from 1 Timothy 4:12, which reads, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”
He encouraged students to boldly press on in their positions despite their young age.
Sharing a home state with Crane was made extra special to Floyd and Zimbardi when Crane invited all Arizona students backstage to meet and have conversations with him.
“He was phenomenal,” Zimbardi said. “He talked about how being firm in our faith is so important in this time, and though we are young leaders, we do have the knowledge, experience and people to look up to, so use it. It was so inspiring to hear from him.”
Gracie Zimbardi (left) displayed her patriotism with student leaders from other universities.
When sessions concluded, students explored significant landmarks, including memorials, museums, and federal and local government buildings.
Everything was decked out in red, white and blue, with flags and banners hanging everywhere to commemorate the milestone anniversary.
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Celebratory events unfolded one after another on Independence Day, finishing with the largest fireworks show in history. Some 850,000 pyrotechnic effects were detonated over 40 minutes, with thousands gathered for the once-in-a-lifetime event.
Floyd waited five hours in line to attend Salute to America 250, which concluded yearlong celebratory festivities. The six-hour event on the National Mall featured presidential remarks, musical performances and military flyovers.
While in Washington, D.C., Judah Floyd (center) met with other student leaders.
“President Donald Trump talked about how America is really a land of people of faith and people who overcome challenges time after time,” Floyd said. “It really rekindled in us the spirit of liberty that we all carry as Americans and the importance of defending that liberty for generations to come.”
Military veterans were brought onstage and honored for their commitment to serving the country. Flags from every generation of America were displayed, and singer Lee Greenwood led the crowd in singing “God Bless the U.S.A.”
The World Cup was happening at the same time. While Floyd and Zimbardi were in Washington, D.C., they witnessed another level of patriotism when a Team USA vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina watch party, complete with a projector screen, was organized in front of the U.S. Congress.
“Thousands of people all wearing U.S.A. jerseys were shouting and screaming and spraying water in the sky when we scored a goal. It was deafening,” Floyd said.
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Judah Floyd and Gracie Zimbardi celebrated the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C., with student leaders from around the country.
As the start of academic year approaches, Floyd and Zimbardi’s tenure as student body president and vice president will soon commence.
The duo said that participating in the Campus Victory Forum conference, networking with student body presidents and vice presidents from other universities, and witnessing everyone’s patriotism prepared them to lead with passion and boldness.
“It means a lot to me that someone in this organization thought of us, GCU, and said, ‘We need them there.’ Zimbardi said. “It was really unique hearing from other students about how they do things at other universities.
“We got to sit down and spitball back and forth. We talked about things like, ‘Wow, that’s what works for you? We are struggling in that area, do you mind if we try it?’ Having conversations like that is extremely helpful, and it is cool how unified we can all become.”
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Dozens of Iowa National Guard soldiers leaving Iowa today will spend the next six months serving in Washington, D.C..
Last August, President Trump issued an executive order declaring there was an epidemic of crime in the nation’s capitol and he immediately mobilized National Guard troops from the District of Columbia. The Pentagon then started asking state guard units to deploy to D.C. and made a request of Governor Kim Reynolds last year. “They asked earlier and I said no because we had one of the largest deployments that we’ve had for a long, long time and I just felt we were stretched pretty thin,” Reynolds said.
In May of last year, nearly 2000 Iowa National Guard soldiers were deployed to the Middle East. The final group of those soldiers returned to Iowa last month. Reynolds said the Pentagon “circled back” recently and asked her to send a group of Iowa Guard soldiers to D.C. and she’s deployed 120 Iowa Guard soldiers to D.C. “to ensure the safety and security” of people who are in the nation’s capitol, “especially with everything that’s going on with the 250th birthday of our country,” Reynolds said, “and so we were able to participate and do our share.”
Reynolds told reporters the federal government will pay the entire cost of the deployment. Reynolds will speak this morning at a private send off ceremony for the Iowa Guard soldiers before they leave for D.C. There were over 5000 National Guard troops in Washington this past Sunday, including 185 from Nebraska and over 100 from Minnesota.
DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Media Iowa State Capitol Bureau) — One hundred and twenty members of the Iowa National Guard are leaving Friday for Washington, D.C., where they will assist with security measures and America 250 celebrations at the request of the Trump administration.
Reynolds initially said no
Gov. Kim Reynolds said she had previously declined the Trump administration’s request, citing the strain of one of the state’s largest recent deployments.
“They asked earlier, and I said no because we had one of the largest deployments that we’ve had for a long, long time and I just felt that we were stretched pretty thin,” Reynolds said.
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Nearly 2,000 Iowa National Guard members had spent a year or more deployed to the Middle East. Those soldiers have since returned home.
Guard members now available following Middle East return
With those troops back, Reynolds said Iowa was in a position to fulfill the president’s request.
“We have them all back. They circled back, especially with everything that’s going on with the 250th uh birthday uh of our country. And so we were able to participate and do our share,” Reynolds said.
Different states have sent National Guard members to Washington, D.C., since last August.
Reynolds said the federal government will pay the costs of Iowa’s deployment to Washington, D.C.
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