Washington, D.C
This YouTube Chef Just Opened A New Restaurant In Washington, D.C.
Chef Matt Price poses with a spread of delightful dishes at his restaurant.
A new dining destination just opened in Washington, D.C.’s vibrant Columbia Heights neighborhood. Fraîche, derived from the French word for fresh, artfully elevates traditional comfort foods into refined gourmet dishes. Founded by self-taught chef, cookbook author and YouTube sensation Matt Price, Fraîche combines French, Cajun, South American, and Caribbean cuisines into a compelling fusion fare.
Price envisions Fraîche as a place where guests can enjoy an upscale dining experience in a “non-pretentious way.” The elegant 110-seat restaurant, housed in a historic former theater, has three distinct zones accented by luxurious green and gold jewel tones. The Greenhouse, complete with opulent decor, wood tables, and high ceilings, serves as the restaurant’s principal dining space. The Press Lounge offers a sophisticated venue for cocktail hours and social gatherings, while the Essence Lounge is a cozy spot for those preferring a more intimate setting. For entertainment, the restaurant provides a DJ or live entertainment on select nights and will soon begin a weekend brunch service.
What can diners expect on the menu at Fraîche?
Fraîche’s menu includes dishes such as oxtail meatballs, Cajun mussels and mambo fried snapper. Another popular dish, the Golden Gate Noodles, features a San Francisco-inspired garlic noodle that can be customized with a variety of proteins like short ribs and crab. Also on the menu are an enticing version of deviled eggs topped with crispy fried chicken, house-made hot honey and caviar and desserts like butterscotch bread pudding, crème brûlée and macaroon cheesecake.
Mambo fried snapper with house escvotich salad and rice and peas
The cocktail list showcases inventive flavor profiles, including a spritz made with Lillet Blanc, Cava and soda. There’s also the Creole Coco, a combination of coconut bourbon, cognac and bitters and the Ciel Lavande, a floral concontion that pairs lavender vodka with Riesling. Price says his favorite drinks of the moment are the Golden Sage, followed closely by the Fraîche Old Fash, a slightly sweeter, more playful take on the classic Old Fashioned.
Chef Matt Price’s Culinary Journey
Price, a native of Richmond, Virginia, took an unconventional path to the culinary world. He began cooking as a passion project in his late teens and launched a food blog, “Mr. Make It Happen,” in 2018 as a side endeavor alongside his corporate job. Known online as “Mr. Make It Happen,” Price quickly attracted a dedicated following, prompting him to start a YouTube channel in 2019, where he shared his love for food with a growing audience.
Reflecting on his online fame, Price notes, “When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, more people were cooking at home, and my YouTube channel took off.” Price’s YouTube channel has since amassed nearly 1.4 million followers, with an additional 1.1 million followers on Instagram. His star continued to rise when he teamed up with fellow YouTube chefs Kimmy’s Kreations and One Stop Shop in 2023 for “For the Foody’s Tour,” a 20-event multi-city fine dining experience. Price has also launched several successful product lines, including seasonings, kitchen accessories and a hybrid skillet. He says Fraîche represents the next evolution of his culinary journey.
Fraîche serves creative cocktails in a stylish setting.
“I chose D.C. because it’s always felt like a second home. I lived there before, and it’s the closest major market with the right energy,” says Price. He adds that the opportunity aligned with working with people he trusts in the industry. Chef Melville Bowrin, Jr. and Chef de Cuisine Rico Yarbrough oversee the day-to-day operations of Fraîche’s kitchen. Bowrin, originally from the U.S. Virgin Islands, brings decades of restaurant experience with the Hilton Hotel Group, while Yarbrough, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has worked as executive chef at local establishments such as The Avery Kitchen and Bar.
Price is redefining what it means to be a chef in the digital age. He says he thrives on a challenge and believes there’s no industry more demanding or rewarding than the restaurant industry. Starting Fraîche has given him the opportunity to prove himself in the food industry, where, according to Price, “internet chefs” don’t always get taken seriously. He says, “Sure, anyone can film themselves making chicken alfredo, but building a restaurant from the ground up? That’s a whole different level.”
Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C
Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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