We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
This week’s Young & Hungry details Bread Line‘s decision to stop selling wholesale loaves to area restaurants. Bread Line, mind you, has not been selling baguettes to just your average neighborhood eateries; over the years, it has been selling bread to the finest restaurants in the region: Citronelle, CityZen, Kinkead’s, and others. Some chefs have turned to Panorama Baking Co. in Alexandria, where they get the same personalized treatment that former Bread Line owner Mark Furstenberg used to give them at the downtown bakery.
But the some chefs—-like Bob Kinkead at Kinkead’s, Eric Ziebold at CityZen, and R.J. Cooper at Vidalia—-have turned to making their own breads. Furstenberg may be upset to see his legacy crumbling away at the two bakeries he founded (Bread Line and Marvelous Market), but I think he’s missing the bigger picture. Some of the finest local chefs are carrying on his tradition. Furstenberg’s influence continues to radiate outward from their kitchens, each one taking the master baker’s techniques and trying to perfect them in their own restaurants.
It’s not a bad legacy, if you ask me. I’d almost like to see local restaurateurs give some sort of acknowledgment to Furstenberg on their menus. Something like: “Our bakers continue the fine tradition first established by Mark Furstenberg, the District of Columbia’s acknowledged master bread maker.”
Photo by Darrow Montgomery