Bryan Voltaggio

Range, Bryan Voltaggio's fourth restaurant, is a triumph of style in harmony with substance. Dinner at Range, which will last for hours but feel like minutes, is wall-to-wall pleasure, from the first hand-crafted cocktail to the last bonbon from the in-house chocolatier. There's a lot going on, and Range is as big as its name. The restaurant, open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, occupies the top level of the newly renovated retail atrium inside the Chevy Chase Pavilion.

Range, Bryan Voltaggio's fourth restaurant, is a triumph of style in harmony with substance. Dinner at Range, which will last for hours but feel like minutes, is wall-to-wall pleasure, from the first hand-crafted cocktail to the last bonbon from the in-house chocolatier. There's a lot going on, and Range is as big as its name. The restaurant, open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, occupies the top level of the newly renovated retail atrium inside the Chevy Chase Pavilion.

In this video, Bryan Voltaggio makes a muffaletta at his Lunchbox restaurant. The video was produced, I think, by a Georgetown men's boutique named Lost Boys. When you click on a Lost Boys link, at least on Friday, scary things start popping up on your computer. The sandwich looks good, anyway, and so does Voltaggio. Not sure about that jacket.    

People flock to Pimlico Race Course on the third Saturday in May for the excitement, for a good party or for a stiff Black-Eyed Susan. The bill of fare, though, hasn't been high on the list of attractions since the Coolidge administration. The Maryland Jockey Club is looking to have the food at this year's race make the kind of lasting impression fans haven't seen since 1997, when Silver Charm, Free House and Captain Bodgit were separated at the finish by less than three feet.

Bryan Voltaggio's diner project, coming later this spring to East Street in Frederick, has a name. It's Family Meal. The term has a sweet double meaning. It's of course what some folks call the meals they share with their own family, but it's also an industry term for the meal that a restaurant staff shares before evening service begins.  If you want to be part of Family Meal's family, there's going to be an employment open house on May 15 and May 22 at Volt.

On Sept. 27, Bryan Voltaggio will host the No Kid Hungry Dinner, a benefit for Share Our Strength. Voltaggio's guest chefs for the dinner, which will be held at Volt , are Cathal Armstrong ( Restaurant Eve , Alexandria, Va.), Spike Gjerde ( Woodberry Kitchen ), Matt Hill ( Charlie Palmer Steak , Washington, D.C.), and Charlie Palmer himself. Tickets range from $125 for the pre-dinner reception to $2,000 for seats at Table 21, where you can watch the chefs in action.

Bryan Voltaggio presented Governor Martin O'Malley with Share Our Strength's 2011 Humanitarian of the Year Award on Sunday for his leadership in working to end childhood hunger in Maryland at a ceremony before more than 500 national and state anti-hunger advocates, government leaders, corporate partners, chefs and restaurateurs on Sunday in Baltimore. The presentation was made at as part an annual conference being held in Baltimore by Share Our Strength , a national non-profit working to end childhood hunger.  "With so many of the country's leading anti-hunger advocates in the audience, it's a particular honor to be presented this award for our work in Maryland," said Gov. O'Malley at the awards ceremony.

When this event was first announced, it wasn't clear how anyone who wasn't a guest of the resort could subscribe, if at all. But now those details are in. Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort 's two-week Crab Week celebration will feature a a visit by Bryan Voltaggio, on Saturday, Aug. 27.  Up to 18 guests will join Voltaggio for a five-course crab tasting dinner at the Cambridge resort's Water's Edge Grill. In addition to hosting the crab-tasting dinner, Voltaggio will also serve as a celebrity judge of an Iron Chef-style crab competion earlier in the day.  The menu created by Chef Voltaggio includes: •    Blue crab salad with Yellow Doll watermelon, radish, ginger, Cucamelon and avocado  •    Sheep's milk cavatelli pasta with country bacon, foraged Hherbs and flowers •    Soft-shell Crab with Silver Queen corn and “Old Bay” heirloom tomato •    Pineland Farms beef strip loin with fava beans, lobster mushrooms and crab gratin •    Textures of Chocolate: Ganache, chocolate caramel, milk chocolate ice cream, and raw ocrganic cocoa The price for the five-course dinner and wine pairings is $150 per person, plus 6% sales tax and 18% gratuity.

Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt are lending their support to a Wednesday night benefit for Up From Under, a project for building homes in Haiti. The Up From Under benefit dinner and silent action, which is being held at Washington, D.C.'s Long View Gallery on Wednesday, will help raise awareness and funding to build homes for the homeless and those devastated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The Volt staff is preparing is preparing food for the benefit, alongside Gjerde, R.J. Copper of Rogue 24, Matt Hill of Charlie Palmer Steakhouse and Mike Isabella of Graffiato.

"Top Chef" alum Bryan Voltaggio is busier than ever. Besides "Volt Ink," the new book written by him and his brother, Michael, he has two restaurant projects under way. According to Tom Sietsema of The Washington Post , the first restaurant, which is tentatively called North Market Kitchen, is a 10,000-square-foot space in Frederick that will seat more than 200 in its dining room, and will also house a specialty store and exhibition kitchen....

Volt has brought back an a la carte menu. For a few years now, Bryan Voltaggio's flagship restaurant has been going with multi-course tasting menus as well as the exclusive Table 21 experience. But beginning last Friday, the Frederick restaurant began offering an a la carte menu, too. Even so, the a la carte menu is developed and designed to be approached like a tasting menu, the Volt folks say. Instead of breaking items down into conventional appetizer, entree and dessert courses, the a la carte menu has headings like Fruits and Vegetables, Pasta and Grains, Fish and Shellfish and Cheese and Dessert.

Frederick Restaurant Week runs March 4-10. The some two dozen restaurants participating in the seven-day promotion are offering two- or three-course dinners for $20.13 and $30.13, respectively. Most are also offering two- and three-course lunches for $15.13 and $20.13, respectively. At these prices you wouldn't expect Volt to be among the participants, and you'd be right. However, Bryan Voltaggio and Hilda Staples' two other Frederick restaurants, Lunchbox and Family Meal , are joining in. Other participating restaurants include Alexander's, Brewer's Alley, Firestone Culinary Tavern, Isabella's Taverna and Tapas Bar, The Orchard, Quinn's Attic and the Tasting Room.

For Bryan Voltaggio, this holiday season is about beginnings. His latest restaurant venture - and the first outside Frederick - is slated to open. It will be his family's first Christmas in their new Urbana home. And with a son age 5 and a daughter who's not quite 2, that tender age when he's pretty sure Christmas memories start to truly cement, the chef and father is determined to do it right. No surprise, he'll be making most of it happen in the kitchen - Santa's workshop with cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel and peppermint.

Bryan Voltaggio and Hilda Staples wanted their third restaurant, Family Meal, to be an alternative to chain restaurants for Frederick families. So, the food is wholesome and adults can get liquor in their milkshakes. On Nov. 2 (7:30-10 p.m.), Family Meal will give families an extra reason to show up, when the restaurant presents a Drive-In Movie Night on its parking lot. The attraction is 1959's "Attack of the Giant Leeches. " There will be a cash bar outside and full-service will be available inside the restaurant.

The dinner hour, Bryan Voltaggio has said, was the most important time of the day in his family's home. His new restaurant, Family Meal, which opened in June along an industrial stretch of Frederick, is intended as a venue for family dining. It's best taken that way, too. The food is nourishing and straightforward. This latest offering from Bryan Voltaggio and Hilda Staples is completely charming. This is the pair's third restaurant, following Volt, the premier-dining flagship, and the quick-meal Lunch Box. Voltaggio is not the first to encourage a return to the shared family dinner.

Anthony Bourdain is returning to the Hippodrome on Nov. 17. Bourdain, chef-at-large at New York's famed Brasserie Les Halles, is the author of best-sellers "Kitchen Confidential" and "Medium Raw" - blunt and sometimes shocking portraits of life in restaurant kitchens. Bourdain launched the Hippodrome 's annual Foodie Experience series in May 2010, when he shared the theater's stage with his friend, Eric Ripert. At that appearance, Bourdain made peace with the Baltimore audience, expressing regret for the disparaging comments made about Baltimore in "Kitchen Confidential" ("I was an ignorant, pathetic junkie")

Bryan Voltaggio filled me in about the big new project he's planning for next year in Frederick. North Market Kitchen, its working title, will place diners in a near-10,000 square-foot market enviroment, with both general dining areas and separate seating in environments given over to charcuterie and salumi, raw bars and fresh pasta. Voltaggio acknowledged to the Washington's Post Tom Sietsma that the direct inspiration for North Market Kitchen is Eataly New York , the sexy Fifth Avenue food emporium whose motto is "We Sell What We Cook & We Cook What We Sell.

Bryan Voltaggio and Hilda Staples wanted their third restaurant, Family Meal, to be an alternative to chain restaurants for Frederick families. So, the food is wholesome and adults can get liquor in their milkshakes. On Nov. 2 (7:30-10 p.m.), Family Meal will give families an extra reason to show up, when the restaurant presents a Drive-In Movie Night on its parking lot. The attraction is 1959's "Attack of the Giant Leeches. " There will be a cash bar outside and full-service will be available inside the restaurant.

The National Aquarium resumes its Fresh Thoughts series on Sept. 25 with Chris Becker, executive chef, and Omar Semidey, chef de cuisine, of the soon-to-be opened Fleet Street Kitchen. Fresh Thoughts: A Sustainable Seafood Series features educational cooking demonstrations by well-known local chefs, followed by seated dinners. Previous guest chefs have included Bryan Voltaggio (Volt), Jason Ambrose (Salt), Thomas Dunklin (B&O American Brasserie), and Chad Wells (Alewife). The evening will conclude with a stroll through the Aquarium.

Bryan Voltaggio will host his third annual benefit dinner to fight childhood hunger on Sept. 13 at Volt, his flagship Frederick restaurant. Joining him this time will be brother Michael Voltaggio, his onetime  "Top Chef" competitor and now the chef at Ink in Los Angeles, and Matt Orlando, chef de cuisine at Noma in Copenhagen. This is a big-ticket item. Tickets are $750 per person. There are also Chef's Kitchen seats available for $1,250 and at Table 21 for $2,000. It's all to benefit Share Our Strength: No Kid Hungry , a national nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood hunger.