DC Restaurant Rumor Mill: Carole Greenwood is Leaving Buck’s and Comet

Posted by Jessica on May. 27, 2009

I have heard through a credible grapevine that Carole Greenwood will no longer be cooking at Buck’s and Comet Ping-Pong. Greenwood is a brilliant but mercurial chef. Her cooking is easily among the best in DC as it features simple preparations of great ingredients, sourced from local farms when she can, executed perfectly with an eye to creative flavor combinations. Her sun-dried tomato pesto on farm-fresh mozzarella with local greens is one of my favorite dishes. She also cooks the best steak in DC.

A few years ago Carole brought in a new partner, James Alefantis, and they renamed former Greenwood Buck’s Fishing and Camping. Amicable James took over the room and a big part of his role was to keep Carole in the kitchen and away from customers, whom she would routinely berate if they requested a change to the menu or sent back food. Watching No Reservations on HBO I thought that the Catherine Zeta-Jones character, who is a brilliant chef who goes nuclear when a customer does not like how she cooked his steak, is based on Carole, or at least channels her.

Buck’s and Comet are my two favorite neighborhood restaurants, and Carole Greenwood my favorite chef. I hope that post Carole the restaurants can sustain her excellence.

  • Hallelujah
    Carole Greenwood is a complete and total hack who has somehow stumbled upon good reviews by recreating (usually poorly) recipes she has come across in recent food magazines. She sources cut-rate produce half of the time, and the other half from whole foods. No people skills, no management skills, and just a very loose grip on sanity. Good riddance.
  • relieved diner
    Agreed!! Carole one of the best chefs in DC? I don't think so. Her food has been hit or miss for years, and her steak is terrible. If you request medium rare it is often served raw/rare. If you ask to have it cooked through a little bit more, you get a charred steak cut into bits. Cooking a good steak is a basic of any chef. It isn't hard to cook to the right temperature and have a perfect medium rare. To have a steak charred and then served to you pre-cut into bites is insulting to any diner.

    If her food were beyond reproach, her temper tantrums would be a bit easier to swallow, but her cooking is lacking.

    Excited to read about the kitchen changes at both restaurants!! James is the ultimate host, and deserves a partner who will put the same care into the cooking that he does into the presentation of the restaurants.
  • chevychaser
    This is good news for us who live within walking distance but have had no desire to put up with Greenwood. My wife is lactose intolerant, and trying to ascertain what items she could eat or negotiating a change in the menu was like solving the problems in the Middle East. And the food wasn't that great.
  • CMH
    Completely agree with the comments. I worked there for over a year. She's a maniac. And the food is really not that good. The steak? Please. And for $46. A total joke. The menu is completely static and she even runs out of what's on the menu. Deserts aren't ready until well into the dinner service. She closes early. Her people skills are awful. Good riddance.
  • spiceylife
    Ditto to all of the above, although I did like her food very much earlier on. She seemed to have become disengaged from cooking as time went on. She also didn't seem to grasp that restaurants are a "customer service industry". Like a previous poster, I felt as though she exhibited a complete disregard for the desires of her customers.

    I heard stories of her appalling behavior towards to her staff, but thought it was just some silly rumor until hearing irate screams coming from the kitchen at Comet. My server noticed me looking into the kitchen and was clearly embarrassed that I should have seen her behaving like that. She made some half-hearted excuse for Carole's outburst and cursing, which my children overheard, but it was obviously mortifying for her. I pitied those employees. I cannot imagine why they would have made so open a kitchen with such a loose cannon flailing about.
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