When you spend countless hours of your days-off in a freezing cold duck blind, or stalking deer, or waiting for fish to bite, you gain a whole new appreciation of the animal you’re attempting to kill.  That time and effort [and let’s admit it: a certain amount of discomfort] makes you respect it more.  You have a deeper investment in its fate.  And you have a responsibility for what it becomes.  It’s a responsibility chef Robert Wiedmaier takes very seriously.

He practices classic, whole animal butchery.  “If you’re going to kill a rabbit, don’t strip out its loins and toss the rest.  Use all of it!” roars the robust, 6’, goatee-d, Harley-riding chef.  This attitude applies equally to rabbits as to the 30 Randall Lineback calves that are reared for him annually at Chapel Hill Farm out in Berryville, Virginia, and to the thousands of fish delivered fresh and intact to his restaurants in downtown and suburban Washington.

It’s as much about making the most of the product, as honoring the animal, and no one can extract more flavor from a single ingredient than Wiedmaier.  “You may ask how I got here,” he explains, waving an arm to describe his five [soon to be six!] restaurants and 300+ employees, “I’m a stickler for detail. I’m highly organized.  Every surface is spotlessly clean, and everything is cooked to exacting standards.  But above all, I’m an old-school saucier at heart, and there aren’t many of us who take the time for that any more.”

That’s where the whole animal comes in.  Wiedmaier patiently coaxes the very essence from his ingredients by slow reduction of every bit – down to caramelizing the crushed bones – to enhance the final dish with intense natural flavor.   He most enjoys cooking at his first restaurant, Marcel’s, where the labor-intensive classic cuisine demands a very high chef-to-dinner guest ratio.  His subsequent restaurants, Brasserie Beck, Brabo, The Tasting Room, and Mussel Bar (Bethesda and Revel) still adhere to his philosophy of using the whole animal, in more volume-efficient operations.

All of the restaurants reflect Wiedmaier’s European heritage, in particular his links to Belgium.  Born in Germany to a Belgian father and Californian mother [“a great cook – she could make anything from anything!”] he grew up close to the land, milking cows, helping with the slaughter of sheep, and everything else that was required on a real working farm.  He tagged along to the local markets with his mother, and ran to meet the car that came rolling slowly by on weekends hawking fresh vegetables.  He has been involved with food – from the source – his whole life.

His little Belgian grandmother was one of his strongest supporters when he declared his intension to pursue a culinary career.  His mother, whose talent he inherited, was also behind him; but his father, a proud academic, laughingly referred to him as “Bob le Cook” – “Not  the most respected profession in the mid-‘70s,” he recalls with a wry grin.  No one ever laughed at his food, though.  “My father loved it when I would make him a spinach omelet with gruyere,” he says, “and I got a real high off that.  I came to realize that this would be a good thing to do – maybe the only thing I could be really good at.”  Robert Wiedmaier is severely dyslexic.

Once on his chosen path, he never wavered.  He attended culinary school in The Netherlands.  His apprenticeship at the Thermidor, a Michelin 2-star restaurant in Holland, led him to Brussels to work with chef Eddie van Maele.  In 1986, he came to Old Town Alexandria as saucier at Le Chardon d’Or at The Morrison House; two years later he joined the team at Le Pavillion, helping to create the finest nouvelle cuisine in Washington; and the following year he accepted a position in city’s most prominent hotel, The Four Seasons, as sous chef at Aux Beaux Champs under the tutorial direction of chef Douglass McNeill.  For over seven years, Wiedmaier’s European experience contributed to the upscale French cuisine of this prestigious restaurant as well as the hotel’s catered events.   In 1994, Wiedmaier opened Café on M at The Grand Hotel, where he established his signature style of French cuisine with a Flemish flair.  In 1996, he was asked to take over culinary operations at the Watergate Hotel, replacing another key mentor, Jean-Louis Palladin.

In 1999, Wiedmaier opened Marcel’s, an elegant restaurant that consistently wins top awards and ratings for fine dining in Washington; it is named for his first-born son, and was listed as the top restaurant for food in the prestigious Zagat’s 2011 Washington DC/Baltimore Restaurant Survey. Eight years after opening Marcel’s, he launched Brasserie Beck [named for his second son,] an instantly popular more casual establishment modeled after a vintage Belgian railway station, serving mussels and hearty brasserie fare as well as the city’s most extensive list of Belgian beers.  In 2009, Wiedmaier forged a partnership with Kimpton Hotels, taking on all the food-and-beverage operations of its Alexandria, Virginia Lorien Hotel & Spa, and opening three distinctive adjacent establishments:  Brabo, a 105-seat dining room; The Brabo Tasting Room; and The Butcher’s Block, a Market by RW, Alexandria’s first gourmet retail shop.  In the summer of 2010, he launched a gastro-pub Mussel Bar, a tribute to traditional Brasserie-style casual Belgian dining in Bethesda, Maryland. His next stop? Atlantic City! Where Wiedmaier and his chef/partner Brian McBride have brought Mussel Bar to the seaside Revel resort, a brand new luxury resort that showcases a number of celebrity chefs, including Robert.

Named Washington’s Chef of the Year by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington in 2009, Wiedmaier has not gone unnoticed in the public eye for his passion to be a dutiful chef—respect for the product. When not in the kitchen Robert is out on his 33 foot Luhrs, having fun with his two boys but also educating them on what it means of bringing fish from open waters to the table. PBS James Beard award-winning program Chefs A’Field, captured that exact scenario. And as a member of the Wild Alaska Seafood Congress of Conscious Chefs, Robert confirms his belief and value for nature. As Wiedmaier reiterates, “This is the most raw and natural way of teaching respect as it’s truly not entirely about the sport.”  His new found branding –Full Circle Chef—exemplifies what he holds closest to him—living the dream, but practicing it with great admiration.