A Michelin-star chef opens a store in Kalorama-Sheridan

By Kalie Walker

The bell rang as an older man opened the door of Kalorama Market late afternoon on March 21. He poked his head in and hovered in the doorway, a woman and dog standing behind him, and asked when the store would be opening.

This is a frequent occurrence for Daniel Petita, the new owner of the storefront. At the time, the store had boxes stacked on the floor. Pasta and wine lined different shelves, and hand-tiled counters supported the checkout desk.

He told the man it would be open in a few days.

“Of course,” Petita replied, smiling. “See you later. Thank you for coming.”

That was two months ago, just days before the opening of Kalorama Market. The market, open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., is the manifestation of Petita’s dream to open a business serving quality food to his community.

Petita started cooking when he was 15, growing up in a small town outside Rome. He was a good cook, and he said he knew the career would give him the opportunity to travel. Yet, he said, even when he started working in professional kitchens, he would refuse to cook for his family.

“I used to cook, but I remember it took me years to cook at home and be able to face all the criticism and stuff,” he said. “Because everybody in Italy thinks he’s a chef.”

He started to travel all over Italy, all the way up to the Swiss border, until eventually he ventured into the rest of Europe and moved to London.

London was where he got the toughest training in the kitchens, with often no time for a water or lunch break, working minimums of 16-hour shifts. He said it enhanced his skills, and he still keeps in touch with many of his mentors.

“London’s always been – is always gonna be in my heart, even, because it was like part of my training, that’s where I got my toughest training ever in the kitchen,” Petita said.

“I always say you don’t have to bleed to become a good chef, but sometimes helps discipline and stuff,” he said. “Those are things that I will keep with me forever.”

It was also in London that he met his now-wife, Stephanie Ruiz, an American graduate student at the time studying at the London School of Economics. After working a difficult shift, he went out to a salsa club and saw her.

“She does that, kind of like, ‘come here,’” he said, curling his finger in toward his body the way she did that night. “And I was like, ‘wait what?’ I woke up right away.”

After Ruiz returned to the United States, Petita said they did long distance for a year and a half. It was for Ruiz that Petita decided to move to Washington, D.C, after five years of living in London.

“I can technically work anywhere in the world. I can cook anywhere, people eat everywhere,” he said. “So I can again just, you know, one of us has to make the — one of us has to follow the other, right?”

Coming to Washington, Petita had to relearn everything, metrics like cups, quarts and gallons. He worked at Michelin-star restaurants across the district, most recently at Jônt. As a chef, Petita prefers food in its purest form, with one or two ingredients per dish.

Ruiz said Petita cares a lot about the quality of the food he serves and that he’s very creative.

“He’s the funnier and funniest person in the couple,” she said. “And he’s just also light and, he’s just – he’s like, I think the perfect person to run a business, because he’s also not stressed ever.”

Ruiz said he was a curious person and a talented cook, along with being creative and fun.

“He demonstrates his talent, not in how he expresses himself, or how he talks about himself, or rather what he does, which is really important and sometimes undervalued in society,” she said. “I think he’s just the epitome of a really good, hard worker, honest person that I know, and that’s why I married him.”

Anna Kinzer met Petita through Ruiz, with whom she was friends through work. She said Pettita would often cook for the community.

“His whole world is food, and, you know, the culinary world — that’s been his whole universe,” she said. “And he is really focused, but also really excited, like he has, you know, been known to put together, like really elaborate meals for events.”

She recalled when he made pizzas for his dog’s birthday party at the park.

“There was a huge turnout and it was a really fun, really fun event,” Kinzer said.

Petita had previously tried to start his own business, working long hours at the restaurants and going home to work on his personal project, even doing pop-ups, but said it was difficult.

“I never spent a day without thinking about, like, doing something for myself,” he said. “Like building something for myself, for my family.”

Petita lives by Kalorama Market, and he said he had been eyeing the market for a year. He said he saw the neglect from the old owners, and saw the potential the storefront had. When he heard the store was for sale, he knew he had an opportunity.

“Everything comes from, you know, 20 years of savings, like myself, my wife, you know — those are our savings, and those are our sacrifice,” he said. “So, like, put everything in one plate.”

Negotiations started, then construction. Ruiz’s father, who works in construction, came up from Miami and helped them hand-tile the counters and put the store together.

Friends came to help unpack boxes before the opening and set up the place. Ruiz and Petita stayed in the store until 2 a.m.

“We went from, like, never seeing each other to seeing each other quite a lot and working a lot on different logistics,” she said.

Ruiz said it helps that they have different niches. She works primarily on budget and logistics, while he works more with vendors. Petita’s experience in the kitchen has transferred well to identifying quality foods and working with vendors, including local farmers in Pennsylvania.

“This is stuff that I want to be surrounded by,” he said. “And these are the ingredients that I want to vouch for.”

Petita said he’s received immense support from the community. He said he wants his market to be a point of community for Kalorama-Sheridan. Part of his vision for the shop includes making his own food to sell.

Still, the store allows him to pursue his dream and continue his cooking career. When he started, he said he felt like he was the best in the world. As the years have gone by, he’s realized how untrue that is, and how much he has left to learn.

“You have a lot to learn, and the more you learn, the more you feel that you don’t know anything,” he said. “But having that confidence, that energy, you know, really does good and bad to you, you’ve got to manage it. But I think I’m fascinated by it, and sometimes I still have it even if I’m not 15 anymore.”