Scott Drewno

CHIKO

Chef Scott Drewno was raised in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes wine region, a rural area known for its vineyards and its family-owned farms. Watching his mother turn fresh, seasonal produce from local farm stands into bubbling pies and cobblers first piqued his interest in cooking and planted the seed for Drewno’s culinary ambition. Drewno joined the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group in 1998. At Chinois, he learned to meld French cooking techniques with vibrant Asian flavors. At Spago, he came to understand the importance of beginning with only the finest ingredients. Drewno furthered his knowledge and solidified his passion for Asian cuisines at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Vong and Stephen Hansen’s Ruby Foo’s.

In 2007, Wolfgang Puck tapped Drewno as the opening Executive Chef of The Source. The restaurant was honored with numerous accolades including three-star reviews from both The Washington Post and Washingtonian Magazine. The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) awarded The Source “New Restaurant of the Year” in 2008 and “Fine Dining Restaurant of the Year” in 2011. Drewno received the coveted “Chef of the Year” prize in 2010 and again in 2016. In 2012 and 2013, Drewno was a semifinalist for the “Best Chef Mid-Atlantic” James Beard Award.

Drewno has won many culinary competitions benefiting important causes, including the DC Crab Cake Competition, Pig Out for Diabetes, and DC Central Kitchen’s Capital Food Fight. He won the Washington, DC leg of Cochon 555 (twice), a traveling culinary competition promoting sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs, and won the Cochon 555 Heritage Fire barbecue competition. Drewno serves on the Board of the RAMW, and is an Honorary Board Member of the DC Food & Beverage Collective. Each year, Drewno hosts fundraising events for DCFBC and the George Washington University Hospital Mobile Mammography Unit, two causes he holds near and dear to his heart.

In 2017 The Fried Rice Collective was formed with their first restaurant CHIKO, a Chinese-Korean, fine-casual concept. Zagat hailed the restaurant as one of “DC’s Most Important Restaurant Openings of 2017”. In 2018 the restaurant was nominated as a semifinalist for “Best New Restaurant” James Beard Award. Tom Sietsema (The Washington Post) recently gave CHIKO 3 stars (Excellent), stating “The latest definition of crack in Washington is the “orange-ish” chicken at CHIKO on Capitol Hill.” in 2018, CHIKO also received recognition through the Washingtonian for 100 Very Best Restaurants in DC and also received a 3 star rating for the new concept.