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Doi Moi, the Southeast Asian restaurant that serves breakfast banh mi in its Birds Eye cafe by day and a range of curries, noodles, and large-format dishes meant to be ripped apart by hand at night, is about to change chefs for the second time in less than two years.
Johanna Hellrigl, executive chef of Doi Moi within restaurant group Fat Baby Inc., announced on Instagram today that her last day in the kitchen will be Friday. She tells Eater that sous chefs Eric Arill and Brandon Nguyen will stay on at Doi Moi, and she’ll assume another executive chef job at a restaurant she declined to mention.
Hellrigl arrived at Doi Moi in March 2018, replacing Sasha Felikson. She immediately set about expanding the focus of the restaurant from Thai and Vietnamese, the vision of opening chef Haidar Karoum, to a broader approach encompassing ingredients and dishes from from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Timore-Leste.
Hellrigl, who committed to making her own curry pastes in-house, oversaw the implementation of dishes like duck heart skewers with piri pir sauce, a banana leaf salad with coconut milk-poached chicken, and playful “ho hos” made with pandan or ube.
Hellrigl also oversaw the closing of Fat Baby’s former flagship, Proof wine bar, when its lease ran out this past January in Penn Quarter. Estadio also used to be part of Fat Baby Inc. but split off under Max Kuller following the death of his father, Mark Kuller, in 2017.
A graduate of George Washington University’s international affairs program, Hellrigl previously spent years working with women in grassroots political efforts across Southeast Asia as part of a democracy building organization. She previously held leadership positions in D.C. kitchens at Via Umbria and Boulangerie Christophe.
This post has been updated to reflect that Hellrigl was not a partner in Fat Baby
