The Hope of D.C.'s Aproned Ranks

He and his co-workers sense the buzz surrounding Merkado, with its industrial design and burnt-orange walls. George Nelson bubble lamps hang down in the dining room. The bar is long and sleek, with liquor bottles lighted like jewels. Miguel watches as people outside press their faces to the window, trying to see inside. Beyond them is the shiny street with Whole Foods, the organic grocer that opened in 2001 and spawned a mini-civilization of urban lofts, furniture stores and restaurants.

Miguel remembers when P Street was a rat boulevard. This was his turf in the 1980s when he ran with an organized drug crew on 14th Street. He was 16 and living the life with his shell-top Adidas and a pocket full of cash. In 1988, he was arrested at Washington National Airport with a half-kilo of crack and sentenced to 12 years and seven months in a federal prison. He worked his way up in the kitchen, supervising the bakery and then lunch for 800.

He served his time, day for day. He was 29 when he came out, hatched from his time capsule. "So many Spanish people," he remembers thinking, seeing the new Washington. His first job was at Red Sage downtown, where the chef didn't mind that he was living in a halfway house and fresh out of prison. Other restaurants would follow. A certain tension rules his survival. "Life is about struggle," he says. "But if you struggle too hard, you are gonna look for an easy way out."

For that reason, Miguel lives in a quiet condominium, away from the thump of the corner, with his fiancee, who works at the Department of Transportation, and their 2-year-old son, Miguel. Born with a too-small windpipe, the boy has a bandage around his neck that covers a tracheotomy. He whistles like a blue jay, and his father listens hopefully for vowels.

Miguel's two front teeth were busted out in prison. The bridge he had made started hurting his mouth recently, so he visited a dentist, who told him the teeth were full of mercury. A new bridge would run $1800. With no insurance, Miguel goes with the gap.

For the opening of Merkado, he gets his hair braided, and in his chef's whites, he pulls off a broken handsomeness.

The first night serving customers really is a practice run. The owners have invited 180 people to dine and drink. Everything is on the house.

An hour before guests arrive, the owner goes over last-minute details. "We are going to serve chopsticks with sashimi and ceviche," he says. "Duck will be served medium-rare unless otherwise requested. Tuna will be served rare. We never run out of anything. We never sell out. Something may become 'unavailable,' but we don't run out."

The grill is fired and all 12 flames on both stoves are blue and roaring. Someone passes a steaming plate of pork and rice down the line until it reaches Moises in the dishwashing room. Moises arrived in the United States only three months earlier from El Salvador. Now, he's making $8 an hour at Merkado. Small and wiry with a shaggy mustache and glaring white bobo sneakers from the flea market, his face is flecked with bits of splashed-back food. He nods in gratitude at the plate, takes one bite and shoves it on a shelf to get back to his clatter.

By 6:30 p.m., the dining room is full, and the grill is getting slammed. Chef rips the tickets from the machine and yells at Miguel. "Strip, rare, and pollo ! Shank with strip, well! Steak frites, rare! How long?"

Miguel's eyes narrow in concentration. Flames leap when the oily meat hits the iron. He uses his tongs to test for doneness and then whirls around to set up the side orders. Chef screams for Moises to come retrieve a bin of hot, dirty saute pans under the oven. "Moises, caliente !"

The machine keeps spitting out tickets. The cooks are crashing into one another on the line, all elbows and cursing. Chef is trying to maintain calm, but there's rising panic in his voice. "Miguel, you owe me five rib-eyes all day!"