Home Plate

by David Hagedorn

Hot Commodities

You could say Matt Behringer’s newest venture got off on a sour note. In August 2020, the Dominion Hills resident turned his food fermentation hobby into a business, Behringer Pepper Company, which operates out of Union Kitchen and sells hot sauce and pickles from the food accelerator’s five retail stores in D.C. and Ballston.

Behringer grew up in Arlington’s Barcroft neighborhood. He’s been drawn to the culinary arts ever since childhood. “My father was huge into cooking and was a restaurant appliance repairman, so I went with him on jobs and watched the chefs,” says the entrepreneur, who holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Lynchburg College (now the University of Lynchburg).

After leaving a restaurant management job that wasn’t a good fit, he discovered a YouTube series of tutorials on fermentation and began experimenting with foods like kimchi and sauerkraut. The pepper sauce he concocted is what proved revelatory.

“I’ve yet to find anyone doing a full fermentation hot sauce using only lactobacillus, the natural bacteria on fresh produce, with no vinegar or lactic acid added, to get that unique funky flavor profile,” he says.

Behringer’s classic hot sauce is made with Fresno and habanero peppers, hibiscus, ginger, garlic and cardamom; his pineapple sauce, in addition to its namesake fruit, includes chipotle and habanero peppers and garlic. He says both (which retail for $8.99) are hotter than Tabasco and sriracha, although they haven’t undergone a formal Scoville test, which measures heat level. His tangy garlic dill pickle chips ($6.49) are also popular.

Union Kitchen has turned out to be just the partner he needed. “I couldn’t just make the sauce in my kitchen and sell it—the health department had to inspect it,” Behringer says. “I looked for rentable kitchen space and found Union Kitchen, which brings in food entrepreneurs looking to get a product to the market and helps them with scaling, branding, licensing, marketing and distributing—things I would never have thought about.”

In addition to the Union Kitchen stores, his products are also sold in several small D.C. food markets. “We’re now focusing on expanding into smaller grocery stores in Arlington,” he says. “Arlington is where most of my social media following is.” oohthatsspicy.com

Beakal Melaku and his wife, Hanna Elias

photo Dixie Vereen

Teff Love

I’m struggling to decide what to order at Greens N Teff when owner Beakal Melaku asks if I like spicy food. Nodding the affirmative, I soon find myself tearing off pieces of injera (a flatbread made with the ancient grain teff) and scooping up shimbra asa, a boldly flavored wot (stew) packed with onions, garlic and berbere, a chili-based spice blend and cornerstone of Ethiopian cooking. Though the menu at this Columbia Pike carryout is completely vegetarian, the chickpea flour dumplings cooked into the wot have a meaty texture. “It’s like a version of doro wot but without the chicken or [hard-boiled] egg,” Melaku explains, referring to his homeland’s bestknown dish.

Greens N Teff follows a familiar fast-casual formula: You choose a base (basmati rice or injera bread), then pile on proteins and vegetables to your liking, with add-ons such as yeater kik wot (split pea stew), difin misir wot (green lentil stew) and a mushroom tibs that swaps the usual meat for portabellas. Vegetable toppers in the assembly line include gomen (collard greens), fossolia (grilled green beans, carrots and celery mixed with garlic and caramelized onions) and keysir (beets and potatoes). Your best bet? The extra-large plate with three proteins and four vegetables for $13.99.

After immigrating with his family to Alexandria from Addis Ababa in 1996, Melaku graduated from T.C. Williams High School in 1999, earned a bachelor’s degree from Longwood University and worked in IT. He left that field in 2012 to help his parents open a convenience store in D.C. and hoped to pursue his true dream— opening a restaurant—next door, but the deal fell through and his family’s store closed in 2017.

Melaku’s next idea was to open a carryout selling grilled meats and vegetables. To gain commercial kitchen experience, he took a night shift food prep job at the Whole Foods Market in Clarendon, where he couldn’t help noticing a strong local demand for vegetarian food and switched his business plan to a plant-based concept. He says his young daughter’s eating habits (she was born in 2016) also inspired him—she refuses to eat anything with meat.

Melaku found his current location on the Pike on Craigslist and took over the lease from the former tenant, Pho Harmony & Grill, last October. Many of the family recipes at the carryout (there is no seating) are from his mother, Beletshachew Bekure, an excellent cook and, he says, his toughest critic. The berbere and mitmita spice blends are from his wife, Hanna Elias, who makes most of the wots at Greens N Teff.

“We wanted to show our culture through our dishes, passed down from generation to generation, and that you don’t have to get protein from meat,” Melaku says. “We have many repeat customers already. It really is a blessing.” greensnteff.com

Hand-painted ceramics at Napoli Salumeria

Dish List

If wanderlust has you craving a taste of Southern Italy, Napoli Salumeria in Westpost has the goods—pizza, panini, graband-go pastas and sauces, and traditional dishes like arancino and salt-cod fritters. That’s not all. You can take the dishes home, too. Owner Antonio Ferraro sources his colorful plates, pitchers and platters from artisans in Vietri Sul Mare, an Amalfi Coast town known for its hand-painted ceramics. See something you like? The café stocks a selection of pasta plates, espresso cups and water pitchers for sale. Customers can also commission specific patterns and sizes, along with items such as ceramic tiles, tables, flowers vases and more, says Ferraro, a native of Vico Equense, a coastal town on the outskirts of Naples. Order online (free delivery for orders over $100) or by calling the restaurant at 571-431-7903. napolisalumeria.com