Battered and bruised but unbowed, Chef Fabio Trabocchi is thinking about moving back to the Washington DC area where he won his star chef laurels at Maestro in Tysons Corner. “I’ve had a rocky time in New York,” he noted.  Trabocchio, who walked away last Tuesday after just three months at the Four Seasons citing “philosophical differences,” refused to amplify that inscrutable explanation. “Philosophical differences,” he repeated, five or six times.

       “I need to do something sooner rather than later,” he says. “I still think of New York as a great place for chefs.  But it’s been tough for me.  It’s been tough on a lot of chefs. Gray Kunz had to leave. It took a long time for Paul Liebrandt to find his place.”

       After scoring three stars as chef-partner at Steve Hanson’s Fiamma, Traobocchi’s  triumphant glow faded when Hanson closed the door in the early fallout of the Wall Street crisis.

       After Fiamma shuttered, he spent months attempting to open a casual, affordable place of his own. The call to take over the Four Seasons kitchen was irresistible. The landmark spot seemed like the perfect showcase for his couturier cooking. “Alex and Julian are both very fine gentlemen,” Trabocchi said at the time.  Everyone involved is uncharacteristically silent.

       “We are in a brand new era,” he said. “We were living in an optimistic time and now it’s over.” He says he wants to cook Fabio but more affordable.  The cooking I grew up with (in Ancona, Italy).  My first book was on home cooking. That’s what I want to do.”  Today I got an invitation to join him on Linked in.  Of course I clicked yes.

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