Inside the Kitchen: Seven Questions with Oyster Oyster's Rob Rubba

5 Minutes read

11 Mar 2025

Journalist

Michelin-starred chef Rob Rubba of Oyster Oyster shares his philosophy on fine dining, sustainability, and unforgettable food moments—from his ultimate comfort meal to the most delicious plum he’s ever tasted.

What Is Your Deserted Island Meal?

An eggplant parm from somebody in my home state of New Jersey who knows how to make it right. I like it as a cutlet with spaghetti or bucatini, and red sauce.

What’s Your Most Poignant Food Memory?

Along the Black Horse Pike in New Jersey, where I grew up, there were produce stands every 15 miles or so. One summer, we stopped at one, and I got some plums. I remember sitting in the back of our Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme biting into this plum, still warm from the sun, and it almost exploding in my mouth, it was so juicy. That’s still the most delicious fruit I've ever had in my life. I don't know if anything will ever match it.

What Does Fine Dining Mean to You?

Fine dining isn't what a restaurant looks like, it's the quality of hospitality, which can come in many forms, as long as you feel like you're being taken care of. The sourcing and preparation of the ingredients must be at the highest level. That doesn't mean the most expensive stuff. It just means there's a real dedication to the quality of the product you're getting, and the care you take with storing and preparing it.

What Are Your Restaurant Goals or Dreams?

To continue being a steward of this world we live in and inspiring others to take care of this world.

What’s On Your Restaurant Bucket List to Visit?

I want to go to Silo in London, because they’ve done fantastic things in the Zero Waste world, and I love the thoughtfulness of what they're doing. Plus, I think it would just be a very educational dinner.

What Is Your Food/Cooking Philosophy?

Big flavors but keep it simple. I don't like things that are overly fussy, because then you lose flavor.

What's Your Comfort Food?

Hot, steamy rice with a few drops of good quality sesame oil on it. That's it.

The Chef

As a young chef, Rob Rubba rose through the ranks working under a string of legends–Gordon Ramsay, Guy Savoy, and Charlie Trotter. At their restaurants, meat was a must, butter was a building block, and both were often used in excess. In 2013, Rubba moved to the D.C. area, making a name for himself with Hazel, a craft-centric multi-culti marvel that won the Restaurant of the Year award from the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan DC.

Heading up his own concept where he controlled the menu inspired deeper contemplation. “Once I had that carte blanche, I wondered, ‘Wow, where are some of these ingredients coming from?’,” Rubba says.

An epiphany emerged from his research and inner dialogue. “I realized that as much as I wanted to use a local producer for pork, chicken, and beef, it wasn't sustainable given our volume and need for set cuts of meat,” he says. “The deeper I looked, the more I realized that this wasn't the future of food. We've had this fabric pulled over our eyes that this is how we should operate as a restaurant, but that was all built out of convenience for the business.”

He embraced vegetarianism and began envisioning a restaurant rooted in sustainability, a term he defines as, “Finding ways to exist in the world with as minimal impact as possible, while looking at everything as a complete cycle with no waste. It’s about being in touch again with nature and the cycles of life, and letting that guide us more than the material world.”

The concept that came out of this soul searching was Oyster Oyster: a 28-seat tasting menu restaurant tucked away in D.C.’s buzzy Shaw neighborhood specializing in of-the-moment plant-forward cuisine (prepared vegan or vegetarian) crafted from ingredients sourced from local farmers, foragers, and specialty producers, and fortified by house-made ferments and larder projects.

“There were a lot of people who didn't think we'd be successful and told us we would close within the first six months,” says Rubba.

His detractors couldn’t have been more wrong. His vision paid off: Oyster Oyster holds a Michelin star, and in 2023, he won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef.

11 Mar 2025

1 Michelin Star Restaurants

Michelin Guides