RW Restaurant Group’s Robert Wiedmaier and his nutcracker collection
By Laura Hayes
There’s a chance Robert Wiedmaier’s father was Santa Claus. While living and raising his family in the small mountain town of Wiesbaden, Germany, in the 1960s and 1970s on a government assignment, he refurbished an old sleigh that they would pile into with hot drinks and charge off into the woods, and Christmas was always a big production.
The RW Restaurant Group partner and executive chef who is behind BRABO by Robert Wiedmaier in Alexandria and Mussel Bar & Grille in Arlington has fond memories of spending the first 15 years of his life in the fairytale, almost folkloric atmosphere. He says it shaped his career, and it also explains his fondness for nutcrackers—particularly ones made in Germany or ones carrying a chef theme.
He has 17 that his wife, Polly Wiedmaier, carefully arranges on the piano during the holidays. Many were inherited from his mother, Virginia Wiedmaier, and a few others were gifted over time, as is tradition. “Back in the day nutcrackers were something you would give people to keep away the evil spirits, and they all had different characters to protect you in your house,” Wiedmaier says. The restaurateur plays favorites when it comes to his collection. He is most fond of the chef holding a cheese board because it was a gift from his mother nearly 40 years ago, when it first became clear that Wiedmaier was destined for the kitchen.
Another unique collectable is the limited-edition Steinbach nutcracker holding a champagne bottle to ring in the new millennium. German-made Steinbach nutcrackers are the gold standard of Christmas decorations, which is why ones signed by a member of the Steinbach family can go for twice their original value on sites like eBay, especially if they’re limited edition. However, Wiedmaier will not be posting any of his wooden treasures online; he’ll pass them down to his sons, Marcel and Beck.
( December 2015)
