Chefs to Watch 2015: Michael Friedman, The Red Hen, Washington, D.C.

Michael Friedman dreams up new creations when most people are simply dreaming.

“I go home at night and I’m still high from service,” he says. “So I get on my phone to look at regional dishes in Sicily, or what some of my favorite chefs are doing in San Francisco.”

The ideas he conceives in the midnight hour manifest themselves on the seasonally inspired plates of...