Rose Previte is the owner of DC’s acclaimed restaurants Compass Rose, Michelin-starred Maydan and Kirby Club. Raised in a food loving Sicilian-Lebanese family in Ohio, Rose started working in food in her mother’s restaurant and Middle Eastern catering business. She later spent over a decade working in bars and restaurants, including Mike Schuster’s Pour House in DC, while pursuing a master’s degree in Public Policy from George Mason University.
Her first restaurant was inspired by spending nearly three years traveling to over 30 countries, while she lived in Russia with her husband, David Greene, posted there as the correspondent for NPR. Absorbing the street and market foods, and the energy of these diverse cultures, led to the opening of Compass Rose upon her return to DC in 2014. The pioneering restaurant dedicated to global flavors went on to be named the 2017 RAMMY award-winner for best casual restaurant, and appeared on every best restaurant list in DC, and garnered national recognition from esteemed outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and more.
In 2017, Rose opened Maydan, tucked away in an alley in DC’s U Street neighborhood. The restaurant was conceived in the summer of 2017 on a three-week journey through Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Georgia and Lebanon where the team immersed themselves in local culinary traditions, techniques, and ingredients from the countries they visited. Maydan debuted and quickly earned coveted spots on “Best New Restaurants in America” lists from national media including Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, GQ, Eater, was named a James Beard Award Semifinalist for Best New Restaurant 2018 and for Outstanding Wine Program in 2022. In 2020, 2021 & 2022 Maydan earned a one star Michelin rating. In 2023, Rose will debut her first cookbook: Maydan, Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond.
In 2022, Rose co-founded and launched Go There Wines, a new social enterprise company created with the aim of disrupting the global wine industry, bringing to market trailblazing wines made by women and other underrepresented winemakers from lesser-known wine-making regions around the world. That year, she also introduced Kirby Club to Fairfax’s Mosaic District. The new, casual Eastern Mediterranean restaurant pays homage to the Lebanese-American social club Rose’s grandparents founded in Ohio where food was always at the center, bonding old and new, heritage and new generations to foods made anew with American twists and local ingredients.
Rose was previously the host of local PBS affiliate WETA’s “Check, Please! DC.” As a prominent and progressive small business entrepreneur, she has attracted recognition including Washington Business Journal’s “40 under 40” and Washingtonian’s “40 Under 40” and “Most Powerful Women in Washington” awards. In 2023, Rose was named “Restaurateur of the Year” by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.