A few weeks back, my wife and I booked our stay at the inn, cashing in a Rue La La deal we had purchased a month prior.  The deal included a night’s stay at the Inn at Langley as well as dinner and wine pairing for two at the attached restaurant.  Even from my first call to make our reservations, I could tell that this place exuded the type of warm hospitality that is often absent in the typical passive-aggressive Seattleite interactions.  When we arrived and were shown to our room, we were stunned in disbelief – the “cottage suite” included in our package was a 1400 square foot apartment overlooking the sound, beautifully appointed and peacefully serene.  And, if this were a travel blog, I’d go on and on about the room, the amenities of the inn and the charming little town scattered around it.  But, you’re here for the food, so I’ll get right to it.

Dinner started quite leisurely, just as the sun was falling low in the sky.  We were the first to arrive for the night’s seating, and we were greeted warmly by Stephen McClure, the restaurant’s sommelier.  He handed us each a glass of champagne dotted with basil seeds and we took a seat in the garden as the other guests trickled in.  Sitting in that manicured garden, watching the sunset and sipping champagne, I felt a million miles from home: relaxed, refreshed, civilized, and centered.  It’s a great way to begin any meal.

We were shown to our table which was one of just a handful in the restaurant’s petite dining room.  The room is divided by an oversized stone fireplace, and flanked by tables of two and four laid out around the perimeter.  However, the main focus of the room is

the kitchen, which opens into the space through a countertop-turned-pass where Chef Costello and an assistant finish most of the dishes for service.  Before the meal began, the chef walked us through the evening’s ten+ course menu.  He rattled off the dishes we’d be tasting, but spent most of his time discussing their origins – specifically, the sources of his ingredients.  As he explained, Whidbey Island is a hugely agricultural community.  The island is home to more than ten farmers markets which support not only full-time farmers, but are also popular among pop-up producers.  Say Mr. and Mrs. Jones have a bounty of plums on their back yard tree?  You might just catch them at the market, selling directly to the restaurant. 

Chef Costello described the suppliers for almost every element on the menu – not only meat and seafood (which, by the way, is harvested just out the back door), but also for coffee, raspberries, radishes, milk, onions, and nearly every other once-living thing stashed away in the kitchen.  This was impressive, not because of the level of detail in his list, but because the way he spoke of each supplier conveyed that he had a meaningful relationship with them and viewed their work as being just as important a contribution to the meal as his own. Even with the proliferation of Portlandia-esque connections between Seattle chefs and farmers, this level of reverence and respect is a rarity.  Just as rare, each seat was pre-set with a hand made place card, drawn in a charming lowercase design that underscored the level of personal attention that was given to each quest.

Dinner started with an eye-opening bang: gelled, Manhattan-filled cherries and savory mini-meringues.  This was my first indication that the meal was going to incorporate modernist technique, and it was a bit of a shock considering the small, old-school-looking kitchen from which the chef was working.  There were no (visible) sous vide baths humming, there were no centrifuges spinning, there were no brigades of sous chefs and stages running the line… hell, there wasn’t even a line!  It was just Chef Costello and one assistant pulling course after course out from behind the counter and quickly plating 30 dishes before they were swept away by the servers. 

The next course, another amuse, was billed as “really cold salmon mousse”, but was actually a cryo-shattered salmon mousse served with salmon roe on delicate wooden spoons.  The frozen mousse started out cold and crunchy, but quickly melted to a decadent and creamy consistency, balanced by the salty tenderness of the roe.  The bite was so pleasing that I smiled one of those mid-chew smiles that violates dining room etiquette but just cannot be helped.

The next course was a freshly-baked pretzel roll served with locally produced goat butter and kohlrabi.  The course was paired with a beer – it was the first time I had seen a beer course on the wine pairing menu, but it worked perfectly.  The roll was soft and sour and studded intensely with giant crystals of salt.  It made me wish the restaurant was one of those “endless breadsticks” places.

Next up was a baked potato consommé with a potato foam, chives and a healthy chunk of sous vide pork.  The broth tasted vibrantly of potato skins, and the classic flavors of the chive and bacon took me back to my childhood, unwrapping the foil from a scalding russet and piling on enough toppings to completely obscure the notion that it was ever a vegetable. 

The next course was one of my favorite dishes of the evening, and perhaps of the year.  It was a piece of roasted butterfish topped with carrot foam with peas and mint.  Spread across the plate was a streak of anise-flavored marshmallow fluff which the chef lightly torched just before service.  The combination of the burnt anise, peas, carrot, mint and butterfish was as divine as the presentation.

The next dish out was a palette cleanser – a melon sorbet with fennel on a bed of sheep’s milk feta.  The combination of the tangy feta and the sweet sorbet was unusual but extremely refreshing.  Although fruit and cheese is combination as timeless as peanut butter and jelly, this presentation turned the pairing into an elegant midpoint for the meal.

Next was another winner – duck liver risotto with risotto, currants, wild onion and finger lime.  Since risotto is typically reserved as the de-facto vegetarian menu option at so many restaurants, I was happy to see that the chef took the liberty of including duck liver in his rendition. 

The meat course came out next.  It was a medallion of lamb loin with an artichoke puree and a spherified béarnaise sauce, served with hemispheres of summer squash.  This course was the only one I found underwhelming.  By this point in the meal, I expected the lamb to be cooked to the oh-so-perfect rare that you can only achieve with sous vide, and accompanied by bright, complimentary flavors.  Unfortunately, I found the lamb to be slightly overcooked, leaving it drier than it should have been.  Although the menu listed artichoke and béarnaise, the flavors of the dish were dominated by the same anise notes that I had already enjoyed a few courses earlier.  I thought the spherified béarnaise sauce was a great concept, but I found it lacking in richness.

Luckily, the next course got everything back on track.  It was a triple-cream cheese served with toasted grass ice cream, a burnt grass sauce and sorrel.  The toasted grass ice cream was a revelation.  It was creamy and sweet, but with familiar traces of grass and hay.  It was a taste I had never experienced before, but it completely worked for me.  Extremely well done.

The meal ended with two more desserts – a goat milk mousse served with strawberry sorbet and buttermilk meringues, and a final taste of chocolate to end the evening.  By this point, we were both pleasantly stuffed and quite inebriated from the generous wine pairing.  Luckily our room was just a few short steps away.  When we awoke the next morning, happy and hungry, a gorgeous, complimentary, more-than-continental breakfast awaited all the guests in the restaurant. 

I had a chance to chat with the Chef Matt Costello post-dinner and ask him about his approach at Inn at Langley.  He’s very humble about his work at the restaurant, and views himself as “out here in the woods just doing my thing.”  Echoing the sentiments of other local chefs, he wishes the Seattle dining scene had more diversity.  When I asked about the modernist technique incorporated in his dishes, he explained that he was self-taught, but had made a visit out to the Modernist Cuisine lab.  He’s also dined several times at Alinea, though he says that it is nothing like what he does.  “Some folks just think I’m Blaine [Wetzel] from Noma and are confused a little.” 

Well, let me set all confusion aside by saying that Chef Costello combination of thoughtfully sourced ingredients and masterful avant garde technique add up to an incredible meal which I will not soon forget.  And, as the menu changes with the seasons and with his whims, I look forward to my next trip back to the Inn at Langley.

All images courtesy of Matt Costello.

I had the recent pleasure of dining at Kirkland’s lowercase waterfront hotspot bin on the lake and I got to spend some time chatting with the newly-arrived chef Paul Hyman (disclosure: this was a hosted dinner).  Chef Hyman’s Louisiana roots were evident in his passion for food (everyone I know from Louisiana is a food fanatic), and his previous positions at highly-respected kitchens in Boston and Portland made him seem like a very natural fit for an upscale Pacific Northwest restaurant like bin.  However, I quickly realized that behind the mandatory Ranch Name + Organic + Popular Cut Served with Locally Grown Seasonal Vegetable (which was delicious, by the way) this chef was secretly channeling his deepest inner geek.

Take, for example, the dinner menu’s only pasta course: Corzetti.  Rather than opt for the more predictable handmade ravioli (which are to Seattle menus as Subarus are to Seattle streets), he chose a fresh pasta that I’d never seen on a menu before. I was intrigued.  The chef came to the table holding a pair of round wooden blocks and explained that they were handmade stamps for the little discs of pasta he served.  Not only does stamping the pasta create more surface area for it to hold sauce (winning geek points already), but these corzetti stamps are only made by a few people in the world and required a trip to Italy just to obtain.  Exclusive, nice.

Click through for more, plus photos of dinner.

After dinner, my dining companion and I followed the chef back to the kitchen, which he had inherited from the Yarrow Bay Grill, the previous restaurant at that location.  Poking around revealed standard kitchen stuff: hotel pans of prepped ingredients, stacks of dishware, boxes of Lucky Charms (presumably for late-night snacking), and a busy line of cooks firing out dishes in rapid succession.  However, towards the back of the spice rack, I caught a glimpse of a mason jar labeled “sodium alginate”.  Then, hiding in plain sight, I noticed a dozen more jars: xanthan gum, calcium citrate, tapioca maltodextrin… all the telltale signs of modernist cooking.  Chef Paul explained that these were leftovers from his previous gig, where he dabbled some in post-nouveau techniques.  He brought them into the kitchen so some of his cooks could play around, but nothing had made it to the menu quite yet.  I smiled and told him I hope something will, one day.  And just then, like an old friend quoting Star Trek, we had developed a kindred connection.  Chef Paul was a secret food geek.

Below are some shots of the dishes he sent out.  In addition, the restaurant boasts a list of 70+ wines by the glass, made possible by an argon-sealed wine cellar that prevents spoilage – the same technology that keeps the US Constitution preserved (except from the Tea Party).  My geek points runneth over.

And now, the dinner gallery.

Perched over the water at Carillon Point, bin on the lake certainly has a lovely view of the sunset.

Ahi Tuna Tartare with White Soy Togarashi Housemade Potato Chips. I found the chips to be a little too brittle to support a scoop full of tartare, but the dish was well-flavored fork fare.

A delightfully smoky pressed, glazed slab of pork belly. The maple-like sweetness was very well balanced with acid from the salad of peppers, pickled shallots and greens.

A very playful slider of Maine diver scallop, prosciutto, lettuce and tomato.  A delicious and welcome alternative to sliders I’ve seen elsewhere everywhere.

An off-menu special worth requesting: house-made chorizo-stuffed quail topped with seared foie gras and apricot compote.  I found that the chorizo and quail together were fantastic, but the intense spices overpowered the foie.  The remedy?  Eat the quail first, and save the foie for your “dessert” – the upscale equivalent of saving all the marshmallows in your cereal until last.

Cedar sheet roasted sturgeon with clams, spinach, crème fraiche and caviar.  The whole dish was Pacific Northwest in-a-bowl, but the real star was the spinach. It soaked up the fresh, briny flavor of the clams and tasted like an earthy version of the sea.

A sampling of the dessert offerings.  Of particular note: the peanut butter ice cream in the chocolate P B & J cream puffs took me back to a childhood jar of Jif, and the sweet cream espresso pot de crème was an especially-welcomed lighter dessert.  Unfortunately (and surprisingly, given the chef’s heritage) I found the beignets to be a little dense.

Not shown, but highly recommended: Martinez Ranch Lamb Shank, Corzetti with Winter Squash
Sage Brown Butter, Almonds, Ricotta.

I had the recent pleasure of a visit to the newly-opened Sip at the Wine Bar & Restaurant in downtown Seattle.  I’m typically cynical of places that 1) are chain restaurants, and 2) have both “wine bar” and “restaurant” in the title.  However, I’m happy to report that the folks at Sip exceeded my expectations, in general.

The first defining feature of Sip is its location – directly across the street from the architecturally fascinating Seattle Public Library.  And although the restaurant’s design isn’t quite as extreme (no curvy iridescent escalators), the wrap-around picture windows and dimly-lit ambiance take full advantage of the location’s urban scenery. 

As you might imagine, the wine list is extensive, offering both local and international bottles.  Bottles start at $25, glasses start at $7, and if you’re a fan of variety, you’ll be happy to know that all wines by the glass are also available by the half-glass.  I chose to start off the meal with a gin cocktail in a burnt sugar-rimmed glass.  It was a slightly sweet-and-sour, and a nice accompaniment for Sip’s salty and seared appetizers.

I enjoyed the tender and well-seasoned Vietnamese Caramel Beef ($12), but the standout of the starters was the Bacon & Eggs ($13, pictured above).  The dish is served as a cube of braised pork belly with a soft-boiled and lightly fried duck egg.  I thought this was a great interpretation of the classic combination – salty, sweet, crunchy and… porky.  I also enjoyed the flavors of the pickled beet salad, particularly the crispy beet chips.  Unfortunately, the salad was impossible to consume without spilling half on the tablecloth; for reference, 2” wide olive dishes don’t make good salad plates.

I was excited, as always, to see braised short ribs on the menu.  The dish, $19, was described on the menu as “boneless ribs, parmesan ‘jo-jos,’ arugula salad, meyer lemon gremolata, parmigiano & red wine braising jus”.  What the menu neglected to mention was that the short rib was spiced so heavily with what I assume to be cayenne pepper, that all other flavors were undetectable.  That said, the parmesan fries weren’t bad, and the meat was tender.  The Flat Iron “Chivitio” ($22, described well by blogger and friend Jay at Gastrolust) was a much more pleasant dish, flavored intensely with smoke and char, and topped with the fatty softness of a duck egg.  If I kept duck eggs in my kitchen, I’d put them on everything, too.

I must say, though, that the best dish of the night was actually dessert – the Roasted Sugar Pie Pumpkin Cheesecake ($8).  It was light and velvety, with the vivid flavor of roasted pumpkin.  Well doe, chef  Allison Jester. 

All in all, the food at Sip exceeded my expectations, modest as they were.  However, the menu prices thus far haven’t followed the budget-conscious trend set by some other Seattle joints.  But, if you like to cap off your day of downtown shopping and public library book reading with a glass of wine and a steak, Sip at the Wine Bar & Restaurant is a fine choice.

Full Disclosure: I got free food, but that doesn’t pay for my opinion.

Usually when I threaten to order half the menu at a restaurant, I’m joking.  But at Lark, I was quite serious.  Located on an easy-to-miss block of Capitol Hill, this gem specializes in intricate, small plates with bold flavors and surprising combinations.  For example, the roasted eel with saba and new potato salad ($12, pictured above, left) paired a predictably sweet and sticky eel fillet with a most unlikely and delicate (you guessed it) potato salad.  This was one of my favorite dishes – my only regret was sharing it with three other people. 

Lark’s menu is designed for family-style ordering, but with more than 2 people at your table, each plate portions out to an amuse-bouche or so.  As a result, we nearly ended up ordering most of the menu!  Every dish was delectable and I appreciated the variety of our dinner, but I couldn’t help feeling unsatiated.  I respect the “small bites” philosophy and I enjoy that manner of eating, but with flavors so compelling, there was a discord between my stomach and my wallet.

Even so, I would recommend Lark for foodies and adventurous eaters. Of particular note were the Carpaccio of Yellowtail with preserved lemons and green olives ($15, pictured top right), the Crispy Liberty Farm duck leg with watercress and pomegranate salad ($11, pictured middle right), and the Valrhona chocolate hazelnut mousse with cocoa ladyfingers and candied hazelnut ($8, pictured bottom right).  You may want to consider ordering two of each!

Have you ever walked into a place and immediately felt like you’d found what you’ve always been looking for?  That’s how I feel about  Bricco della Regina Anna (or “Bricco” for short).  Bricco is a restaurant and wine bar located on the main drag of upper Queen Anne, on a sleepy block that’s also home to Betty, Chocopolis, and the boarded-up shell of the former Queen Anne hardware store.  The best thing about this location?  I can walk to it!  But don’t let that color my review – being within my promenade-radius is not a requirement for a great eatery.

A freestanding ledge loosely segregates Bricco’s dining room between dinner guests and passers-by who have stopped in for a glass of wine.  The latter group is quite fortunate: the wine list, carefully selected by Wine Director Andrew Bresnik, is formidable.  This isn’t surprising, given that the back wall of the dining room is a window to their walk-in wine cellar.  But if you don’t know your Semillon from your Chardonnay, don’t fret.  The wait staff is not only helpful and knowledgeable, but non-judgmental – if you can swallow your ego long enough to ask for a recommendation, you won’t be disappointed.

It’s more than just the wine that keeps me coming back to Bricco, though.  For starters, the first page of their menu lists only cheese and salumi.  In my opinion, this should have been the 11th commandment.  The rest of the menu is composed of frequently-changing, à la carte salads, panini and entreés ($4 to approx. $18).  Though the menu is small, everything is exquisitely executed.  Chef and owner Kevin Erickson has hit a bulls eye with his balance of traditional and inventive bistro fare.  And most of the dishes are so rich and beautifully presented that I feel nether guilty nor hungry when the meal is over.  A few of my personal favorites: smoked trout salad with roasted beets and crème fraîche ($12), smoked salmon bruschetta ($4), and lamb sliders (pictured bottom left).

I’d recommend leaving room for dessert, too.  Bricco’s roasted pears with huckleberry honey, aged balsamic vinegar and mascarpone is heavenly.  Throw in a glass of port, and you’ve just enjoyed the kind of leisurely decompression that’s normally reserved for European poets.

Contrary to rumors that the restaurant was up for sale, the folks behind Bricco are actually expanding its horizons.  Starting soon, Bricco will feature a full alcohol bar, complete with the sophisticated libations Seattleites have come to expect from expert mixologists.  The owners are also opening Moshi Moshi Sushi (name unconfirmed) in Ballard.  If they manage to create the same restaurant charisma as they’ve done with Bricco, I’ll be first in line, chopsticks in hand!

[photo (clockwise from upper left): cheese and salumi platter, beef tenderloin, lamb sliders, Nutella panini]

On a recent visit to TASTE, I was very impressed with not only the atmosphere and the quality of the food, but also the karmic value of my dinner.  In the last two years, TASTE has managed to source 69% of its ingredients from local farmers, infusing over $1M back into family-owned farms.  Particularly relevant to today’s economy, TASTE’s dedication to supporting small and local farms is commendable.

Executive chef, Craig Hetherington writes,

“As a chef, it is my responsibility to support the local farmers.  It is my goal to ingrain that responsibility into everybody who comes on board so that when they move on they have that sense of awareness.”

But, if you just wanted to feel warm and fuzzy, you’d build a garden out of used Prius tires and pay a dozen mixed-race orphans from developing nations a living wage to grow biofuel.  No, you’re actually hungry too.  So its a good thing that the food at TASTE is pretty killer.  My favorite dish was their “flight and bites” sampler ($13, pictured top left).  It includes an open-faced pulled pork sandwich, a fried calzone stuffed with italian sausage, and a grown-up mac & cheese, each paired with a taste of three different Seattle beers.  Also excellent was the farro risotto ($7/$17, pictured middle left) topped with locally foraged chantrelle mushrooms.  Disappointgly, I was underwhelmed with the seared halibut, which although perfectly cooked, lacked any discernable flavor.  Good thing they have excellent blended table salt (which you can purchase to take home).

Recently joining TASTE is pastry chef Lucy Damkoehler, formerly of Seattle’s Andaluca and New York’s Gramercy Tavern.  Lucy executed admirably on an apple tart with peanut butter ice cream ($7, pictured lower left).  The delicateness of the pastry, complimented by the paper-thin apple slices was presented artfully (it looks like a division problem – geeks like math ).  She topped the peanut butter ice cream with a pinch of sea salt, which brightens the flavors until you are nearly forced to smile.

Whether you’re hungry after a long day of art watching, or just in the downtown corridor looking for a great meal, suspend all your preconceptions about museum food and head over to TASTE.

Take for example, the Sizzling Toban Beef ($8.50 on the small plates menu, pictured above).  I was very impressed with the depth of flavors that emerged from this simple preparation.  Had the plate not been hot enough to fry an egg, I probably would have licked it clean.

The main course dishes were also quite enjoyable.  I was pleased with my Cha Su Pork Fried Rice ($10.50) and pleasantly surprised by the generous portions of both the rice and soup entrees.  If you’re an impatient eater, you may want to bring a fork – the chopsticks-only approach to rice eating is an acquired skill, and requires persistence.

However, it is the atmosphere, more than the cuisine, that defines Boom Noodle’s identity among Seattle’s Americ-Asian eateries.  In the most pierced and inked corridor of Capitol Hill, the restaurant stands out as clean and precise, like a Japanese IKEA with good food.  The conspicuous arrangement of tables and communal bar top strikes me as un-accidental: people are here to be seen.  And what a scene it is.  The whole place is loud and energetic, with Capitol Hill’s walking works of urban art studding the sparse decor.  If you’re looking for a hole in the wall, you’ve come to the wrong place.  But, if you’re looking for a great modern import of Japan’s richest flavors in a lively setting, I’d highly recommend Boom Noodle.

photo credit: Boom Noodle