When I was a student at Cornish College of the Arts in the late ’90s, still learning what I liked about food, I was deeply in love with a restaurant called 611 Supreme. On East Pine Street between Belmont and Boylston, 611 Supreme was a dreamy French-ish bistro of my never-traveled-anywhere teenage dreams: shabby chic with orange walls and exposed brick and pendant lights, it offered a small but creative menu of crepes, chops, wine, and cocktails.

These crepes were nut-brown, thanks to the inclusion of buckwheat flour, and flavor combos were mostly classics like ham and Gruyère but sometimes unusual (to me), such as a crepe stuffed with anchovy puree, spinach, potatoes, and boiled egg, garnished with lemon. Specials were always based on hyper-local ingredients, something you didn’t see a ton of in Seattle back then.

I remember being introduced to black cod at 611 Supreme. My first chicken liver pate was there, and my first taste of herb butter, and my first bite of bone marrow. It’s where I learned the enormous difference between packaged bread and freshly baked bread, and why Starbucks wasn’t even close to the best coffee Seattle had to offer.

The space at 611 E. Pine is now a pawn shop, but I can’t walk by without seeing 611 Supreme inside. It was one of the restaurants that taught me to love restaurants, and more than 25 years later, I still think about it with great regularity.

SMALL WORLD

Well, I was recently reminded what a cozy place Seattle still can be. On a rainy night way out north in Lake Forest Park, I met some friends for pizza and drinks at The Local 104. Open since 2018 in a former mini-mart building on Lake Ballinger Way, this place had certainly sailed under my radar, but the parking lot was packed on a weeknight, so the neighborhood folks clearly know what’s up.

The restaurant’s got a smart strategy: Everyone who walks in the door gets hit by a pleasantly smoky wave of pizza smells from the wood-fired oven, which is cleverly situated right in front of the main entrance. Co-owner Tony Vujovich isn’t far behind, doing the greeting and seating.

Gregarious and jovial, Vujovich spent almost two decades at Larry’s Markets, opening new stores, working in specialty produce, and hobnobbing with small farmers. “Some of these farmers were so small that back then, they’d deliver to the supermarkets, so I’d get to know them. And then, because I’m a curious person, in my free time, I’d go out to these farms and go out and talk to them about the unique stuff they were growing.”

Later, Vujovich found himself working for various winemakers in Woodinville’s wine district. That’s how he accidentally transitioned to the pizza world, originally making his neo-Neapolitan pizzas as a popup operation.

Vujovich’s long connection to small Pacific Northwest farms transcends the produce category at Local 104, as local producers are all over the menu. From the list of inventive pizzas, our team agrees on the Quixote, made with Spanish chorizo, dates, parsley, and cream, and the Aries, featuring harissa, tomato, lamb merguez sausage, oil-cured peppers, and preserved lemon. Both are cheesed with fior di latte mozzarella and manchego. Beneath their magnificent and elaborate toppings, the pies have a crisp bottom with a chewy, yeasty interior, the flavorful crust at once sturdy and light.

Our table of three consumes every speck of both pizzas, and a massive fried chicken thigh sandwich besides. As prophesied by Vujovich, one of us could probably finish a pizza solo — especially when the flavor combos hit as deliciously as these did. The gorgeous, premium Iberico chorizo served alongside the sweet medjool dates is a real showstopper, as is the combination of chili-based harissa with lamb merguez. I’d never have thought of putting dates on a pizza. Vujovich tells us the dates are tossed in sherry vinegar and pepper before going on the pie. It’s brilliant. We’re learning here.

FULL CIRCLE

Co-owner Margaret Edwins also comes around to chat with us briefly. We gush over how much we loved everything and ask about her background. She says she used to own a restaurant years ago on Capitol Hill.

I really did almost burst into tears when she said the name 611 Supreme. “I’m so glad to have found you again!” I blurted out, babbling in the next breath about what 611 Supreme had meant to me at age 19. In a flash, it made perfect and absolute sense that this particular person was behind this particular menu, if only as a co-collaborator, and that I’d just gotten such an education out of something as simple as a pizza.

The ricotta ice cream, by the way, was spectacular — seasoned with the same preserved lemon from the pizza and served with stone fruit. Have you ever seen preserved lemon served on ice cream? Cheese ice cream, no less? Simple but genius.

It took me decades of bopping around Seattle to meet Margaret Edwins and Tony Vujovich, but I’ve learned about food from both of them my whole life. As it turns out, I’m still learning from them today. Perhaps you have been too. Either way, we’re all very lucky to know where to find them these days, and that it’s just up the street.

Small town, eh?