Food & Drink
Best New Restaurant Decor
Our new crop of restaurants is reversing the overdone Ikea-meets-thrift-store trend with eye-catchin
Staple & Fancy’s wall with an old cigar advertisement (see photo above): When crews were renovating Ballard’s historic Kolstrand Building, they unearthed a painted sign proclaiming a former tenant as a “dealer in Staple & Fancy.” Though those words are on the second floor of the building, Ethan Stowell named his newest restaurant after the…
The Next Wave of Tastemakers, 2011
A roster of men and women who are poised to become the Seattle dining scene’s next notable names.
Neil Robertsonpastry chef The man whose subtlety with flavor and illustrious stints at both Canlis and Mistral Kitchen made him Seattle’s biggest name in pastry, left his post at Mistral Kitchen earlier this year to go out on his own. But he’ll be back soon: Robertson (here, munching on one of his specialties, the French…
Who’s Serving Who? The State of Service in Seattle
The customer may not always be right, but don't we have any rights?
There’s an American Express poll that repeats like a broken record inside my brain. It’s dated by now—a restaurant critic mentor quoted it to me a decade ago—but the gist is that the majority of people make the decision of whether to return to a restaurant based on the service. Not on the food. Not…
Book Bindery: Best New Restaurant 2011
A Queen Anne spot where environs are just as elegant as the food coming out of the kitchen.
True, chef Shaun McCrain has an impressive background that includes Thomas Keller’s fine-dining beacon Per Se in New York City. And his signature dishes, such as the pork belly and melon appetizer ($14) and caramelized scallops ($25), are unapologetically focused on technique and composition. But that doesn’t impress as much as the fact that the…
Revel
Fun, accessible, spicy Korean dishes in a supremely likable, upbeat space
We’re admittedly a bit of a broken record when it comes to chefs Seif Chirchi and Rachel Yang: The couple’s first restaurant, Joule, serves some of the best and most original globe-trotting cuisine going in Seattle. Now at Revel, the casual “street food”–inspired Korean spot they opened in Fremont last winter, they’ve done it again:…
Sushi Kappo Tamura
We named this Eastlake sushi spot the Best New Restaurant of 2011.
What it brings to the table: Spine-tinglingly fresh fish shimmering from the sea, with a focus on sustainability and seasonality. Move over, Shiro’s and Nishino: This is the best sushi in Seattle—and it’s also the most consistently stellar restaurant to open this year. After decades of deserved praise, the two sushi powerhouses—Shiro’s and Nishino—have been…
Pike Street Press
Or how Sean Brown went from cattle ranching to custom printing.
Talk about a career change: A year ago, Sean Brown was working a cattle ranch in the southern Utah mountains; today, the Kirkland native is the proprietor of new Pike Street Press, an all-in-one letterpress design studio, custom-print shop and gallery tucked under the bustling Market hillclimb. “I learned how to letterpress while in Utah…
Wood Grain for the iPhone
Lazerwood skins are almost more exciting than the new iPhone itself.
You might want to change that setting to “sent from my iPlank” after snapping your constant companion into a new Lazerwood iPhone skin. Working with graphic designers and artists (such as fashion illustrator Lisa Lee) on limited-edition design runs, Squire Park husband and wife Apryl and Erick Waldman accent their stylish iPhone 4 veneer covers…
Tarboo for Her
The great minds behind Tarboo finally have a ladies line.
Never underestimate the power of a woman. Last year, Pun(c)tuation shop creative director Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes and designer Matt Noren collaborated to create an in-house men’s line for the shop (called “Tarboo,” after the Hood Canal inlet) and, while their handmade, lumberjack-like shirts got an enthusiastic response from local dudes, their biggest fans were women clamoring…
Looking Good in Layers
Club Monaco manager Sean Frazier creates dapper, preppy appeal with Northwest-ready layering pieces.
WHY WE LOVE THE LOOK:When in doubt, put on another layer. That is style dogma according to Frazier, who layers (multiple) timeless, classic men’s silhouettes at a time to suit life in all-over-the-map Northwest temps. “I’m drawn to anything I see that has the potential to go over, under, around or with other pieces, like…
The Vashon Island Diet
Why hundreds of local residents have gotten on board—and dropped hundreds of pounds.
MOST PEOPLE AGREE THAT dieting is easier when you do it with a buddy. If you live on Vashon Island, diet buddies are everywhere. That’s because a new diet plan—called the “TQI Diet” (“to quiet inflammation”)—has become so popular on the island that an estimated 15 percent of the adults there have signed up for…
The Mystery of D.B. Cooper
It's the 40th anniversary of D.B. Cooper’s daring escape, one of Seattle’s most enduring crime myste
A few crumbling $20 bills. An airline boarding pass. A pink parachute. A black, clip-on necktie from J.C. Penney. This is all that remains of a legendary highjacking, and it fits neatly into a cardboard box at the FBI office in Seattle, part of a long-dormant investigation. Dormant, that is, until this past August, when…
Restaurants Blending Their Own Wines
Seattle restaurants and Washington wineries join forces to create signature blends that shine.
At Seattle’s Canlis restaurant, great wine is as essential as great food. With 14 consecutive Grand Awards for its wine list from Wine Spectator, an 18,000-bottle cellar and 2,500 selections on its 100-page wine list, Canlis has a dedication to wine that reaches far beyond that of most fine dining restaurants. But having the best…
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