Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/101724
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPUR Chefs Dana Tough (left) and Brian McCracken of Spur. PHOTO COURTESY OF BLINDCOCK MEDIA The menu at the stylish Spur Gastropub— which may be the most stylish gastropub in America (so stylish, indeed, that the term "gastropub" may be used with tongue embedded in cheek)—divides its menu into "Food: Seasonal" and "Food: Staples"—though sometimes they can be a bit hard to tell apart, for the seasons in Seattle are long and extended. If you're there for the salmon, try the exquisite sockeye salmon crostini, made with mascarpone cheese, capers and pickled shallots. By all means, indulge in the buttery black cod with rare matsutake mushrooms (loved for their healing powers), the venison tartare with smoked beets (smoked beets?), the slow cooked pork cheeks with beer onion purée and crispy spaetzle. If this sounds like cooking with cojones—well, it's supposed to. The owners say the inspiration is drawn from the hood's pioneer, isherman and (occasional) outlaw roots. Ditto the chow. PHOTOS: NO MARK AT ALL PHOTOGRAPHY You've got to love a restaurant called Blind Pig Bistro—especially when the restaurant is essentially a downhome storefront with distressed wooden tables, and a blackboard menu that looks like it was written by a precocious ifth-grader with a lot of colored chalks. The menu notes, for about half its dishes, that, "King County wants you to know that these items could cause food-borne illness! Cuidado! Peligroso!" As if that would keep the menu fans of Chef Charles Walpole away from his steak bavette with charred eggplant, his razor clam crudo with pimento and his beef tartare with celery root. No rezzies are taken—the place is just too small. PHOTO: JOANN ARRUDA They're all about locavore products at LloydMartin, a casually elegant space that describes itself as "a product-driven restaurant [where they] love homemade food made with . . . ingredients from trufles to elk, foraged mushrooms and seafood from our shores . . ." This translates into dishes concocted with locally grown huckleberries and goat-horn peppers, with red kuri squash and apple cider from just down the road. Chef Charles Walpole updates the blackboard menu at Blind Pig Bistro. The space at Bitterroot is functionally industrial, and the food, well, functionally unique. The style is Northwest barbecue—and who knew there was a Northwest style of barbecue? The style is dry-rubbed, with a choice of four housemade sauces at each table—and there are plenty of artisanal beers and bourbons to wash it all down. Sandwiches are served on a pretzel roll from Tall Grass Bakery. Mac 'n cheese is lavored with your choice of braised greens, bacon lardons, pulled pork, sliced hot links, English peas, roasted red peppers, smoked jalapeños and caramelized onions. The house-cured, smoked pork belly is a taste of heaven. Northwest 'cue should be The Next Big Thing. Bitterroot's "Cowboy Killer" sample platter: smoked half chicken, pulled pork, brisket, baby back ribs, pretzel roll and sides. january 2013 / the tasting panel / 75