Nosh Pit

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup in Seattle

A sad, soggy forecast looms. Fight back with the ultimate comfort food pairing.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 08, 2011 at 10:15AM5 Comments

Much tastier than Paxil.

Photo courtesy Whatwereeating.com

In some parts of the world, rain is a sign of spring. Here, however, rain is just a sign that you’re in Seattle, and it’s not June.

To compensate, we excel at being indoor people. Thus the reason everyone in your office saw most of this year’s Oscar finalists and has read (the first 30 pages of) Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Thus grilled cheese and tomato soup still sounding like a good idea as the ides of March approach. Endless winter? Fine. So long as melted cheese and tart tomato are involved.

Here are five places for getting your GCTS on.

1. The new thing in grilled cheese is a grilled cheese menu, with variations that feature novel breads and spreads. Grim’s, the Capitol Hill bar and lounge from the lady who brought you Po Dog and Autobattery, offers three variations on the grilled cheese. There’s one with tomato, basil, prosciutto, and gruyere. There’s another with chipoltle spread, pico de gallo, and cheddar. Finally there is the sandwich with truffled leeks, herbs, and havarti. Tomato soup is sold separately.

2. The winningly rustic Row House Cafe in South Lake Union, a place that will remind you of breakfast joints you ate in while visiting friends in small college towns, is also offering riffs on the classic grilled cheese. Five variations named for monuments and museums (the Colosseum, the Louvre, the Smithsonian, etc.) come on Essential Baking breads such as potato and walnut raisin.

These grandly named sandwiches come with grandly named dipping sauces. The “rustic tomato relish” that accompanies the Smithsonian, for instance, is basically salsa. The tomato soup has a lovely chunky consistency, but true tomato people will find it a tad sweet.

3. I’m not in love with everything on the BOKA lunch menu, but the grilled cheese and tomato soup always works. The sandwich is Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheddar from Wisconsin melted between slices of sourdough, the soup is well-seasoned. That’s kind of all you need on a rainy Tuesday.

4. For those of us who’ve taken our love for comfort food to a whole new level this winter, cutting back a bit may be in order. The happy hour at Oliver’s Twist in Phinney Ridge offers a comfort-food compromise: a teeny little cappuccino cup of tomato soup frothed into a foam, and a mini grilled cheese to go along with it. Isn’t this what we’re supposed to be learning from the French, eating a little bit of really rich food? That and not drinking the entire bottle of red wine with dinner, I think.

5. The Latona Pub serves seriously delicious food, and I don’t even have to qualify that with “for a pub.” One of the best dishes on the menu is the grilled cheese and tomato basil soup. The sandwich is made from sharp white cheddar cheese and Columbia City Bakery’s walnut bread. And as for the tomato bisque that accompanies it, well, I don’t know what witchcraft the Three Pubs people employ to make their many soups, but they are consistently world-rocking, a reminder that comfort food should be as exciting, from a flavor perspective, as it is comforting, from a it’s-been-raining-for-six-freaking-months perspective.

Tags: Downtown, Lunch, Soup, Comfort Food, Seattle Food Guides