Nosh Pit

Le Gourmand’s Greatest Hits Menu

Three courses. Sixty dollars. Twenty-seven years.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Mar 29, 2012 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

Diners have two more months to enjoy the talents of Bruce and Sara Naftaly in Le Gourmand’s gleaming dining room. Photo: Bob Peterson

Two months from Monday, Le Gourmand will permanently close the doors of its curiously charming space on the eastern edge of Ballard. As promised, owner Bruce Naftaly has created a menu of favorite dishes from the restaurant’s 27 years. While the dishes will evolve along with the season, the current menu is online now. Diners can choose three course for $60, or opt for a special seven-course tasting menu. The entrees and plenty of other dishes reflect Naftaly’s formidable background as a saucier, as well as the stubbornly changing season.

In this month’s issue, critic Kathryn Robinson examines the many legacies Naftaly and his wife Sara have bestowed on our dining community. I could end this post by saying that Naftaly is likely pouring even more of his heart and soul into his food now that the menu has become a swan song. But the man has been in the kitchen for every single dinner service, except for a brief hospital stay eight years ago, giving his all night after night for the better part of three decades. And that’s a legacy worth revisiting before June 2.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Le Gourmand, Bruce Naftaly, Sara Naftaly

Le Gourmand, Sambar to Close

A pioneering laboratory of Northwest cuisine says adieu June 2.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 09, 2012 at 11:10AM 10 Comments

Bruce and Sara Naftaly at Le Gourmand. The restaurant will spend its final months regaling diners with a menu of greatest hits.

June 2 will be the last day of business for Le Gourmand, the pioneering restaurant that has stood on NW Market Street for 27 years, as well as its adjacent cocktail den Sambar.

Calling someone out of the blue and inquiring into various personal and business affairs is not my favorite part of this job. But when I reached chef-owner Bruce Naftaly this morning, he sounded downright excited. You see, Naftaly and his wife and business partner Sara are very hands-on. So much so that there’s no taking the night off and leaving the kitchen in the hands of a sous chef. Bruce Naftaly says he has cooked every dinner Le Gourmand has served, except for a few weeks eight years ago when he landed in the hospital. Dining at his restaurant “is like having people coming into your studio."

That pace, that schedule, get rather tiring.

“It’s wonderful and passionate and intense,” says Naftaly, “but you can’t do anything else.”

After Le Gourmand and Sambar bid Seattle farewell in June, the chef plans to finally write that cookbook he’s been planning for a decade or two, and continue teaching classes. Sara is interested in pursuing a bakery, and plans to work on a cocktail book with longtime Sambar barman Jay Kuehner. Also high on the couple’s to-do list: Spending more time with their son.

When Naftaly opened Le Gourmand back in 1985, his concept was a bold experiment for the time—classic French fare, made with seasonal, locally sourced Northwest ingredients. Today, the farm-to-table concepts he helped pioneer are practically gospel to the current generation of chefs, many of whom were born after the restaurant opened. When the Naftalys opened Sambar in 2003, no bars “were handling cocktails like you would an haute French sauce,” says Naftaly. Now the spirited experimentation espoused by Kuehner and other bartenders is all but expected when Seattleites go out for cocktails.

And while the economic downturn and the current trend toward casual dining have affected the Naftalys’ bottom line, Bruce says the decision was personal rather than financial.

So, Seattle, you have little more than three months to make a final visit to Le Gourmand. Starting in March the restaurant will offer a farewell menu featuring the greatest hits of nearly three decades. “I’m still extremely passionate about the whole thing, and I want to go out while I’m still feeling that way,” says Naftaly.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Closings, Seattle Restaurant Closings, Le Gourmand, Sambar, Jay Kuehner, Bruce Naftaly, Sara Naftaly

Why I Love Bruce Naftaly

I mean, besides the fact that he invented Northwest Cuisine

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Apr 01, 2009 at 08:00AM 5 Comments

Bruce Naftaly just called to tell me he’s finally entered the 21st century. Yep: Le Gourmand got its first website.

I cannot be the only one who finds this seriously charming.

Naftaly has always followed his own star. As a young home cook in the Bay Area he knew which backyard trees had the sweetest oranges and which gardens to raid for the best tomatoes. He arrived in Seattle to study music, wound up being “discovered” as the uber-locavore he was, then gave up music for more culinary arts.

At The Other Place and Les Copains in the 1970’s, he cultivated sources for the seasonal funghi and fish and berries and meats and produce that became his calling card. Seattleites had never encountered food so fresh.

Of course it didn’t hurt that he was also a saucier’s saucier, a skill that came in handy when he opened Le Gourmand in 1985.

Night after night he has wowed diners with Northwest renditions of fathomless French classics. And through the ‘90s, when every other restaurant in the world was learning how to flog itself on the World Wide Web—Naftaly didn’t pay any attention at all. He had other fish to poach. (Northwest fish.)

Until now…a time when even the least of the self-promoters are learning the necessity of publicity.

And even the highest-end culinarians are learning about bargain menus.

“We’ve just added our version of a Recession Menu,” he quipped, adding that diners could still expect the quality—some would call it perfection—they’ve come to depend on from Le Gourmand. Three courses. $45.

I love Bruce Naftaly.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Le Gourmand, Northwest Cuisine, Bruce Naftaly