R.I.P. Three Iconic Seattle Restaurateurs
Peter Cipra, Christina Choi, and Carmine Smeraldo: All left indelible marks on Seattle, all left us too soon.
Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jan 17, 2012 at 09:00AM
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In the space of one dark month, three great Seattle restaurateurs passed away: Peter Cipra (Labuznik), Christina Choi (Nettletown), then—just last Wednesday—Carmine Smeraldo (Il Terrazzo Carmine). Each was a genuine legend.
The first time I ate at Labuznik I was a green restaurant critic—and a nervous one. Restaurant circles in the late ‘80s abounded with tales of Peter Cipra, the taskmaster in the kitchen whose notorious high standards resulted in more than just lusciously sauced renditions of Eastern European veal chops and rack of lamb. Would I hear him from my table, shouting at his kitchen minions? Worse—would I do something wrong? One apocryphal story told of the poor fool who dared complain to Cipra about the restaurant’s policy of only serving three entree choices per table. (The perfectionist chef believed he believed he couldn’t do justice to more than that per order.) By the time Cipra was through “talking it over” with this diner, the story went—well let’s just say that guy probably didn’t become a regular.
I have no idea if the story is true—hewing then as now to my policy of anonymity, I never met Peter Cipra face-to-face—but his food attested to his perfectionism. Before it was fashionable Cipra was butchering his own meats and personally cooking everything that left his kitchen. That first meal I ate there—and every meal thereafter till he closed Labuznik in 1998—was carefully glorious. I savored my first wild morels in Cipra’s dining room.
Carmine Smeraldo also trafficked in luscious food, Italian, but he will be primarily remembered for fostering another Old World value: hostmanship. Carmine was the original schmoozer—the heir apparent to another restaurateur’s restaurateur, Victor Rosellini—with a pitch-perfect instinct for making guests feel important and a skill for training servers in the art of the serve. (A good number of the Italian houses around town are staffed by at least one or two Carmine alums.) Thus his gorgeous Pioneer Square dining room became the haunt of Seattle’s establishment brass, who used Carmine’s (does anyone call it Il Terrazzo?) like a private club, and whose loyalty to their favorite restaurateur ran deep.
To wit: After my Top Ten restaurants issue came out a few years ago—and Carmine’s wasn’t among them—I received a scathing letter from a Carmine’s regular, a Seattle honcho who wondered if I had a brain in my head. (He phrased it more colorfully than that.) He went on to extol the place in such glowing terms, it actually amounted to a sweet tribute. Except for the parts where he called me names.
Christina Choi would no doubt be amused to find herself in the company of such old-school guys, for this young pioneer was nothing if not new-guard. Before she opened her groundbreaking fusion restaurant Nettletown —sort of Swiss food meets Asian food meets the Pacific Northwest forest floor—she was a professional forager, scouring the wilderness for its edible plenty. Nettletown, then, was that plenty on a plate, combined in ways so novel and delectable—lemongrass elk meatballs with pickled fiddleheads and burdock root, a peanut butter and turmeric salmon sandwich—you could literally feel your mind stretching open as you ate.
In designating heretofore overlooked natural ingredients gourmet-worthy, then never sacrificing taste in the process, Choi—as humble and unprepossessing as the natural world she revered—pioneered a whole new paradigm in Northwest Cuisine. One of my personal professional disappointments of 2011 was that she closed the closet-sized Nettletown just as I was about to name it one of the Top 25 restaurants in Seattle.
Of course now we know why she closed the place: She was exhausted by the aneurysm that would end her life four months later.
All three of these pros raised Seattle dining to a new level. All of them changed this city for the better. Here’s hoping the afterlife has a big kitchen, a classy dining room, and a fertile forest floor.
Tags: Nettletown, Christina Choi, Rest in Peace, Il Terrazzo Carmine, Labuznik
