Nosh Pit

First Look Inside Altura

Take a photo tour of the upscale Italian eatery, opening October 5 on Broadway.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Oct 04, 2011 at 02:04PM 1 Comments

Photo: Lucas Anderson

Chef Nathan Lockwood stands in front of a 10-seat dining counter where guests can gawk at the open kitchen across.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Chef Nathan Lockwood stands in front of a 10-seat dining counter where guests can gawk at the open kitchen across.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

A place setting at the counter. In addition to an a-la-carte menu, Altura offers three, four, and five course menus at $49, $59, and $69. Wine pairings are $27, $37, and $47.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Lockwood rolls out gnocchi for the night’s meal. Yukon Gold potato gnocchi is one of his specialties.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

A place setting.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

The 617 Broadway E restaurant is housed in a century-old building, according to an Altura press release.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

The restaurant, seen here from the mezzanine in the rear, seats 39.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

According to the Altura press release, this angel, which hangs from the mezzanine in the back, was “rescued from a French chapel bombed during World War II.”

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson
A late 19th Century English oak cabinet near the back of the restaurant. View Slideshow » Illustration:

Altura begins service on Wednesday, October 5.

Yup, another big restaurant opening on Capitol Hill.

This one is from Chef Nathan Lockwood, whose last gig was heading up the kitchen at spectacularly appointed Seattle supper club The Ruins. At Altura, the new Broadway restaurant he is opening with his wife Rebecca, the decor is decidedly more pared-down, and features antiques along with wood repurposed from the former Jade Pagoda space across the street. (The site of another new restaurant, modern Cantonese destination Bako.)

Lockwood sharpened his chef skills in San Francisco toiling for Chef Hubert Keller at Fleur de Lys and Suzette Gresham at Acquerello (where he was chef de cuisine). Upscale Italian made with local, seasonal ingredients is his vision for Altura—a sample menu includes agnolotti with squab and pheasant, Madeira jus, and crispy sage and pancetta-wrapped pacific scallops with “late-summer shelling beans, tromboncino, [a summer squash], and blossom.”

Guy Kugel, who was GM and sommelier at Christine Keff’s Flying Fish for almost 10 years, is taking over the wine program at Altura. The list will include local wines along with some Old World stuff. The prix fixe menus—three, four, and five courses are available—come with wine pairing options at each price point (see details in slideshow).

Altura opens Wednesday, October 5 for service. Reservation information is on its website.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Capitol Hill, Italian Food

Cafe Lago’s $100 Take-Home Lasagne

The Montlake restaurant has been doing a 10-person takeout tray for years. Who knew?

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 06, 2011 at 04:09PM 0 Comments

The lasagne in question.

Photo: Cafe Lago

If you order the much-loved lasagne—noodles surrounded by ricotta, bechamel, and tomato sauce—while dining at Cafe Lago in Montlake, it will run you $19.95. You can cut that price in half by ordering a takeout version, but the catch is that you need to gather nine friends to eat it with you. The restaurant offers a one-size-only lasagne to go; it comes in a 10×15×2 inch tray, serves ten people, and costs $100.

If you want to order one, call 48 hours in advance. Lago will even make it in the pan of your choosing—ideal for fakers trying to pass the casserole off as if it was their beloved nonna’s secret recipe—but it should go without saying that your container should be around the same size as the ones the restaurant uses.

Another thing you can take out from Lago: tiramisu. A 15-person portion costs $65 but you’ve got to order it five days in advance due to the complicated processes involved in preparing homemade mascarpone and lady fingers.

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Tags: Italian Food, Montlake, Take Out and Catering

Varro, an All-Day Italian Bar, Opens in October (Maybe November) on Capitol Hill

You likah the Italian restaurant? Bene, here’s another one.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Aug 20, 2010 at 12:18PM 2 Comments

Stylish mid-century Italy, immortalized in the 1960 movie La Dolce Vita, is the inspiration for Varro. The bar/cafe opens this October on Capitol Hill.

I had a chat the other day with Richard Troiani, one of the partners in Varro, the 1,600 square-foot Italian bar opening this fall in the Packard Building at the corner of 12th and Pine.

One of the questions I had for him was: Aren’t there already a lot of Italian restaurants on Capitol Hill?

Yes, agreed Troiani, who closed his eponymous downtown eatery last September. But his new spot distinguishes itself from Spinasse, Anchovies and Olives, Osteria La Spiga, and Tidbit Bistro (to name just a few) in three ways:

1. Concept: Varro is modeled after Troiani’s favorite way to eat in Italy: At casual bars—he compares them to Spain’s tapas bars—that are open all day and into the night. He says such places are always full of neighborhood people who pop in for an espresso in the morning (Varro will serve Lavazza coffees) and come back later for some lunch, and then again in the evening for a beer and a snack. You can stop by for cocktails or eat a full dinner. “It’s all good,” if you will.

From a conceptual standpoint, then, Varro resembles Oddfellows more than it does Spinasse. It’s just the food is Italian.

2. Decor: In contrast to all the sparsely appointed restaurants popping up around the town, Varro will be an elaborately decorated affair with lots of color and a collage of images from 1950s-60s Italy—that highly stylized, highly decadent era immortalized in the movie La Dolce Vita.

3. Price: Troiani has a Class-two commercial hood system in the kitchen. The upshot of this is that he’s making most of the food in a 1,100-degree wood-burning pizza oven. Look for rustically (and, given that oven, quickly) prepared proteins like chicken paillard and roasted prawns with peppers. His menu will include five or six pastas and a Calabrese sausage and peppers sandwich.

Varro’s dinner menu prices top out at $17.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Capitol Hill, Bar Openings, Italian Food