Nosh Pit

Restaurant Shifts and Shakeups

Le Gourmand extends its run, a new Derschang joint, Cafe con Leche opens, and more.

Posted by: Brandon L. Bye on Apr 27, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Bruce and Sara Naftaly at Le Gourmand

OPENINGS
Cafe con Leche
Former restaurant-on-wheels Paladar Cubano is set to reopen as brick-and-mortar Cafe con Leche on May 1, according to press materials. Expect plenty of traditional dishes, including Cuban sandwiches plus Cuban-style coffee.

Med Mix
The Neighbor Lady isn’t the only new face at 23rd and Union. Med Mix is off and running, reports Central District News, serving everything from fried chicken and fish and chips to gyros and cheesesteaks.

UPDATES
Le Gourmand
Owners Bruce and Sarah Naftaly have answered the curtain call and moved the closing date of their restaurant from June 2 to June 30, reports The Stranger.

COMING SOON
Pan Africa
According to Seattle Weekly, owner Mulu Abate promises not one but two new (neighboring) restaurants across the street from his now-closed Pan Africa. One, which will keep the name Pan Africa, will feature East African and Ethiopian dishes. The other, named Lovage, will offer soups, salads, and sandwiches—“it won’t have anything to do with African cuisine,” says Abate. Both places are expected to open this summer.

Tippe and Drague
Beacon Hill blog reports the formerly white Rockit Space building is now red —a sign the soon-to-be alehouse is inching closer to opening.

Tallulah’s
Linda Derschang has a new project planned for 19th Avenue East, according to Capitol Hill Seattle. Tallulah’s, named after Derschang’s daughter, will have a “very Capitol Hill vibe,” she told the blog. So, taxidermy and filament light bulbs? Damask wallpaper and mustachioed bartenders? We won’t know for awhile—the project is a year out from opening.

Tom Douglas Falafel
Tom Douglas has confirmed plans for open a falafel joint next to Paramount Theatre. The restaurant titan’s team has been engaging in some serious “testing and tasting” for months now, which puts the spot on track for a Fall opening.

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Tags: Tom Douglas, Linda Derschang, Le Gourmand, Pan Africa, Cafe con Leche, Med Mix, Tippe and Drague

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.

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Tags: Le Gourmand, Bruce Naftaly, Sara Naftaly

Beware Falling Prices!

Trend of the month: Restaurateurs across town are repositioning themselves a little lower on the food chain.

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Feb 13, 2012 at 09:00AM 2 Comments

Le Gourmand’s little downmarket sister Sambar.

Time was not so long ago when a restaurateur who wanted to up the popularity and lower the accessibility threshold of his or her restaurant would simply open a downmarket adjunct next door. Maestros like Bruce Naftaly at the (sob) soon-to-be-late Le Gourmand would open adjacent bars like the (sob) soon-to-be-late Sambar; the lesser then serving as a kind of literal and figurative anteroom to the greater.

Think Serafina and Cicchetti. Flying Fish and On the Fly. Elemental and Elemental Next Door.

These days the trend appears to have morphed into something else: upscale restaurants downscaling themselves.

Back in October the spendy French jewel in the heart of Pike Place Market, Campagne, became the more accessibly priced Marche Bistro and Wine Bar. (It already had a downmarket adjunct, Cafe Campagne.) Last week Spring Hill in West Seattle stunned the gastronomosphere by lowering price and concept to become Ma’ono Fried Chicken and Whisky, in response to a city’s rapturous embrace of Spring Hill’s weekly fried chicken nights.

Now this week, Restaurant Zoe plans to reopen in its new digs on Union, having fled Belltown and big prices to adopt at least three of the biggest trends currently dominating Seattle dining: kitchen garden, Capitol Hill address—and, yes, a “loosened-up” price point.

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Tags: Restaurant Zoe, Restaurant Marche, Serafina, Critic's Notebook, Spring Hill, Cafe Campagne, Flying Fish, Campagne, Sambar, Le Gourmand, Ma'Ono Fried Chicken and Whisky

Restaurant Shifts and Shakeups

This week: Regent Bakery and Café opens in Capitol Hill, West Seattle loses Avalon, and Branzino’s new chef has big plans.

Posted by: Anne Larkin on Feb 10, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Brightly colored pastries keep company with savory hot pots at the new Capitol Hill Regent Bakery and Cafe. Photo courtesy of their website.

OPENINGS

Pomegranate Bistro
The sunny Redmond restaurant is adding a bar—Pombar —on Thursday, February 16. The Bistro website says that to celebrate the opening, happy hour will go on all night, from 3:30 till the bar closes at 10.

Ben and Jerry’s
The Greenlake ice cream shop re-opened Thursday after getting new owners and a remodel, says My Green Lake. Now we just need another sunny ice cream-worthy weekend.

Regent Bakery and Café
The new Pine Street outpost of the famed Redmond bakery opened Wednesday on the corner of 14th and Pine, reports Capitol Hill Seattle. The shop does, of course, have pretty Japanese-meets-French pastries, but to our happy surprise, also a full-on savory Chinese lunch and dinner menu with items like hot pots and fried rice. And booze! The new restaurant plans to capitalize on the neighborhoods nightlife, with hours from 11 to midnight and a full bar.

The Amber Den
After a softly-open first week, the laid-back Ballard spot is now officially open. Eater Seattle’s got photos, and it’s the sunniest wine bar we’ve ever seen.

Paseo
Fremont Universe brings the good news that Paseo reopens today, after a long, Cuban sandwich-less winter break.

COMING SOON

Hot Cakes
For the past 4 years, former Theo chocolatier Autumn Martin has been providing Seattle with decadent treats, first in the form of chocolatey bake-at-home jarred cakes, more recently with cookies, hand pies, and sauces. She’s been selling at farmers’ markets and in a few retail locations, but Rebekah Denn of the The Seattle Times says that Martin just signed a lease for her very own space on (where else) Ballard Ave and has plans to open in May.

Five Hooks Fish Grill
Recently shuttered Tenoch Mexican Grill atop Queen Anne will soon be replaced by a “renewable seafood” restaurant, according to Eater Seattle.

CLOSINGS

Big news. Le Gourmand and Sambar
Bruce and Sarah Naftaly are are closing down their seminal Ballard restaurant and companion cocktail spot in June, after 27 wonderful years. Cookbooks, baking, and family time will replace the bustle of kitchen life for the Naftalys. More here.

Avalon
After just over a year, this fine-dining option in West Seattle is closing its doors. Owners told the West Seattle Herald that the rent was too high, the location was far from ideal, and that maybe there’s only room for one fancy restaurant in West Seattle. Or maybe not.

663 Bistro
One of Tom Douglas (and our) favorite I.D. BBQ spots was temporarily shut down by the Health Department, says The Stranger. …We did say “dodgy.”

SHIFT CHANGES

Branzino
After hopping around from Verve to Oddfellows to Terra Plata, Chef Garrett Michael Brown seems to have finally settled at Branzino, where he’s planning to revamp the menu and revivify the restaurant.

RN74
A new chef and perhaps some big menu changes for Michael Mina’s Downtown French restaurant. Seis Kamimura of Spago and Boka (among others) is taking the helm, and though he was trained at the French Culinary Institute, expect “bold interpretations” of the classics.

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Shift Change, Pomegranate Bistro, Ice Cream, Sambar, Le Gourmand, Seattle Restaurant Closings, Bar Openings, Bar Openings, Closings, Branzino

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.

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

Le Gourmand Turns 25

Celebrate all summer with three courses for $45

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Jul 07, 2010 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Bruce and Sara Naftaly at Le Gourmand

Bruce Naftaly, one of the original culinary maestros in this town, not only invented Northwest Cuisine, he opened a restaurant on the ragged edge of Ballard that would become its most thrilling laboratory.

Twenty-five years ago Le Gourmand opened its doors. And now—one design overhaul, one new Parisian bar, and countless glorious French sauces later—Naftaly and his wife/business partner Sara Naftaly want to honor their loyal patrons with a special dinner deal.

Come for dinner Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday nights this summer and choose among Naftaly’s own favorite dishes to enjoy in three courses for just $45.

Dishes like his sheep’s milk blintzes. Wild steelhead with gooseberry-dill sauce. Sauteed rabbit with shiitakes and sage. His simple, stunning, flower-strewn salade composee.

This is a sensational deal folks. Run don’t walk. But first…call.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Le Gourmand, Prix-Fixe, Northwest Cuisine

Friday Night Specials: October 23

Can’t decide where to eat tonight? Try Rover’s, Canlis, or Le Gourmand.

Posted by: Leah Kraus on Oct 22, 2009 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Imagine this with hearts of palm, chorizo sausage, and scallops, and you’ve got yourself a scrumptious meal at Canlis.

Dig in, Seattleites…

Rover’s (one of our favorite restaurants in town) is dishing up marinated diver sea scallops with Champagne Sabayon and Osetra caviar, $24; marinated geoduck with Asian pear salad, rice vinegar, and petite arugula for $16; and spot prawn with thumbelina carrot, matsutake, toasted marcona almond, and uni nage, $18. Don’t miss out on pastry chef Andrea Terrenzio’s dessert special: lavender panna cotta with concord grape coulis and pepper meringue, $9.

If you’re in the mood to share, try the honey-glazed, whole-roasted Muscovy duck at Canlis (another one of our faves), prepared with fennel and black pepper jam and priced at $84. We’re told it makes a wonderful first course for a party of four. Also available is Osetra caviar served with cauliflower, apple panna cotta, cauliflower couscous with dill and shallot, pickled apples, and apple vinaigrette, $30; and seared scallops, butternut squash, hearts of palm, and chorizo sausage, all flavored with garlic and paprika, $18.

Or at Le Gourmand, split a $17 salad composé comprised of organic lettuce, hazelnut vinaigrette, Italian blue plums, Mongolian red pears, roasted beets, and sautéed chanterelle mushrooms.


LOOKING FOR MORE? 40 choice eateries to sate every craving—and budget

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Tags: Le Gourmand, Canlis, Rover's, Friday Night Specials

Friday Night Specials: September 11th

Here’s what’s fresh at Waterfront Seafood Grill, Le Gourmand, and Dinette.

Posted by: Rachel Solomon on Sep 11, 2009 at 09:00AM 0 Comments

Mushroom-stuffed rabbit saddle with chantarelles at Le Gourmand

The September sun is still smiling over Seattle. Celebrate Indian summer with under-the-sea specials at Waterfront Seafood Grill. For $30, try the grilled onaga with sweet chili glaze, served with steamed baby bok choy. An ulua (pompano) with green papaya salad and furikake rice cake goes for $30, or try a $34 monchong with a macadamia-nut crust, cane rum, and hala kahiki sauce, served with roasted sweet potatoes. For $38, don’t miss the pan-roasted opah lobster curry broth, mango and lobster relish, and mixed herbs.

The chefs at Le Gourmand, however, are already over all this summer stuff. They’re serving up a seven-course tasting menu for $80 (plus the cost of bread ) featuring the wild mushrooms sprouting around the region. Warm your palate with radish soup with Claudio Corallo chocolate, then dig in to the second course: foie gras wrapped in a sausage, served with a sauternes demi-glace and a black currant compote. A ragù of lobster mushrooms is the third course, and the fourth is a gratin of local albacore tuna and home-grown tomatoes and basil. The sweet fifth course dishes up a home-grown damson plum, lemon-thyme, and champagne sorbet, a perfect segue to the sixth: mushroom-stuffed rabbit saddles with chanterelles. Polish off the meal with a simple salad of wild greens and edible flowers.

For a less fussy feast head to Capitol Hill’s Dinette for a short rib pastrami app with Gruyere cheese, sauerkraut, and caraway for $6, or a snapper ceviche served with chilled squash soup, Taggiasca olives, and cherry tomatoes for $12.

Don’t know where to dine? Find hundreds of reviews from Seattle Met critic Kathryn Robinson here.

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Tags: Le Gourmand, Dinette, Waterfront Seafood Grill, Friday Night Specials

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.

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Tags: Le Gourmand, Northwest Cuisine, Bruce Naftaly