Nosh Pit

Slideshow: Inside the Ridge Pizzeria

A handful of industry types open another family friendly spot on Greenwood Avenue.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jan 13, 2012 at 09:30AM 1 Comments

A new neighbor for Ken’s Market: The Ridge, located at 7217 Greenwood Avenue North.

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A new neighbor for Ken’s Market: The Ridge, located at 7217 Greenwood Avenue North.

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At 2,200 square feet, the space boasts plenty of seating.

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Including this elevated area. A back room accommodates large parties.

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Or hunker down at the counter and watch the pies fly.

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The Oliver’s Twist (named for the bar down the street): Rosemary, sweet onions, bacon, mozzarella, and a truffle oil base. Behind it is the meaty Lardude.

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The owners had originally imagined a parlor room for games like shuffleboard and skee-ball—an idea ballyhooed by many locals. Coombs says those plans are on hold for now.

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The Ridge, open for lunch and dinner, doesn’t do delivery, but take-out is available. Salads and sandwiches round out the menu.

The most recent addition to the Phinney Ridge boomlet is, appropriately enough, The Ridge. The pizzeria and bar—open as of Thursday—is brought to you by a roster of familiar names: Chris Navarra (Prost, Die Bierstube, Feirabend), Chris Gerke (Nickerson St. Saloon), Larry Wikan of Columbia Distributing, and Tom Griffith (Ten Mercer, T.S. McHugh’s).

The affable Matt Coombs is manager. Before falling in with the above brood, he’d been looking to open his own place but “didn’t find something I wanted to hang my hat on.” Here he’ll be overseeing production of between six and eight specialty pizzas named after neighborhood landmarks: a school down the street, a couple of businesses, the fire department. Though the booze flows freely (full bar, baby), kiddles are most welcome—the Ridge proudly bills itself as family friendly (it’s a neighborhood thing).

Get a look at the bar, those promising pies, and more in the slideshow.

All photos by Seattlemet.com photographer Lucas Anderson.

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Pizza, Phinney Ridge, First Look, The Ridge

First Look: A la Mode Pies Opens Thursday

Online pie delivery service gets a permanent home on Phinney. Take a look inside before the doors open.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Nov 07, 2011 at 02:15PM 4 Comments

Bourbon butterscotch pie. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Bourbon butterscotch pie. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Coffee, pie and ice cream. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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The shop’s merchandise includes shirts with saying like ‘Home Slice’ and ‘Pie-curious’. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Apple and ginger pear pie. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Pie-makers at work in the theater kitchen. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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On display in the pie case. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Pie-bound apples. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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A La Mode founder Chris Porter outside his newly brick-and-mortar enterprise. Photo: Lucas Anderson

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Porter adds finishing flourishes to a Mexican chocolate mousse pie. Photo: Lucas Anderson

The arrival of A la Mode Pies is the latest installment in what’s shaping up to be quite a year for openings on Phinney Ridge. Owner Chris Porter founded his pie business as an “online bakery” in October 2009. Last week he moved his operations out of the kitchen at Knee High Stocking Co. and will open the doors of his “little neighborhood pie café” Thursday at 7am.

Porter said he always planned to open a cafe. “I did it kind of backwards.”

The shop, located at 5821 Phinney Ave N, will serve all the pies currently listed on the website, as individual slices and whole pies. Porter is also bringing back the petite pies he used to sell, which is essentially a pie for two. He’ll serve espresso from Caffe Umbria and ice cream from Bluebird, which opened its own outpost last month less than a mile to the north.

“It’s A la Mode Pies, so you’ve got to have pretty good ice cream,” he says. Bluebird also created a signature flavor for A la Mode based on Porter’s tropically fruity Blue Hawaiian pie.

Pie-philes can also buy merchandise to aid in baking, consuming, serving or generally declaring one’s love for pie. Some time in the next year, Porter says he’s planning to expand into savory items, namely quiche.

It’s not terribly difficult to remember when the shop is open: 7 to 7 seven days a week. The space has just a handful of seats and a glassed-in kitchen where one can watch pastry chefs at work. Porter says he’ll continue the free delivery that helped him build his business, from 10 to 2 every day.

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Tags: Phinney Ridge, Delivery and Take Home, Pie, Lunchtime Delivery

Trending: Cheese

Seattle loves the stinky stuff. Here are the cheeses we’re choosing right now.

Posted by: Tiffany Ran on Mar 23, 2011 at 11:00AM 1 Comments

What cheeses kept you warm this winter?

Photo: Stuart Mullenberg

In the Trending series, Nosh Pit talks to local food providers, shop owners, chefs, servers—whoever’s appropriate, really—about those consumables Seattle can’t get enough of right now. This week: cheese.

1. DeLaurenti ’monger Connie Rizzo told us customers have been buying hearty Alpine cheeses to get them through the winter months—gruyere, comte, Beaufort. Also popular at DeLaurenti: the soft and smelly Winnimere from Jasper Hill Farm.

As the weather warms, Rizzo predicts customers will gravitate towards softer, fresher cheeses like Camembert and brie. And since now is the time fresh goat cheeses are becoming available, she’ll be stocking those. Try the version from Tieton Farm and Creamery in Yakima.

2. Local cheeses like Camembert-style Dinah’s from Kurtwood Farms on Vashon Island, are popular at Melrose Market’s The Calf & Kid, said owner Sheri LaVigne. She said many people ask for Dinah’s after feasting on it at Sitka and Spruce next door. LaVigne anticipates that Camembert-like Nonna Capra goat cheese from Yarmuth Farm—which has a limited season “from late spring to early fall” —will be a hit during the summer.

3. Dinah’s Cheese is also a favorite at Picnic in Phinney Ridge. Owner Anson Klock noted too that customers request harder, sharper cheeses in the winter months, such as the sharp and tangy aged cheddar from Fiscalini Farm in Modesto, California.

4. Fondue is popular in the winter, so Paris Grocery has kept the shelves at its Western Avenue shop stocked with Swiss and Alpine cheeses like gruyere and comte, according to social media manager Rachel Eggers. Lately, she’s seen a heightened interest in washed-rind cheeses like Abbaye Sainte Mere from the Normandy region of France.

Good tip: Eggers said people often opt for grab-and-go cheese because they think they have to buy the precut slabs behind the glass counter. But vendors are almost always willing to cut you a smaller piece—that’s true at supermarkets as well as specialty shops.

5. Cheesemongers across the board have seen a persistent interest in raw milk cheeses. Spanish Table cheesemonger George Calvo says all three of the Iberico raw milk cheeses he sells (cow, goat, and sheep) are well-loved by his customers.

Come summer, Spanish Table will offer soft-ripened goat cheese along with specialties like Argentinean provoleta, which is delicious when grilled, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with oregano. Yum. Can we have that right now?

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Tags: Downtown, Capitol Hill, Cheese, Phinney Ridge, Food Trends in Seattle, Trending

A Second Mioposto Is Opening in Phinney Ridge

A full bar and an all-year patio distinguish the new Greenwood Ave restaurant.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Feb 17, 2011 at 02:59PM 3 Comments

The team behind Mioposto of Mount Baker will open a second restaurant in Phinney Ridge this spring.

UPDATE 8/23: The project has been scrapped, owner Jeremy Hardy tells Seattle Met.

Mioposto, Mount Baker’s beloved come-as-you-are neighborhood joint and one of Seattle’s favorite family drop-ins, is opening a second location in Phinney Ridge. Owner Jeremy Hardy anticipates the restaurant at 7404 Greenwood Avenue North should be ready for business by mid-April.

Hardy says the Phinney Ridge newbie will uphold the same menu, though it will open with just dinner, with lunch possibly following; breakfast isn’t in the cards. While the spot will certainly cater to families (the Mount Baker kitchen is situated next to a playground), Hardy noted it “will be a little more grown-up,” alluding to a full-service bar. Another Phinney-only feature is the 50-foot patio that will stay open year-round, a welcome addition considering the 25-capacity dining room.

Conversations about opening another Mioposto surfaced about a year ago, and the charmer of a neighborhood, with its strong sense of community, seemed a natural fit, Hardy added. As for neighbors, he and his crew are in tasty company: 74th St. Ale House and Carmelita are a stone’s throw away.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Seattle Restaurant Openings, Restaurant News, Phinney Ridge

Phabulous Phinney Pig Out: A Good Reason to, Well, Pig Out

Dine out October 14, help Phinney Neighborhood Association Soup Kitchens.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 13, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Get piggy at the Phabulous Phinney Pig Out.

Ballard Ave gets a lot of love these days—and rightly so—but let’s not forget another a.v.e. worthy of kitchen crawling: Greenwood. The residence of such charmers as Carmelita, Stumbling Goat, and Oliver’s Twist, the Phinney Ridge sleeper does the tummy good.

It’s also doing the community good. The above places, along with Prost, Picnic, and 20 others, are taking part in the Phabulous Phinney Pig Out. That means some of their proceeds from October 14 will benefit the neighborhood’s soup kitchens. Look for the doors with a balloon and you’ll know you’re helping out while hogging out.

Oink, oink, kiddos.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Phinney Ridge, Food Events and Festivals, Greenwood