Nosh Pit Blog

Openings

First Look: Skelly and the Bean

Tour Zephyr Paquette’s new farm-fancy eatery before it opens Thursday.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 20, 2012 at 12:10PM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Salvaged barn wood lines the wall, while an equally salvaged chandelier serves as a weathervane.

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Capitol Hill’s flurry of new arrivals continues February 23, when Skelly and the Bean opens its doors in the space that most recently housed Easy Joe’s (and before that, the original Tidbit Bistro). Skelly populates a quieter stretch of the neighborhood north of the hopping Pike-Pine and Broadway corridors.

The restaurant is the brainchild of Zephyr Paquette, a longtime local chef who spent three years cooking for Tamara Murphy at Elliott Bay Cafe, and before that worked at Café Flora and Ballard’s dearly departed Dandelion. Paquette somehow managed to put together an entire restaurant without taking out a single loan. Skelly’s tables and chairs were all donated, thrifted, or bought on the cheap with donations from the restaurant’s membership program. A considerable amount of manual labor and some unifying coats of green paint bring the eclectic assortment into harmony, beneath a sky-painted ceiling.

A Capitol Hill Seattle post about the project back in December uses the word “grange,” and the 50-seat space definitely has a charming farm feel. In a lovely twist of fate, the restaurant’s general manager is Jef Fike, who ran the popular bistro Cassis in that very same 10th Avenue address until it closed in 2004. Hit up the slideshow above for a sneak peek at the space, which includes a stained-glass garlic butterfly and a wall of love bearing the names of various people who contributed to making the restaurant a reality.

Paquette has planned a menu that doesn’t let its hyperlocal stance get in the way of having fun. Dishes include a “mystery half-chicken” whose preparation changes daily, and a plate saucily titled “three-way on the side” that consists of any three items from the side dish menu. The tater tots are likely to become one of the restaurant’s signatures, but in SkellyBean parlance they are referred to as “petit paquets.”

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Skelly and the Bean, Zephyr Paquette, Jef Fike, Capitol Hill Openings

Coming Attractions

An Opening Date for Skelly and the Bean

This most unusual of restaurants opens officially on February 23.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Feb 02, 2012 at 09:30AM Speech Bubble 3 Comments

Don’t let that insouciant pose fool you: This woman has been busting her posterior to open later this month. Photo courtesy of Skelly and the Bean.

Zephyr Paquette, a memorable personality in Seattle’s already colorful world of chefs, is less than a month away from opening her restaurant Skelly and the Bean. She has amassed tables and chairs and burnished the floors in rice bran oil. Upended old barn planks now line the walls like some sort of bucolic wooden fence beneath a sky-painted ceiling. She has also set a February 23 public open date.

To say this Capitol Hill establishment is community-driven is a comical understatement. Thanks in part to a membership program she devised last year, Paquette, a veteran of Cafe Flora, Elliott Bay Cafe, and the former Dandelion, is somehow managing to open a 50-seat restaurant without taking out a single loan. She has relied instead on member contributions, the kindness of strangers, and support from friends and acquaintances acquired through her career. And lots of her own manual labor, of course. Paquette won’t say exactly how many members she has, but she’s planning on capping the list soon and releasing a few memberships each subsequent season. She also meets each member in person before bringing them on.

The former Easy Joe’s space on 10th Avenue is now home to a most decidedly mismatched assortment of tables and chairs. Every item in the dining room, says Paquette, was donated or purchased with member contributions. This means every piece of furniture has a story, from the table some friends grabbed from the side of the road while en route to the airport (they still made their flight), to the freebie table from Craigslist. The owners originally promised it to another taker, says Paquette, but revoked the offer once they read about the restaurant.

The menu will also contain its share of stories, like the “Rowley bites” mussel po’boys and geoduck salad, named in honor of sustainable shellfish superstar Jon Rowley. Other items sound like the chef herself: deadly serious about sourcing, but pretty damn fun. There’s the “buckets of rain” dessert (yes, named for the Dylan song) that’s an actual bucket of raindrop-shaped doughnuts with chocolate and jam to dip. Or the secret half-chicken: It could be stuffed, fried, braised—you won’t know till it arrives at the table. But do know this: There will be tater tots, made in-house and dubbed “petit paquets” (har).

In addition to dinner service, Paquette plans to open her space to classes and an incubator series that give young chefs and other un-restauranted talent a chance to do their thing. She’s already signing up chefs for the incubator calendar but is looking for more “upstarts” who might be interested.

Members get a monthly dining stipend and a few other perks, but the rest of us can start making reservations shortly after Valentine’s Day.

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Tags: Coming Soon, Skelly and the Bean, Zephyr Paquette

Tracking 2012

Five Openings I’m Awaiting in 2012

We’ve celebrated the newcomers and mourned the shuttered. Now let’s look ahead.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Dec 28, 2011 at 01:15PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

This year: hair salon. Next year: majorly anticipated bakery Crumble and Flake.

The Internet masses will be slogging through a few more days of “year in review” posts/articles/tweets before 2011 makes its grand exit. Hence I’d like to take a minute to cast an eye toward the future and point out a few restaurants that have me counting the minutes until next year arrives.

Ethan Stowell’s fast casual undertaking
One of Seattle’s most accomplished (and delightfully sardonic) chefs is still working on a series of fast casual establishments under the name Grubb Brothers (along with wife Angela Stowell and business partner Chad Dale). The first joint to open its doors is likely to be Ballard Pizza Co. some time this spring. But the group’s restaurant plans also include steak frites, fried chicken, sandwiches, and more. Hence whatever spot becomes a reality first, chances are I’ll be waiting outside the front window, chanting “o-pen, o-pen, o-pen!” like the ladies in those ghastly old Mervyn’s ads. Hey, nobody accused me of having an active social life. Estimated open: Majorly TBD.

The return of Restaurant Zoe
There is some fast and furious buildout happening over at the former La Panzanella bakery, now home to Oola Distillery and soon Restaurant Zoe (also, Chinese restaurant Lucky 8). Scott Staples’s first restaurant is planning to reopen mid-January in its new Capitol Hill digs. It shouldn’t take a relocation to get diners excited about an enduring favorite. But, nonetheless…excitement. Estimated open: January.

Skelly and the Bean
Zephyr Paquette’s forthcoming Capitol Hill restaurant is many things: an incubator. A community space. An ambitious experiment in membership-based funding. So it’s easy to get sidetracked from the fact that Paquette is a pretty badass cook. And said badassery will be in effect Wednesday through Saturday, when Paquette will be in the kitchen and her multi-faceted space is a restaurant, plain and simple. Estimated opening: Late January or early February.

Crumble and Flake
Pastry chef Neil Robertson garnered a loyal following at Canlis, cemented it at MistralKitchen, and now he’s adding to the roster of great food and drink spots creeping down Olive Way. What’s currently a hair salon will soon become Crumble and Flake, a tiny shop that Robertson will fill with a takeout counter and whatever cream puffs, cookies, and croissaints he feels like conjuring up in the tiny shop’s kitchen. Estimated open: April-ish.

Queen of Ballard
Don’t get me wrong, I’m plenty interested in Manhattan Drugs, the Capitol Hill spot from Laura Olson and Chris Pardo, that’s probably opening in the very first days of 2012 (in other words, late next week). But the small plate Scandinavian restaurant the couple is planning over in Ballard puts an interesting spin on the neighborhood’s heritage and will be unlike any other place I can think of in town. Estimated open: January or February.

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Tags: Seattle Restaurant Openings, Restaurant Zoe, Ethan Stowell, Queen of Norway, Skelly and the Bean, Ballard Pizza Co, Crumble and Flake, Zephyr Paquette, Neil Robertson

Two Local Chefs Receive Scholarships to Quillisascut Farm School

Elliott Bay Cafe’s Zephyr Paquette and Taste’s Arthur (Zack) Chamberlain will be milking goats and making cheese.

Posted by: Parisa Sadrzadeh on Jul 27, 2009 at 08:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

Milk me.

Elliott Bay Café ’s Zephyr Paquette and Arthur (Zack) Chamberlain, sous chef at Taste, are this year’s recipients of the Seattle Chefs Collaborative scholarship to attend the Quillisascut Farm School.

“Among our qualified candidates, the committee felt that Zephyr and Zack had backgrounds that would give them a basic understanding of what to expect at the Quillisascut Farm Schools and futures that would enable them to share their education with fellow chefs, co-workers, and employees,” Seth Caswell, Seattle Chefs Collaborative president, said in an e-mail. “It is essential that the scholarship recipients demonstrate leadership qualities in their kitchen.”

During their stay Paquette and Chamberlain will learn how to care for small livestock, milk goats, and make various types of cheese. They will also aid in gardening, composting, and building vegetable beds, and visit other area farms to learn about pastured poultry, organic orchard cultivation, and beekeeping and honey production.

The culinary program was created in 2002 to help foster relationships between local farmers and chefs and for culinary professionals to learn the origins of sustainable food.

Other Seattle restaurants that have sent chefs to Quillisascut include Café Juanita , Canlis, The Herbfarm, Le Pichet, and Rover’s.

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Tags: Taste Restaurant, Zephyr Paquette, Elliott Bay Cafe, Arthur Chamberlain, Quillisascut Farm School, Chefs Collaborative