Crashing Corson
Tuscany meets Georgetown in a little farm with big flavors.
The effect, to one navigating the surrounding tenderloin and flinging open the property’s filigreed iron gates, is one of falling through the rabbit hole. Once inside I found myself in a magical courtyard of brick terraces and strutting chickens and raised beds riotous with herbs. Roses and nasturtiums and heady jasmine draped the majestic stone house, and there in front burbled the very fountain from one’s dreams of Tuscany. The bees that Dillon had raised for honey had expired during spring’s schizophrenic weather, but back by the chicken coops the doves he raises “for no good reason” cooed and scratched. Little practice farm, indeed.
We spied Dillon in his tweed cap serenely grilling baby onions, while the chattier Bush worked the gathering crowd with glasses of rosé and chickpeas deep-fried with chili, coriander, and cumin. These chickpeas, Dillon explained during the dinnertime tutorial (apparently an Herbfarm apprenticeship dies hard) were raised by the Alvarez family in the Yakima Valley. Of all the chefs now plying their trade in Seattle, Dillon owns the most recognizable signatures: produce so microseasonal it’s almost feral in its intensity; an improvisational enthusiasm, restrained and elemental and never precious; and always the emphasis on community. But his most appealing trademark remains his sincere belief that it’s not the chef who’s the rock star. It’s the farmer.
But just so we’re clear: Dillon is a rock star. Not for nothing did he walk away with a berth on Food and Wine’s prestigious national list of 10 Best New Chefs last year. Our meal opened with platters of grilled zucchini tossed with marinated sheep’s milk feta, slow-fried pistachios, and—o inspiration!—tart gooseberries. (“I grew these myself,” Dillon announced shyly.) A warm clam and mussel salad with tender butter lettuce and brazen anchovies came next. Big unctuous slabs of black cod were gothically offset by bitter treviso greens from Carnation’s Local Roots farm: a cerebral combination, endlessly fascinating on the palate.
Whenever a plane roared over the roof, everything trembled and we all lip-read for a minute. This may be Tuscany, but it’s Tuscany in wartime.
They all arrived on big glistening platters—a gratifying antidote to the reigning zeitgeist of scarcity—to be passed around the three long tables like at suppertime on grandpa’s farm. The interior of the Corson Building imparts an Old World dreaminess, with its arched windows and white stucco and revealed patches of original brick, decorated with sepia-toned photographs, and lit with the gleaming filaments of raw bulbs. Thanks to concrete floors, acoustics could not have been worse; as evening ripened and the candles threw longer shadows upon the stucco and the merriment grew merrier, nobody could hear a word anyone else was saying. Whenever a plane roared over the roof everything trembled and we all lip-read for a minute. This may be Tuscany, but it’s Tuscany in wartime.
Still, the convivial setup is predestined to succeed, since everyone here is a self-selected food nerd and the food is so stunning. Under the influence of shared victuals and glorious wine and all that yelling, an evening that had begun with awkward stiltedness had bloomed into a gabby love-in. At our table, six of the eight diners were old friends celebrating a birthday, leaving me and my friend as the two outsiders. We united in sincere admiration over the fava beans with pancetta, a sprightly preparation pocked with oil-cured artichoke hearts and fragrant with the mint, parsley, and lovage Dillon had just snipped outside; and the rabbit legs, braised with aromatics; and finally the rosebud slices of hanger steak, tender, marinated in sumac and cumin, and spangled with basil and Dillon’s pickled radishes and wedges of Tonasket farmer Billy Allstot’s heirloom tomatoes. But they were still the birthday party. And we were still the crashers.
“Remember when going to a restaurant was an event the diner could…control?” my friend asked wistfully, and I smiled at the irony. We were picking our way through the one failed dish of the evening—a dessert of mushy apricots soaked in amaretto with biscotti and cheese—and it occurred to me that everything from reserving our seats to occupying them in this earnest communitarian utopia, the project of a sincere idealist, managed to render the Corson Building the most exclusive foodies-only realm in the city. That’s the thing about unrestaurants: They elevate the shared culinary experience over the needs of the diner—and only the most rarefied brand of diner is going to like it. Suddenly a plane revved up, and the good people around our table held their collective breath. “These apricots just aren’t -rrrRRRROOOAAARRR,” mused one, her pronouncement lost for all time.
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Published: September 2008
