The Restaurants that Changed the Way We Eat
1977–2003
Toshi’s Teriyaki Restaurant
FIRST TO ESTABLISH SEATTLE’S SIGNATURE FAST FOOD
His name was Toshihiro Kasahara, and the business he launched after emigrating from Japan would ignite a culinary wildfire fed by soy, sugar, and a whole mess of grilled chicken. In 1976, Toshi’s original shop on Roy Street in Lower Queen Anne served a teriyaki chicken plate with a football of rice and a cabbage salad for $1.85. The uniquely accessible ethnic dinner and Tokyo-by-way-of-Hawaii fast-food bargain became an immediate hit, thanks to the styrofoam-busting quantity of its servings and the
sheer yum appeal of its salty-sweet chicken, crispy with char. Through expansion and franchising Toshi’s grew and spawned legions of imitators (some of which kept the Toshi’s name even after Kasahara got out of the business, in 2003). We’ll call that influential: Today within Seattle proper there are more than three times as many teriyaki joints as there are McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and Jack in the Boxes put together.
DESCENDANTS Taco Del Mar, Than Brothers Pho
1974–1986
The Other Place
FIRST TO RECOGNIZE NORTHWEST CUISINE
If Victor Rosellini’s genius was the front of the house, it was the kitchen where his son Robert would leave the most enduring mark. And enduring it was: The Other Place, which inhabited the dark old Dublin House space at Third and Union (then later moved into posher digs in the current Islander Pacific Rim Cuisine space at the tag end of Union), is almost universally regarded as the first world-class restaurant in Seattle; its proprietor, Robert Rosellini, the Alice Waters of the Northwest. He hired Dominique Place as opening chef, who would go on to critical acclaim at Dominique’s Place and Gerard and Dominique Seafood, but his lasting claim to fame was the guy he hired to wash the dishes: an idealistic young epicurean named Bruce Naftaly, who had spent his Bay Area youth raiding just the right garden for the best tomatoes; climbing just the right fence for the tastiest orange. Naftaly apprenticed himself to the chef, then became the chef, and from 1977 to ’79 created at the Other Place the beta version of what would become the farm-fresh locavore movement—in an era when “local” meant little against the cachet of “imported.” Naftaly nurtured the earliest organic sources and cooked strictly seasonally in a way that wouldn’t hit the mainstream for another 25 years. (Sorry, no lemon for your fish—how about a little sorrel?) Naftaly would leave to open Les Copains, then later his stunning Le Gourmand. But the title Naftaly still wears as the Father of Northwest Cuisine dates from his years at the Other Place.
DESCENDANTS The Herbfarm, Union, Tilth
1973–
Ray’s Boathouse
FIRST TO REVERE SEAFOOD
Since opening in 1973 as a fine dining establishment over the shores of scenic Shilshole Bay, Ray’s was a Seattle icon. But not until 1979 did it get great, thanks to a seafood maven named Jon Rowley and a visionary chef named Wayne Ludvigsen. Years before, Rowley had been dining at the 610 when a young waiter named Robert Rosellini served him a plate of fish he could smell coming. Convinced Seattle should have better seafood, Rowley founded his own fish company. When Ludvigsen took over at Ray’s, Rowley found him a quick study and a dazzling talent, and taught him to invest in the best fish (he was one of the first in Seattle to take a chance on a pricey new product called Copper River salmon). In short order, Ray’s was snagging national headlines, putting Seattle on the epicurean map, and creating a powerful culture of fanatically fresh seafood that would influence a new generation of chefs.
DESCENDANTS Flying Fish, Matt’s in the Market
Published: November 2008
