The Rest of the Best

40 of the city's top restaurants.

By Kathryn Robinson

Lark

Small Plate It’s a mountain lodge! It’s a monastery! Lark’s raw timber rafters crowning an austerity of white, its unexpected location (across from Seattle U), and its bold small-plate dining conceit hit Seattle like a lightning bolt in 2003. It created an immediate buzz and vaulted the many-teensy-portions m.o. into Seattle’s collective consciousness. Owner-chef Johnathan Sundstrom’s seasonal array—divided on the menu into cheeses, vegetables and grains, charcuterie, fish, and meat—is fired with invention. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either a particularly adventurous and intimate way to dine, well worth the mounting ka-ching of the tab and the wait for a table (Lark only takes reservations for parties of six or more); or it’s toy food for posers, slyly spendy, and who wants to wait for that? The former holds true as long as you anchor the meal with smoky duck or a sizable chunk of tender pork belly, then accessorize with sides and cheeses to average two to three plates per diner. Service wavers between aloof and exceptional. 926 12th Ave between Marion and Spring Sts, First Hill, 206-323-5275; larkseattle.com. Closed Mon.

Le Gourmand

French It would make a terrific movie: In the ’70s, a self-taught foodie from the Bay Area was hired to wash dishes at a French restaurant, where he apprenticed to—and soon replaced—the headline chef. With his scrupulous devotion to fresh, regional ingredients (back when “imported” held the big cachet) the young toque Bruce Naftaly went on to invent Northwest Cuisine, which decades later he continues to refine daily in his glorious French dining room, Le Gourmand. Naftaly is a saucier’s saucier, bringing unfathomable depth and complexity to dishes like rabbit loin in peach-and-basil sauce, sole-and-shrimp mousseline, and rack of lamb in cognac—all, of course, carefully foraged from the best local sources. Trusty servers guide diners through both menu and excellent wine list with perception. One comes to this elegant little room in the most unfashionable part of Ballard not for the scene, of which there is none, but for the sheer joy of seeing a maestro at work. Naftaly’s wife Sara runs the spanky little Parisien bar next door, Sambar, which makes a fine place to savor a postprandial digestif. 425 NW Market St at Sixth Ave NW, Ballard, 206-784-3463; legourmandrestaurant.com. Closed Sun–Tue.

Lola

Greek / Small Plate One day the gonzo ingenuity of Tom Douglas will cook up an organic Japanese-Jordanian-fusion taco kitchen–tapas bar. Until that day comes we have Lola, Douglas’s homage to his wife Jackie Cross’s Greek heritage, and his greatest departure so far, doing three-meal-a-day duty as the house restaurant for downtown’s Hotel Ändra. As ever, the food shimmers with vitality—minty feta and hot roasted-red-pepper spreads on grilled housemade pita; a salad of arugula, pickled peppers, local peaches, and Greek pastrami (cured, natch, in-house); a caramelly goat tagine with shallots and dates; a grilled lamb burger, complete with chickpea fries and tamarind ketchup—fusing global influences and impeccable Northwest ingredients with his signature offhand perfection. The coolly Mediterranean place bustles loudly. Some of the best breakfasts in Seattle happen here. 2000 Fourth Ave at Virginia St, Downtown, 206-441-1430; tomdouglas.com.

Long Provincial Vietnamese

Vietnamese Tam Nguyen escaped Vietnam as a 12-year-old, and now brings the cuisine of its villages to the downtown sister of his heralded Tamarind Tree. The elegant bilevel room, quite purple, feels windowless and generic until the plates start hitting the table; exhilarating preparations of specialties both familiar (chili-lemongrass chicken, an array of terrific spring rolls) and exotic (lily-blossom halibut, braised coconut in browned pork). Vegetarians and tipplers are well served here—the Thai chili watermelon martini is a treasure—but so are comfort- and adventure-foodies alike. Serves food till 2am on weekends. 1901 Second Ave at Stewart St, Downtown, 206-443-6266; longprovincial.com.

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Published: October 2009