Dinner Plans

Take 5,000 square feet, insert crazy angles, add one architect and one chef, fold in four culinary trends, and stir. Serves myriad hungry Seattleites.

By Jessica Voelker

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Caveman cuisine: (Above) Guests at MistralKitchen might opt for clams roasted in the wood-burning oven and bathed in a white-wine, preserved-lemon, and garlic sauce, or tandoori leg of lamb with white beans, yogurt, and pomegranate. Or maybe both.

The oblong shape presented opportunities—and challenges. The original entrance was at the skinny tip of the iron where Eighth Avenue meets Westlake. When you walked through it, Kundig realized, you confronted the restaurant from a disorienting side view. So he moved the main entrance further down the wall along Westlake and opposite the row of open kitchens, adding a long corridor that leads guests out into the main dining room, where they can take in the charms—both primitive and pyrotechnic—at the restaurant’s inner core. They repurposed the original entrance to serve farmers and purveyors. “It’s that whole ‘Where does my food come from?’ thing.” said Belickis. “It comes in the door in full view of all the guests, and within minutes it can be on someone’s plate.”

Walking through the construction site, Belickis paused in front of “the Bijoux,” a yet-to-be-enclosed rectangle facing the bar. With no permanent furniture, he said, the Bijoux could be a late-night lounge or a private dining room decorated to match any party a customer might dream up—a Moroccan theme maybe, with silky pillows lining the walls.

Looking at the bald steel cage, you could almost see it: handsome people lounging on low-slung sofas, sipping cocktails from gold-etched goblets. Maybe a belly dancer or two. You could almost see the revelers’ faces, lit up in that peculiar way that faces light up at certain restaurants—the rare places that manage to truly transport and enchant you, though you can never quite pinpoint how.


Tom Kundig (Principal) and Les Eerkes (Associate), Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, 159 S Jackson St Ste 600, Pioneer Square, 206-624-5670; oskaarchitects.com
William Belickis (Chef and Owner), MistralKitchen, 2020 Westlake Ave, South Lake Union, 206-623-1922; mistral-kitchen.com