Before Ethan Stowell’s Anchovies and Olives found itself a James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, GQ’s Alan Richman was already deeming the restaurant one of the nation’s top 10 best to open in 2009. And before that, Seattle Met was deconstructing the mythic hype surrounding the Cap Hill fish house.

THE LATEST PROPERTY in restaurateur Ethan Stowell’s metastasizing empire went mythic right out of the blocks. For months before its opening, local food cognoscenti had been jawing in earnest: Was the menu really going to be all fish? Would the wine list really hold only whites? The February night it opened the newborn restaurant instantly inherited a slew of preconceptions based on Stowell’s earlier ventures. Preconceptions that my visits proved completely wrong. Hence: The top five things you thought you knew about Anchovies and Olives. Continue reading review…