‘Twas a fine, fine year to be hungry in Seattle. For ten days I’m reminiscing about just how fine, in my annual recap of the top ten plates of the year.

#9 Madison Park Conservatory opened at the creamy lakeside end of Madison as one of the lookers of the year—and often, with chef Cormac Mahoney at the helm, one of the cookers of the year. The place didn’t quite make my Top 25 Restaurants, plagued as it is with the more-than-sometimes quizzical pairing or execution slip-up…but the wild success of dishes like the Stokesberry Farms roast chicken I savored last February prove that when you’re dealing with artists, inconsistency can be the price you pay for occasional greatness. Yeah it was chicken, but it was organic and sustainable chicken, extravagantly flavorful, roasted golden, moist from stem to stern (no mean trick), lavished with lemon-drizzled watercress, pocked with walnuts, and sweetened with luscious prunes. I’d have licked the plate but I’m pretty sure Madison Park has a rule against that.