When our annual Restaurant of the Year issue goes to press, a few things happen: The food team catches up on sleep, email, and what our loved ones have been up to. Our event peeps put on one hell of a Secret Supper. And a week or so later, usually before the issue even hits the stands, the editorial staff starts speculating amongst ourselves once again—who might it be next year? 

This seemed like a ludicrous question to be asking in January, but that’s when I had my first meal at FlintCreek Cattle Co. Since that dinner, which wowed an entire table of nitpicky home cooks, Eric Donnelly’s house of underappreciated proteins was the restaurant to beat.

Not that it was an easy decision. But our September Best Restaurants issue explains how, as I put it, “Seattle Met’s restaurant of the year came to be a game meat destination with cattle in the name, from a chef previously defined by fish.” It’s not on newsstands quite yet, but here’s my extended love letter to FlintCreek, by way of a preview.

Yesterday, nearly 150 readers who bought tickets to this year’s Secret Supper opened an email to find out where they’d be dining that evening. Of course, this isn’t a beauty contest: It was the clever compositions like venison pate and lamb crepinette that wowed us—not to mention the great service. But damn, is that dining room built for a good party.