In 2023, the hot trend was girl dinner: a meal of snacks, served haphazardly, in the absence of judgment. The meze platter at Berna’s Bakery & Café in Gilman Village is what happens when girl dinner grows up—lady dinner, perhaps. Snacks as a meal, but graceful and poised.

Having tasted Berna’s simit at an event well before the Issaquah café opened in June, I’d been meaning to pay the Turkish bakery a visit. By the time I arrived, shortly before they closed on a lovely early autumn Friday, the selection of börek, poğaça, and other dough-wrapped delicacies had been decimated. I took this as a hint to try the meze platter.

At the center of the patterned tray, the single thick, round bread seemed too meager to last through all five dips (a sixth bowl held housemade, rice-stuffed dolma). It turned out this was a strategic measure to ensure we had warm bread throughout the meal, and the café happily refilled my stash with a second round, freshly heated.

Each dip tasted like a neon version of itself when all I’d eaten before was pastel. The hummus, red peppery muhammara, smoky eggplant, and minty cacik battled to radiate the freshest flavors. Eking out the win, though, were the creamy carrots, shredded and bathed in garlicky yogurt. Or, perhaps, I was the winner, as I lingered leisurely over my colorful platter of lady dinner on the porch, under the final rays of fall sun.