No person leaves hungry after Carello’s $95 Feast for the Desk.
At a time when all the pieces appears to be getting costlier, one big-deal meal is getting comparatively cheaper: the tasting menu. As eating places search for new methods to attraction to savvy prospects with smaller budgets, Seattle is rapidly racking up a noteworthy assortment of chef’s alternative multicourse meals for $100 per particular person or much less.
Tasting menus season dishes with a splash of shock, giving cooks the chance to serve limited-supply seafood or experiment with new pasta shapes with out worrying if anybody will order it. For diners, that provides pleasure to the slower-paced servings that flip the meal into an occasion. It feels personalised, rarified, inherently celebratory. A luxurious, now with out fairly the identical price ticket.
After testing what the town’s cooks needed to supply, we collected our favorites, and just a little perception into what to anticipate at each.
Mashiko presents a wide range of inexpensive tasting menus, at lunch and dinner.
Mashiko
West Seattle
Thirty years in, Mashiko stays on the forefront of sushi tradition and an absolute pleasure to dine at. As one of many first sushi eating places within the nation to decide to utilizing solely sustainable seafood, Mashiko holds itself to excessive requirements, but it surely places no such strain on the shopper, whether or not nigiri beginner or omakase skilled. The parameters of sustainability imply even educated diners would possibly discover unfamiliar fish on the menu, and one of many methods the restaurant makes ordering simpler is a slate of tasting menus, two of which match the invoice for this listing, the seven-course vegetarian Midori and izakaya-inspired Tomodachi. The previous would possibly embrace objects like housemade tofu and pickled beet rolls, and the latter the restaurant’s notable miso soup, made every day with a particular fish.
$70/$100 for seven programs
Staple & Fancy retains even the flamboyant menu fairly basic.
Staple & Fancy
Ballard
Ethan Stowell first opened a restaurant on this former industrial constructing in 2010, naming it each for a earlier constructing tenant and for its twin menu of fundamental Italian-Northwest staples paired the four-course, chef’s-choice “fancy” choice. Since then, Stowell has expanded his empire, however Staple & Fancy has held regular, nearly unchanged, the charming classic really feel of the naked brick and wood flooring nonetheless warmed up by the stay fireplace within the open kitchen. The identical varieties of dishes that after felt thrilling and cutting-edge now really feel comforting and basic—heirloom tomato soup, ribbons of Fresno chiles strewn over tuna crudo, and roasted rooster with corn and chanterelles. On Mondays, the meal turns into a fair higher deal, at simply $60.
$85 for 4 programs, wine pairings $50
Hummingbird
Decrease Queen Anne
Pursuit of perfection takes the again seat to creativity and freedom at Hummingbird, in a style of sushi greatest described as Texas-style—all the pieces’s greater, particularly the flavors. The seven-course Fashionable Omakase walks diners by the revolutionary menu, with chef Ji Hun Hong’s maximalism displaying off in texture-focused dishes, just like the uni shooter—a river of vivid, skinny sake floating a trio of eggs (quail yolk, Hokkaido uni, and yuzu tobiko)—or the brilliantly flavored toro zuke (cured tuna) with recent chopped wasabi.
$95 for seven programs, sake pairings $35
Carello’s servers customise the multicourse menu to every desk.
Carrello
Capitol Hill
Carrello’s “Feast for the Desk” family-style parade of dishes shares an appreciation for Italian custom and Northwest substances with its sibling special day restaurant throughout the road, Altura. However Altura is the high fashion costume you solely have motive to put on as soon as each three years, and Carrello is the little black costume you’ll be able to placed on for any occasion. Ideally in an elastic material, because the five-course meal looks like twice that with the extras and huge parts. Servers inquire about diners’ preferences together with any restrictions, customizing every meal, beginning with a platter of chic small bites and, hopefully, ending with the cannoli, as a result of all of us deserve extra bites like that.
$95 for 5 programs, wine pairings $50
Chef Johnny Sullivan expanded Mezzanotte’s menu to incorporate the concise Piccolo Nonnakase, which could embrace this Ricotta Gnocchi.
Mezzanotte
Georgetown
Chef Johnny Sullivan does justice to the Nonnakase idea—omakase meets Italian grandmother—pioneered by his predecessor, whereas additionally including just a little extra accessibility with a pared-down Piccolo Nonnakase. Bold and thrilling, the meal kicks off with a small plate, resembling halved langoustines wearing garlic chile oil, then segues proper into heavier dishes like pork stomach over cranberry beans with salsa verde and salsa tonnato. The restaurant’s silky pasta strands and pillowy gnocchi observe rapidly after. Programs are elegant, parts are affordable, and repair is snappy and attentive. The one draw back to the meal is an odd and nearly full absence of any greens.
$90 for six programs, wine pairings $30
Maripili’s tapas tasting comes out in trios, like this seafood course.
Maripili Tapas Bar
Capitol Hill
Reasonably priced tasting menus usually lack the thrill and creativity of their extra intense, complicated, and costly brethren, however the tapas format at Maripili makes it simple for the kitchen to have just a little enjoyable. A dozenish dishes come cut up into programs, three rounds of tapas, one barely bigger dish, and desserts. The uni flan, with mushrooms in brown butter and a fino sherry caramel, are available a tiny sea urchin–formed bowl, setting the tone for your complete meal: spectacular, cute, and intensely good. Chef Grayson Pilar’s pastry background shines within the dessert, the place the tiny toast exemplifies nice use of trompe l’oeil, hiding wheat germ dacquoise with bread mousse and darkish chocolate ganache.
$65 for 5 programs, wine pairings $35
Prepare dinner Weaver
Capitol Hill
The murals in basement of the Loveless Constructing depicting a Pushkin story, painted for an earlier tenant, really feel incongruous with dishes just like the Korean ssam-inspired slice of pork loin, sauced in smoked scallop, and served on an ideal circle of purple cabbage. However the artwork is charming and wonderful in means that begs for contemplation, very like the quirky and inventive dishes. Additionally they really feel surprisingly pure in a restaurant the place all the purchasers seem like they’ve learn loads of Russian literature. Prepare dinner Weaver describes its meals as “inauthentic Eurasian,” which presents little perception to the eccentric jumble of flavors on the four-course bar tasting menu (which is de facto extra like six programs, due to the extras thrown in—like an intermezzo of honeydew and corn soup with shiso).
$75 for 4 programs
Haerfest’s Chef’s Alternative makes for a simple, no-decisions evening out.
Haerfest
Wallingford
The chef’s alternative tasting menu is a staple of Brian Clevenger’s Common Harvest Eating places, and like its siblings (Raccolto, Vendemmia, Autumn), Haerfest’s offers diners a simple approach to keep away from choices, even when it doesn’t make an enormous departure from the à la carte menu of barely Italian, largely New American, very Northwest delicacies. It’s additionally an excellent place for somebody who could be nervous about giving up management—little right here will push most individuals out of their consolation zone. Whipped feta with wild mushrooms, agnolotti with braised pork, and a grilled half rooster maintain issues hearty and comforting, whereas smaller extras add just a little enjoyable, like brown butter grilled oysters, grilled endive, and an elderflower non-alcoholic mini-cocktail with dessert.
$86 for 4 programs, wine pairings $35
