You probably have pals in Las Vegas possibly you’ve seen them publish images of Truffles N Bacon. The restaurant serves what its web site describes as “American consolation meals with a twist,” the twist being a type of Vegasian maximalism. There’s a dish with ube cream cheese sandwiched inside a tall stack of vivid inexperienced pandan pancakes. One burger has tater tots in it, one other one is topped with a mac and cheese patty. There’s bacon jam — Truffles N Bacon’s signature condiment — in all places. That is meals untouched by food regimen tradition, meals whose target market is TV producers; Truffles N Bacon has been Instagrammed one million occasions but additionally featured on the Meals Community’s Ginormous Meals Present and Netflix’s Recent, Fried and Crispy. Proprietor Jacqueline Lim isn’t a celeb chef, however her meals has develop into at the least a micro movie star.
And now that meals has come to Seattle, courtesy of Lim’s daughter, Roxanne Brooks. She simply opened Barrel & Bacon in Interbay within the former dwelling of Champagne Diner, a restaurant that shares a whole lot of Truffles N Bacon’s DNA, a few of the identical dishes, and its penchant for bacon jam.
Brooks and her husband personal the cell bartending firm Sip Faucet Tow and have mulled the concept of doing one thing with Truffles N Bacon for a very long time. “We’ve truthfully simply all the time talked about opening one thing up collectively, after which the chance got here,” Brooks says.
Champagne Diner had closed in April after 5 years in what looks like an unlikely location on a not-particularly-walkable stretch of Elliot Avenue, down the road from Holy Mountain Brewing and Outdated Log Cabin Distillery. In the event you’ve pushed from Ballard to Pike Place Market, you’ve handed by the storefront, even for those who didn’t discover it. “We don’t have a whole lot of curb enchantment,” Brooks admits. When the couple seen the area, nonetheless, “we simply had this imaginative and prescient.”
The large distinction between Barrel & Bacon and Truffles N Bacon is that the Vegas restaurant does breakfast and lunch whereas Barrel & Bacon is a drinks-and-dinner spot. Whereas Brooks has taken a few of her mother’s “best hits” — the mac and cheese burger is there, don’t fear, or possibly fear — she’s additionally tweaked the idea to incorporate extra “little bites” that might accompany a contented hour. And whereas the made-for-Instagram ube breakfast side of Truffles has made it to Barrel within the type of ube French toast, that dish is now a dessert.
However the factor Brooks sounds essentially the most enthusiastic about isn’t an import from Truffles however an unique dish, the katsu fried hen and waffles. “All people that’s tried it’s like, That is the very best hen and waffles in Washington,” she says. Whoa, she’s going to assert greatest within the state? “Okay, advantageous, Seattle.”
Barrel & Bacon is positioned at 945 Elliott Avenue and open from 4 to 10 p.m. Thursdays by means of Mondays. Parking is out there in lots.
