sitka & spruce bar

it’s the type of delicate food that i’d like to eat everyday. the flavors are decadent, yet not overpowering. to maximize our sampling, we shared three items.

maybe a bit too.... sitka & spruce originally opened a couple of blocks from my home and we were irregular regulars until they moved to their current location. it was a cozy, locavore venue with a communal table and very good food. having visited melrose mareket a number of times to lunch at homegrown (their outstanding neighbor) we finally had a chance to enjoy sitka & spruce in their new digs.
as always, the food was creative, the wine list excellent, and the service outstanding. we shared a variety of plates including the grilled chicken, chickpeas and greens; crepe with spiced pumpkins and labneh; roast vegetables with hen's egg and bagna caoda; sformatino of kurt's cheese with sunchokes & mustard; a mezze of three salads with syrian mountain bread; and beer fried smelt. except for the smelt, which none of the five of us liked, the food was very good--but frankly, unremarkable. here i am the next day and i can't recall a single dish i am dying to go back for more of. maybe i'm just getting too pedestrian in my tastes, or lack an appreciation of the subtleties of their flavors, but i feel like the restaurant took a step up in ambiance by moving, yet moved too far towards 'preciousness' in their menu choices.

big on ambience.... the dining room is the kitchen in this unique seattle restaurant where watching the line cooks prepare the dishes entertains a bit more than the food satisfies. the portions - and there were many - are not overly large. the preparations are interesting and mostly very satisfying. the tab for 4 with tip and after a bottle of fairly expensive wine, came to $300. as entertainment, i'd give this place a solid 9 out of 10. as for food, maybe a 6 or 7.

now the best of both worlds .... with the onslaught of new restaurants hitting the seattle scene, it's hard to stay relevant - even if you're only a few years old like sitka & spruce. but fortunately for sitka, they've moved their operations from the intriguing yet stale strip-mall on eastlake to the truly unique melrose market. with an open kitchen, an open pantry, and really what amounts to a completely open restaurant, any doubts over the ambience at sitka have been completely erased.

most importantly, the food remains locally-sourced and unquestionably exceptional. on a recent visit, the small yet incredibly diverse menu offered us, among other things, la quercia prosciutto w/ persimmons and chanterelles, a wonderful sausage and clam dish prepared in an apple cider broth and homemade saurkraut (the sausages were fresh from the butcher located in the market), an incredibly inventive vegetable dish featuring romanesco w/ anchovy paste and eggs, and a very playful pair of potatoes with creamy goat's milk and black truffles. there were a few things we didn't have on the menu, but given our close proximity to your fellow diners, it appears that everything else was just as beautiful as what we ordered.

sitka has been one of my favorite restaurants in recent years, but now that they've taken over the remodeled auto-mechanic shop in capitol hill, they now really offer the best of both worlds in terms of taste and experience. one tip - if you're paying sitka a visit this winter, bundle up b/c this old building's insulation is nonexistent!


-----02 jun, 2008-----

wow. i had been dying to dine here for quite some time, so i was worried that like many things in life that are built up, my experience would fall short of my expectations. that was clearly not the case here. the food was superb and there was a multitude of options to choose from. we started with a refreshing asparagus soup topped with creme fraiche, and continued with a beautiful and simply prepared hamachi crudo that was the perfect balance of acidity and freshness. we continued with octupus dressed lightly in pesto and bits of pancetta and pine nuts (amazing!) and then arrived pork belly and dandelion greens . . . one of the best dishes i've had in quite some time! we finished the savory portion of our meal with bags of pasta containing ground pork and beef in a beef broth, and to top it all off, a rich dark chocolate tart complimented by olive oil gelato capped off what was one of the best tasting dinners from start to finish that i've had in this city. i loved how dishes could be ordered either half or full portion, and also loved the communal tables where we met some folks from north carolina salivating over the pork belly like us!

in short, if you are a fan of food, what are you waiting for?

the sun had come out, but the cool northwest breeze charged up the streets of capitol hill, nipping us in the shady stretches. one last meal in the city, and i'm so glad nicole decided to take me to the very special sitka & spruce , nestled into the corne

top of their game. seems like they've hit their stride. service = great. food = great. variety = great.

go.

recommended, with reservations. we ate at sitka and spruce last night. beautiful space, though we were seated at a bar with a lovely view of a concrete pillar in front of us. i had called a few days ahead for a reservation and they didn't have anything, but said to walk in because they only reserve half the restaurant. the guy said that if we come before 7 we'd be ok. well, we came at 6:30 and didn't get seated until after 8. holy crap. it was ok because there's plenty to do nearby, including the wine bar next door. service was adequate once we finally got seated, but nothing special. food was good but they're a bit too fond of the sea salt. salad was over-dressed (i like it that way) and some bites were unbearably salty. spot prawns were a tad overcooked, served with the best chanterelles i've ever had in a delicious cognac-spiked sauce, with 2 pieces of inedible burned toasted baguette on top. burned! how such a thing leaves a professional kitchen i have no idea. braised goat was delicious, maybe a bit dry, but really a nice alternative to pork. served with house-made yoghurt. really quite good. they only had 2 dessert items on the menu but were out of one of them.

overall a mixed experience. i'd recommend it, but definitely don't go without a reservation unless you get there right when they open or have lots of time to kill.

quite delicious. i just got back from lunch with a friend at the new location in the melrose market. it really is an outstanding space, bright and airy, and very welcoming. it is my second visit in a week, and i genuinely loved it. the menu reads as slightly precious, and with the prices being somewhat low, i thought the serving sizes were going to be small. i was wrong. the food was anything but precious, and the serving sizes were generous. we were able to share two appetizers, a pate spread across delicious bread with just the right amount of sea salt to cut through the fattiness of the meat, and a rather amazing freshly made hummus, laced with fried mint and harissa, which made it lively and fresh on the palate. we also shared two entrees for lunch, a poached tuna with fried egg, which i could eat every day for the rest of my life it was so good, and a roast squab, which packed a rather amazing amount of flavor in it's tiny little body. a bit of cheese for desert, and what a perfect lunch, it is nice to eat expertly chosen ingredients prepared simply and appropriately, without a lot of fuss or technique getting in the way of flavor and taste. special mention should be made about the wine list, a very wide spectrum of wine to choose from without it being overwhelming in choice, and many by the glass with generous pours. an excellent location, with a flower shop, cheese shop, wine bar, butcher, and sandwich shop all in the same area. absolutely where i will be bringing all of my out of town guests for a uniquely seattle experience.

what a wonderful experience we had today at lunch at the new sitka and spruce on capital hill.
the space is light and clean, the menu was so simple and interesting, loved the opportunity to step up and look at the dishes.
we shared a fresh veggie dish with golden butter sauce, a garbanzo bean salad and lentil/saute kale salad. the price is right and the serving size is good even in the half portion to share.
love the wine list something for everyone. when the space is completed it will be a real dream come true for foodies.
parking is slim but don't give up worth the trouble.

the shops and restaurants at the new triangular shaped melrose market in capitol hill have been slowly opening their doors. it started with two retail neighbors in ballard opening new locations inside this melrose avenue marketplace in the pike-pine corri

stepping out of sequence for a moment, my write-up of louisa's cafe and bakery reminds me of a meal i had the previous month at sitka & spruce. first, because the restaurants are eastlake neighbors - though sitka & spruce will be closing shop at the end o

so amazing. i'd say our meal was comparable to the herbfarm (minus the ambiance). the location is odd but once inside you forget you're in a stripmall next to subway.

mr. yuk. the 'different every time' approach may be what's stretched the imagination of s&s until it has snapped. i've read the rave reviews & now i'm compelled to check the date on them...has something changed?

servers seemed bored & i was soon to join them.

a $12 celeriac soup almost put us to sleep. the octopus & garbanzo beans yielded little to no flavor & i chewed those damn tentacles...& chewed & chewed.
both the lamb legs & pork w/ couscous were quite simply dry. if the octopi gave me tmj then the meat dishes gave me cotton mouth.

slight redemption: served w/the lamb legs, the lamb liver pâté on toast was absolutely delicious!

please be a no call/no show for sitka & spruce. it's sad if such awful food can survive in our city.

i get this question asked an awful lot - what's your favorite restaurant in seattle? ugh, tough question! it's loaded because there are so many great options to eat at around town. and my favorite could be contextual; i have a favorite comfort food spot,

why do old people love to wait in line so much? is it: a) because they're about to die and they're trying to imagine what it's like to wait in line to get into heaven? or b) because they're used to waiting in line because they had to wait in all the soup