sitka & spruce bar

i’ve only been to sitka and spruce for weekend brunch and their food has always surprised me — because the menu always changes. situated in thebackof the melrose market, sitka and spruce focuses on using local ingredients and serving their food as a work of art. whether it is some pastry that is sweet and yummy or a savory dish with baked eggs or forest foraged mushrooms, you will always get something interesting at sitka for brunch

this place has a great space in thebackof a warehouse-like building with incredibly high ceilings and windows covering one wall. i really enjoyed sitting up at the bar where you can watch the chefs in action. our brunch was fresh and flavourful, the salmon pate was my favourite.

to say that my meal at sitka & spruce was an extremely satisfying one would be quite an understatement. having food like this is certainly a lifechanger as this is the first time in quite a while where i've felt that i actually ate wholesome food as it is essentially the complete opposite of the processed foods i'm used to eatingbackhome. everything i put in my mouth felt natural for my body to consume not only for nutrition but also for pure enjoyment. i hope that me writing this post can justly negate the comments of the food at sitka & spruce being "extremely weird, small in amount, very overrated, and food only for hipsters".

most ingredients were sourced from their vashon island farm and it was food i’d want to eat at home. it was relatively healthy and wholesome without being too “granola”, and it was “home cooking” by professionals. it had eclectic flair and i would comebackfor brunch, lunch, or dinner despite the poor service.

love the food!. love the food here! i had a great geoduck and a phenomenal softshell crab! i highly recommend the food here and will bebacknext time i'm in town!

so wanted to like it, but.... i was in town for work but couldn't get anyone to go with. so, i wasn't afraid to go alone as i had read quite a bit about this place. from the moment i walked in the building... i so wanted to love the place. it's a very cute setup. i want to spend time at the bar next time i go. the dining experience was not so wonderful. my reservation was for 9:30 pm, which even in seattle is late. however, i still ended up being shoved into this tiny space at the bench wall next to the reservation desk. at times, the staff was handing me things from across the desk where they made reservations/finalized checks/etc. i just thought that was tacky. i thought the staff was pushy in getting me through... and while the salad i had was great and different. the black cod was slimy and the assorted cookies that i tookbackwith me were nothing special. unfortunately i don't feel the need to go back. = (

don't bother. i left a message to make a reservation. i never received a phone callbackto confirm, so i calledbacktwo days later only to be told they were booked. the guy on the phone was quite rude and uppity about it. i decided to give them another chance. but when i finally made it in there (a few weeks later), the service was horrible and the food was mediocre. my advice is is not to waste your money!

a must on your trip to seattle!. i went for a quick bite of lunch at their earliest available time on a tuesday. the food was fantastic. the young man who served me assured me the hip-hop would not be on the entire time i was there, which i thought was a nice touch; was he being funny by putting loretta lynn on just after my query about the music? i enjoyed a plate of local anchovies that were perfectly prepared, with just the right acidy bite to them. (as far as the other reviewer's criticism about the charge for bread: i don't eat bread, so i did not have to worry about whether or not i would be charged for it; i did see it listed on the menu as priced item, however.) my waiter was delightful and not at all overbearing, although some of his colleagues in the kitchen came across as just a little too hip for their own good. the main course i chose was really one of the best and simplest things i have ever eaten in a restaurant. i am a very decent home cook and this was astoundingly delicious: boiled leeks and fingerling potatoes with rock salt and olive oil on creme fraiche with a lovely helping of house-made black cod lox and shavings of fresh horseradish. some fresh herbs were mixed in to make every mouthful a multi-layered taste experience. i would gobackagain and again and try many other things. the clientele was varied and it was not too crowded. the young woman who greeted me was icy and unhospitable, but the food more than made up for a small inconvenience that was, hopefully, momentary.

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 gobackfor 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.

quite delicious. i just gotbackfrom 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.

oh, so pretentious. without any of the things you would expect of a fine dining experience.

first, the location. s&s occupies a small strip-mall location with a teriyaki place to one side and a subway sandwich place to the other. by the end of my meal, i was wondering if i shouldn't have gone to subway.

first, on entering the place, there was a confusion as to what was going on at all... should we seat ourselves? should we belly up to the buffet? we didn't know. upon asking (after all, we are new in this place) we were told to shut up and sit down.

finally, we were appraised of the situation. "choose one of the features on the blackboard and then the buffet is yours to try". ok, fair enough. we both ordered our meals and then my companion went to cruise the buffet.

as an aside, i must say that my friend is much more adventurous when it comes to northwest vegan-cum-naturalist fare resplendent with nuts and unidentifiable herbs.

finally, our wine arrived and this helped somewhat. the rose was acceptable and the two varieties we ordered fit our taste well enough. a good thing too, as it would take another half hour before our food arrived.

without windows, art, music or some other kind of distraction, the wait was in fact multiplied. it was a rare beautiful day in seattle, and our only wish was that the highbackof the seats did not block the entire view of the outside.

finally, the main course arrived. it could well have been mistaken for an appetizer, or a salad. at $17 a pop, it did seem a bit uninspiring, mediocre, and, well, skimpy. while the eggs and bacon were savory, the wilted bock choi was bitter beyond belief.

why were we here at all? we had received a gift certificate for the place and it had sat on our entry table for months. countless times we had thought about going and this brunch was our chance to try it out.

what did we find? the worst of seattle pretention with the worst of service and food. good riddance.

finally, decompressing with a bloody mary at our favorite bar in the area we asked the bartender if he had been to s&s... yes, he said, i found it a bit snobby, like i was expected to be thankful that i was blessed to eat in this place.

ack... avoid it all costs.

can i lick my plate?. had a great time at this restaurant, very laidbackatmosphere and a nice selection of food to choose from. the trout was so amazing that i had a hard time moving on to the next dish, i wanted more....

i would suggest this place to anyone!