By Iron Chef Leftovers
For fans of the Stumbling Goat Bistro pre-ownership change in 2008, Seth Caswell, the former chef at the Goat, has surfaced with his new restaurant on the top of Queen Anne, emmer&rye. After at least one no-go on opening the restaurant and a stint as an occasional chef at Wallingford’s Art of the Table, Caswell finally opened his, local/organic/sustainable place this winter, taking over the converted Victorian that formerly housed Julia’s. Emmer has the atmosphere of having dinner in someone’s house – all of the walls are in tact, so the restaurant is comprised of several rooms, lending a very informal feel to the meal.
The meal was everything you would expect from Caswell. The emmer&rye salad was refreshing – wild arugula, some grains (I believe it was emmer and rye) for some texture and an amazing apple-balsamic vinaigrette. The greens were lightly dressed, allowing the pepper of the arugula to come through but not sacrificing flavor the dressing. The spring vegetable soup was a light puree of fresh vegetables, but the star was the nettle puree which added an earthy flavor to the soup. The Bolognese was a healthy portion of orrechiette pasta accompanied by a slightly creamy pork and beef Bolognese with just a hint of heat – a fantastic meal but not one you would want to undertake on a warm day. The salmon came perfectly seared medium-rare with a refreshing parsley and fiddlehead salad. Caswell also brought along his pastry chef from the Goat and, as wonderful as the meal was, the deserts were the star – butterscotch pot de crème and rocky road brownie. The pot de crème had nice balance and was not overpoweringly sweet as most butterscotch desserts tend to be and the rocky road brownie, was pure evil – basically deconstructed rocky road ice cream, except the individual pieces were just as good as the whole.
My only knock on emmer is the wine list – it is small and reasonably priced, which is good, but there is a serious lack of northwest wines maybe 5 or 6 out of the 25 or so bottles available. If you are going to promote locally sourced food, you really should be promoting local wine one also. There is no excuse for the lack of local choices – we have 600+ wineries in the state and emmer can really make an impact by having a nice selection of smaller affordable wines on the menu.
We were there for the Dine Around Seattle promotion, but price-wise, the menu is quite affordable – apps range from $8 to $12 and entrees range from $16 to $19. Both the apps and entrees come in a small and a large size, so a party of 4 could literally order the entire menu. I suspect that the current menu will change as ingredients become available seasonally.
FlatbreadGarden 