1106 Eighth Ave, 624-2222
Tues-Sat, 5 pm-closing.
In the early '90s in Seattle, it was fashionable among a certain dining set to slam a certain high-end Eastern European restaurant for serving too much brown food. In those days, we were having a major love affair with farmers' markets, with the idea of farmers' markets and seasonal food and Northern California cuisine, so we expected our plates to be festooned in pale greens, deep maroon, bright orange, and an edible flower or two.
That Eastern European restaurant is now gone, whether driven out of business by aesthetes of the plate or nutritionists (or both) I have no idea. And while I am aware of the various healthy benefits of eating colorfully, I would like to come out in favor of the many deeply satisfying qualities of brown food.
The impetus for this passionate defense was dinner at Geneva Restaurant, which is dinner in the old style--as in old country--in a manner that has not been fashionable among young diners since, Lord, I don't know--the nouveau-old-sumptuous '80s? Geneva is the real thing: a tiny little box of a restaurant, in which the prominent center table is given over to a huge floral arrangement (lilies, peonies, branches) and the napkins are gorgeously folded into shapes resembling the Sydney Opera House (watching a waiter fold a napkin is like witnessing the last vestiges of a disappearing craft). Feeling comfortable here is more about an assiduously cultivated serenity--knowing you're in good hands--than about visual stimulation, or fashionable food, or scene, although if you're used to more high-octane dining the hush of Geneva may be a bit unsettling. The menu is written for people who either know what food terms mean (bernoise, anyone?) or who are comfortable enough to ask, and you are not made to feel like a schmuck for asking.
The reason I finagled this dinner date is that I had gotten a look at Geneva's menu and it featured Bundnerfleisch, a kind of air-dried beef to which prosciutto is an approximate cousin. Unfortunately, they were out of Bundnerfleisch, for the best reason--which is that it takes eight months to make correctly (our waiter didn't foresee Bundnerfleisch appearing at Geneva until next fall), and the Blunderfleish guy hadn't been in lately. I happily made do with a bowl of lobster bisque with aged brandy ($ 9), creamy brown and laced with more cream on top, with nice chunks of lobster. (Lobster bisque is nothing if not a subtle dish--light brown is the only color for it--but I would have enjoyed a slightly stronger brandy taste.)
My husband was busily eavesdropping on an elderly couple gossiping about whose German accent was worse than whose, so I snagged quite a few of his calamari ($ 8), which I had begged him not to order as they are not very Swiss or Continental. Well, husbands will do what husbands will do, and the calamari was good--pan-fried and slightly spicy, and not a bit chewy.
Our entrees, as it turned out, were both Geneva classics, and both lovely shades of brown: his jaeger schnitzel ($ 23) and my pan-fried calf's liver ($ 22). Calf's liver is something you don't see on many menus around town, and perfectly cooked it is something else: rich and melting, not a thing, really, like meat, and here served with apples, onions sautéed until limp and sweet, and a couple of slices of perfect bacon. On the side was a potato pancake, a mini version of the legendary Swiss rösti. Jaeger (or "hunter's") schnitzel is tender pork medallions with a sauce made of five different mushrooms and little bits of bacon, with a sublime flavor of wine, excellent for mopping up with spaetzle (little boiled dumplings, anointed with butter, really very heavenly).
Brown is the color of caramelization, of meat giving up its essence to pan juices, gravy, or sauce. Which is why all the hotel-style garnishes seemed a little beside the point. Next to the perfection of a slice of calf's liver, a puree of carrots, some al dente asparagus, and a little tomato crisscrossed with cheese all seem a bit lackluster. You even feel sorry for them, having to show off with such silly, bright, garish colors.
