Sundstrom's Southpaw Starts Service

If you're used to the chic, high-end-NW experience you used to have in the old Lark space, get unused to that. John Sundstrom moved his beloved restaurant to a new spot in 2014, but kept the space on 12th Ave., which he has now turned into a fancy but relatively proletariat (for him) pizza joint called Southpaw. They have TVs and the pizza sounds as fantastic as all the other food we've come to love from Sundstrom.

The pizzas mostly have veggie toppings, but are customizable with assorted proteins, such as red wine oxtail, Spanish sardines, nduja, and—holy shit yes please—crispy chicken skin. I'd have to consult our local pizza economist to be sure, but I think that puts us in the double digits for Capitol Hill pizza joints. And I think that's wonderful.

RIP Louisa's

Less wonderful, however, is the news that Louisa's—the Eastlake favorite where my mother introduced tiny me to the glory of a good morning glory muffin—has suddenly closed. Bethany Jean Clement has the story in the Seattle Times.

There is Also No Such Thing as Too Many Grits

A traveling chef couple, Hassan Chebaro and Patsy Williams, has touched down in Pike Place with a southern brunch spot, reports Eater. As a huge fan of grits with things, I'm happy to see that they'll be serving up lots of different things on their grits. There will of course be shrimp, but there will also be chorizo, greens, red-eye gravy, and presumably other delicacies. They are, after all, in the middle of the Market, so there's plenty to get creative with.

"I love southern food, I love comfort food, and it's great having a menu that you yourself would want to eat every item of," Chebaro tells Eater.

Lower Stone Way Now Has Four Places to Get Fancy

Heavy Restaurant Group's Thackeray is now open on Stone Way. The menu, according to their website, "is seasonally inspired and bold in flavor." If you're curious about the name, it's named for William Makepeace Thackeray, who popularized the term "bohemian" in its current definition: "a person who has informal and unconventional social habits, especially an artist or writer."

Certainly a useful term to convey a particular "vibe"—one that seems to be quite attractive to those who are neither artists nor writers—but perhaps worth noting that, except in the rarest of circumstances, one cannot afford to live as an artist or writer in Fremont, let alone dine lavishly. For those of us who make our way up there on the 62, not in the Audi, there'll always be the insanely good, insanely underpriced Pacific Inn fish and chips.

Belltown's Newest Bar is Such A Tool

Literally, it is called Screwdriver. It opened November 28, it's in a basement, the decor is retro and cool: the old High Voltage music store, a shitload of rad velvet paintings, a handful of pinball machines, and an ancient-looking jukebox. All the ingredients for a good time. Bartender Dash tells me that he is unsure of the name's origin—it could be named for the simple vodka and orange juice mixer, or it could be for something more esoteric. I am sure, however, that this continues the pleasant recent trend of new bars in Belltown that I am actually curious to visit (No Anchor, Cursed Oak, etc.).

Speaking of Trends...

The James Beard Foundation released their 2017 list last week. They're all insightful, but I found this last one, included as a snarky addendum, to be exceptionally resonant:

"It’s time for another serving dish to replace the “bowl.” Enough already. Burrito bowls, poke bowls, rice bowls, noodle bowls. We get it. Can’t we just get a plate? Or a shovel, perhaps?"

On That Note...

Pokeworks is opening another location in Bellevue, according to Eater. Which means the last place left to open a new poke restaurant is probably your sock drawer. As a region, we seem to be doing our fair share to drive that Beard-bemoaned bowl trend.