Autumn might make you think of new pencils, but it also makes you think of old favorites, especially when it comes to food, and especially in Seattle, when there’s a brief paradise of local tomatoes and chanterelles, when oysters are right again and fat squashes are ready. It is the best time of year to eat; you’re hungry after the salads and rosé and heat of summer, and, conveniently, it gets dark earlier and earlier, so you can just go home after dinner and read a book under a blanket and fall asleep.
As always in Seattle now, there are new, glamorous restaurants to try, but when it’s wet and cold, old favorites sound better. Restaurant standbys are like dear friends—not without their foibles, but reliable, familiar, beloved. Here are three mainstays you might not have thought of in a while, or may have overlooked all this time, but they’re still here for you, ready and waiting.
LE PICHET • 1933 First Ave, 256-1499 • main dishes $20–$21 (roasted chicken $38 for two people)
Le Pichet is the epitome of a certain kind of French neighborhood restaurant…