The world can be divided into two kinds of people: those who enjoy
puppets looming over their heads, and those who would strongly prefer
not to be thus menaced.
The puppets suspended in the airspace of Le Gourmand in Ballard are,
it is fair to say, amazing—recognizing that to be amazed is not
necessarily a positive thing. The puppets polarize; neutrality is not
an option.
The puppets are new, an audacity in the otherwise unobjectionably
lovely redecoration of the dining room. For many years, the salient
feature of Le Gourmand was The Mural, a greenery-and-hollyhocks
pastoral complemented by pink cushions and heavy drapes, creating an
atmosphere sometimes described as precious
(and—unforgivably—likened by some in the restaurant
industry to a part of your grandmother’s anatomy that you should never
think about). Now there are The Puppets, three in number1, made more
prominent via their total dissonance with their elegant,
white-and-putty surroundings. Here are seamed, streamlined cream
leather chairs; chandeliers like lotus snowballs, made of glowing
translucent seashells; an enormous mirror in its own simple, mirrored
frame; the door to the kitchen, softly, richly, pristinely
upholstered.2 If the tables at the room’s center are snug, occupants
can feel lucky to be there, like jewels crowded together in a pretty
setting. For very fine dining in Seattle, this remodel represents a
coup of the contemporary, making Lampreia and Rover’s seem even
stuffier. (Mistral, also said to suffer from a certain airlessness, is
closing, with chef/owner William Belickis planning a restaurant that
suits human beings instead of parodic notions of special occasions.)
And, now that they’re not separated by a century or so in style, Le
Gourmand and its lauded adjoining lounge, Sambar, make splendid sense
together.
Perhaps the puppets are the oddity that lends the whole a more
singular beauty.3 At the least, they provide a topic of conversation.
And once the matter is settled—what kind of person are you? and
if you are a different kind than your companion(s), can you continue to
coexist?—what happens on your table easily becomes the focus.
Bruce Naftaly, chef and co-owner of Le Gourmand, deserves a lifetime
achievement award, if not outright canonization. Since 1985, he’s been
quietly, honorably using local and seasonal ingredients in the manner
that’s just recently, very loudly been hailed as revolutionary. But
lifetime achievement sounds tired, while his care with Northwest
ingredients and his insight into French techniques remains amazing (in
the best way).
As long as you’re spending a small fortune (or, preferably, someone
else is), you may as well order the seven-course tasting menu. For $75,
you’re afforded the luxury of not having to choose—none of these
dishes are available à la carte—and taken on a fresh,
delightful, and indulgent journey through right here, right now. The
first stop on a recent Saturday night: a thick nettle soup. If you’ve
ever been stung by the nettles growing along a local island path, you’d
recognize in the taste of this soup the dappled or dripping woods, the
damp spring earth, and (so slightly) the nearby Sound—all the
wonder with none of the rash. The flavors and textures of a foie gras
course—with honeyed sauce, just-in-season rhubarb, and buttery
brioche toast—conspired in combination to taste like
extraspectacular cake (the kind of cake that has foie frosting). The
root vegetable salsify, treated tenderly in a thick cream sauce, was so
rich that more than a small dish of it would’ve been too much. A
cream-based sauce Américaine, flavored by shrimp shells,
surrounding a skate wing cooked with tea was too much: the oil of the
fish, the heavy dairy, the smoke and saline. But then it’s only one
course in seven, with salad and sorbet for recalibration, and at a
once-in-a-lifetime dinner like this, being overwhelmed feels
appropriate. The meat featured—overwhelmingly tasty—was
Wooly Pigs’ Mangalitsa pork, a breed imported with much tribulation
from Austria, now being raised in small supply near Spokane to much
demand (from places like the French Laundry).
On Le Gourmand’s à la carte menu, salade composée is
currently “A.Q.,” priced as quoted, an eloquent nod to the foragers and
organic farmers who provide for it. More Mangalitsa pork (sausage
pillows with house-made mustard, $12.50) is to be had, and the first of
the
season’s halibut with wild-mushroom sauce ($38). However one
eats here, it’s an unrushed evening’s worth of pleasure, more so if you
make the acquaintance of sommelier David Butler. Formerly the
maître d’ at Cremant,
he gauges interest unerringly,
speaking softly about French sunshine and flinty soil or just
benevolently fading away. His wine recommendations are the drink that
demands the next bite, making a circle of enjoyment to be completed
over and over.
There’s barely room to mention co-owner Sara Naftaly’s
desserts—artistic feats of meringue ($10); thick, butterscotchy
crème brûlée ($10)—like there’s barely room
to eat them. But Le Gourmand is now more than ever an experience to be
prolonged, puppets or no puppets.
1. They are: (1) a bald bird; (2) a pillow-bodied,
branch-haired, grasping-fingers-outstretched witch; and (3) a bug-eyed,
traumatized-looking sort of Rasta-multi-knitted-character. They were
made by a neighborhood artist known as Captain Sunshine. The source of
the Rasta-multi-knit component is, according to two different servers:
(1) a group of schizophrenics with whom Captain Sunshine had occasion
to do art therapy, who knitted to quiet the voices in their heads; or
(2) a woman Captain Sunshine knows who, due to memory loss, can never
finish a
knitting project. Either way: Oh dear.
2. The foyer also contains three new things: (1) a
small, exquisite plant-filled terrarium; (2) an even smaller, possibly
more exquisite biosphere supporting minuscule shrimp-creatures; and (3)
a trio of stools made out of white recycled paper. Philosophically, the
denizens of the foyer exist in opposition to the puppets, representing
the transformative force of life versus the puppets’ foreboding
inanimateness. You know the puppets creep forth late at night
in the darkened restaurant to terrorize the little plants and sea
creatures, with the stools valiantly defending the foyer door in tense
standoffs. 3. Except that they are not. They should be
somewhere furnishing children with lifetimes’ worth of nightmares, not
here where grown-ups go to have an evening like a dream.