Usually the answer to Ty Dolla $ignâs famous query ("You gon' make them eggs cheesy with them grits, or nah?") would beâat least here in Seattleâa resounding ânah.â Grits arenât exactly a Seattle breakfast thing. Overpriced crab benedicts or smoked salmon omelettes, perhaps, but not grits.
That said, while they might not be a menu fixture, there are plenty of places to grab a bowl. Roux, Hudson, and even the tiny Both Ways Cafe all come to mind. However, if youâre living the commuter lifestyle, those arenât exactly convenient. I mean, I live in South Park and Hudson is right across the bridge, but getting there means driving, and driving to work is the ultimate misery. Now, Iâm thrilled to report, we have a very awesome, very centrally located, and very Southern place to get grits: Cycene.
Cycene occupies one of the teensy restaurant slots on the 1st Avenue side of the Sanitary Public Market building, wedging itself in between El Borracho and Old Stove Brewing Co. Theyâre a breakfast and lunch affair, being open from 6am-2pm every weekday except Wednesday (their day off), and 8am-3pm weekends. If youâre, say, transferring buses at Westlake during an ungodly hour, you can pop into Cycene and be out in half an hour.
Itâs the brainchild of husband and wife team Hassan Chebaro and Patsy Williams, both longtime restaurant industry folks who moved here from Chicago to chase the dream of owning one of their own, and the Southern theme comes from Chebaroâs time spent working in his familyâs restaurants across the South. It is also, as he told Eater upon opening, the food he likes to eat. Given my early experiences there, itâs not hard to see why.
The first time I visited was, given the constraints of my commute, at an ungodly hour. Though your body will not reward you for waking up at 5:30am, Cycene will. Their early bird special, served 6-8am, is a bowl of grits with a fried egg and your choice of bacon or sausage for a mere $6. This is ridiculously good value. Even if the cost of your labor is a mere $15/hour, it's likely you cannot make grits, breakfast meat, and an egg quickly enough to justify not shelling out $6. Also, nothing makes you feel like an old-timey businessperson like stopping to eat breakfast and read the paper before work.
If you needed any further incentive, the grits are texturally perfect, which is the whole point of grits. Grits are essentially porridge, and thereâs a reason Goldilocks was so picky when she was burglarizing those bears. It needs to be just right.
According to The Strangerâs new managing editor Leilani Polk, who is an actual Southerner and therefore an expert in grits, texturally perfect means âsmooth, creamy, buttery rich, and (if theyâre really good), plenty of cheese (sharp cheddar is goodâwhite or orangeâbut gruyere adds a nice richness); bad grits are chunky/gloppy or runny and flavorless.â
Over the course of two visits, I only encountered a single, barely noticeable chunk, and the grits were otherwise smoother than Trumpâs bald spot. I donât believe the humble salarymanâs special has cheese in it, but the thing I had on my second visit definitely did, and it was delightful.
Chebaro and Williams love the Kentucky Hot Brown, a broiled open-faced sandwich native to Louisville. However, they build and serve all the dishes in paper boats, meaning broiling a sandwich is out of the question. As a workaround, they came up with a grits version. The grits are studded with big, perfectly cooked chunks of turkey breast, topped with two strips of crispy bacon and quartered Roma tomatoes, and then bathed in their superlatively good pimento mornay. The fresh tomatoes have just the right amount of acid to balance out all the fatty delights, the turkey is a major force multiplier on the texture front, and the pimento mornay integrates perfectly with the grits.
So far, Iâve only had their gritsâperhaps because Iâve had âOr Nahâ stuck in my head for a full six weeks and canât stop thinking about gritsâbut they also have an impressive array of sandwiches for the lunchtime crowd. Iâll likely go back for the shrimp ânâ grits before anything else, but the blackened chicken with Alabama white barbecue sauce is particularly intriguing. Chebaro clearly knows his Southern foodâthe man makes boudin (and all his sausages) in houseâand Iâm excited to go back and educate my tastebuds.
Food aside, theyâve also created a place thatâs warm and inviting in a way that Seattle often isnât. We natives love to complain about transplants, but Iâve found thatâso long as they arenât tasteless techies colonizing Capitol HillâI love transplants. Cycene reminds me why. The music piping overhead is uncompromisingly twangy, which is not the type of stuff I'd ever listen to, but fits the place perfectly. The space is clean and modern, but more functional than fussy. And Williams is perhaps the nicest, most genuine person to take my order in the last two years.
Indeed, if you sit at the counter, you will very likely find yourself engaged in conversation with the couple, as the tiny restaurant sports an open kitchen. After devouring my Kentucky Hot Brown, I found myself roped into an impromptu focus group with the gentleman next to me about whether it should remain on the menu, as heâd had the same thing. For the record, it absolutely should.
Then, by virtue of Chebaroâs post-shift Rainier pale ale, this transitioned very naturally into a lively discussion of regional shit beers, culminating in introductions, handshakes, and broad smiles all around. As a lifelong Seattleite, this is not something Iâm used to. But, given the grits, it's definitely something I could get used to.