Part of a series of restaurant recommendations offered in The Stranger’s 2017 Guide to Food and Drink (International Edition).
Tavolàta
An Ethan Stowell pasta spot, this Belltown restaurant is in a more accessible, less-precious setting, but with many similar dishes as Rione. On my last stop, I had the tonnarelli carbonara, with guanciale and cured egg yolk. The noodles were hollow—each one was like a straw. This was an ingenious idea—it makes more room for the sauce and results in a dish that’s not so heavy. The rigatoni is a pretty straightforward red sauce with spicy sausage, and I’ve enjoyed the gem salad as well. Head there early for happy hour, held at a blessedly sane time—from 5 to 7 p.m.—and you can have much of the menu for a pittance (almost half-off regular prices in some cases). —Tricia Romano