Gastrolust

Queen Margherita in Magnolia is the kind of neighborhood place where everybody knows your name.
It’s also a restaurant where workers take pride in their pizza-making. The Caputo flour, silk to the touch, is imported from Italy. Pies are carefully handcrafted, dispatched to the wood-burning oven, and then pulled after quick-cooking.
There are many [...]

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One of Seattle’s hottest new restaurants is hiding…in a gelato shop. And even if you know where Il Corvo is (inside Procopio, steps down from Western Avenue behind Pike Place Market, below Kasala furniture store), you’ll have to find a way to get there during the week, preferably close to 11am and certainly before the [...]

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I can think of younger days…when eating like I do would have been unimaginable. As a kid, I was a bit fussy. I actually hated the texture of lasagna.
Now I’m in Capitol Hill at Altura, where Nathan Lockwood serves up seasonal Italian cuisine in the form of multi-course tasting menus. I [...]

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Welcome to the first installment of my newest feature: Passport to Pleasure. As a food writer and sex educator, I’ll share hedonistic ideas for couples visiting various Seattle neighborhoods and more distant destinations. What’s ideal to a food writer and sex educator, you ask? With a goal of gluttony in both food [...]

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After my “bento box of pleasure” at Chiso, I managed to squeeze in a second lunch during last month’s Seattle Restaurant Week. The Pink Door has been sitting atop Urbanspoon’s “Best Fine Dining” list for Seattle for so long, and yet I’d never dined there. Finally, I found an inexpensive way to [...]

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It may not be the most photogenic dish, but trust me: Holly Smith’s risotto is sexy.
The latest version I had at Smith’s Cafe Juanita was Barbera risotto with Asiago, featuring a fabulous brodo and red wine syrup–and showcasing stringy Asiago DOP (Denominazione di origine protetta, or Protected Designation of Origin, which, according to [...]

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Café Juanita, Spinasse, Anchovies & Olives are Italian restaurants in the area that are making headlines and getting well-deserved recognition. Meanwhile, in Pioneer Square, there’s a place that quietly continues to bring classic Italian cuisine and service to diners, as they have since 1984: Il Terrazzo Carmine.
White linens, white jackets, and an old [...]

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I think it’s fair to say it’s one of the classic dishes of the Seattle area: lasagna at Cafe Lago.
The restaurant’s faithful have been coming for it since 1990, while others are just discovering it–most recently on Monday night when Chef/Owner Jordi Viladas offered a lasagna cooking class. (Cafe Lago is serving [...]

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Sometimes you go out and a meal is everything you hope it will be. Such was the case at Volterra recently. Every dish was solid, not in a “Wow, this is life-changing” way, but in a way that made me say on this evening, “Wow, this restaurant knows how to get the food right,” starting with [...]

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Summer also marked the first Battle in Seattle, featuring Chef David Hahne of host restaurant Enotria against Chef Takashi Ogasawara of Rain Modern Infusion Cuisine. In this crudo versus sashimi competition, the secret ingredient was salmon, and both chefs plated up three courses for a panel of judges (including yours truly) and a rather raucous, [...]

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