Lloyd Martin

Sam Crannell loves to cook. Without guidelines and structure. He is a chef who needs his own restaurant. And as of October 6, 2011, at 7:30 p.m., he got it with Lloyd Martin.

Sam (at far right), his wife Tracey Stoner-Crannell (the chef at Portalis Wine Bar for the past five years), and right hand Dan Matthiesen (left, who Sam has cooked with for the past ten years) created the concept of…no concept. "I wanted zero limitations on what I want to do," says Sam. "Our rules are to buy the best possible ingredients and put out great product. We don't want to over-think, we just want to cook. I want to give my guests something they've never had before, something they're not used to, without totally breaking their budget."

Sam and Dan are not menu planners. Product driven, they may decide at 10:30 a.m. what they'll do that night with their Iberico pork from Spain, the spot prawns that arrive alive, or fresh morels. They hand-make pasta every morning. "What we do in the kitchen is jazz cooking—it's improv. We know the roots/notes. I've been trained classically, and we can make any traditional dish. When you have those basics, you can play with food. I'm doing exactly what I want to do and that's worth all the tea in China. We may not make anything on certain dishes, but no one is telling me I have to get my numbers in line. I can make or break myself every day. And we know that it doesn't matter if something costs $6 or $29, it will be awesome."

Our service is amazing—staff know the food, wine, spirits—and they work hard to learn it. Good service in Seattle is comfortable yet casual—fine dining touches without the fuss. There's more personality in service now and this is one of the best group of people I've ever worked with."

Sam speaks from experience, having been in the kitchen for 20 years. He washed dishes at a pizza joint outside of Chicago at 13 and managed the kitchen at 16. He floated for two years, eventually returning to restaurants, bartending and serving at the Chicago Yacht Club. He dropped out of Columbia his junior year to sign up for a two-year program at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, finishing in one. After attending classes all day, he interned at some of the finest restaurants in Chicago. Once graduated, he worked at a 3-star seafood restaurant, Atlantique, with Chef Jared Wentworth. Just three months out of culinary school, he was promoted to sous chef.

Lloyd Martin interior

He left to help his father in Bellingham and decided to stay and work at local restaurants because the farms were so close. "I had great relationships with fishermen and farmers. For four years, I was on the food and farming committee." He and Chef Jared reconnected when Jared was working at Paragon on Queen Anne. Sam joined him there, taking over as chef when Jared left to open Quinn's on Capitol Hill. Sam moved to Quinn's as executive sous chef, becoming chef after Jared moved on, staying for 14 months before moving to Oddfellows.

Sam had been thinking about his own place for awhile, building a network of investors. "It became clear to me that people didn't want to take risks. If I wanted to open a restaurant, I had to take all the risks. Fortunately, I have a family who believes in me and a few angels around me. I came across the Bricco location before I worked at Paragon. We were living in an apartment nearby. Tracey and I had a really fun night at Bricco and started talking about how great it would be to have a place like that of our own." They got serious while Sam was working at Oddfellows. Bricco was still for sale, but he found something more affordable on Capitol Hill and was ready to sign the contract when he found out that the building was going to be torn down.

His real estate agent talked him into looking at Bricco again. "Once we met Kevin and Tracy, Bricco's owners, it all became more negotiable and easier. They did everything in their power to help. I knew we would have to get creative since the space has no hood, no stove and no storage space. We closed the deal on September 16 and took it over 8 or 9 days later, painting, cleaning, stocking and getting licenses. I hadn't cooked one meal, but I'd told people we'd open on October 6 and they started coming in even though there was still paper on the windows. So we started cooking."

In addition to being open five days a week, they prep on Monday, and cater three days a week for a company in south Seattle. They take reservations by phone, but try to leave space for walk-ins. "With just 20 seats at tables and 12 at the bar, we can't always do it, but we try," says Sam. "We didn't want a bigger place; this is manageable. I can see and be part of everything, but I'm not a micro manager. I want to hire good people and let them do their jobs."

Their plan for the future is to keep Lloyd Martin "rocking" and expand to meet the needs in other neighborhoods. "We're always brainstorming. Lloyd Martin is our launching pad. It's how people will get to know us, the kind of people we are, the service and food we offer. We want to grow from here."

Connie Adams/July 2012