The Chef's Table at Vendemmia

By Ronald Holden

Now we know what The Seattle Times considers a four-star restaurant in Seattle: it's Bateau, on Capitol Hill, a wonderful steak house owned by the prodigiously talented Renee Erickson, whose earlier ventures (Boat Street, Walrus & Carpenter) have focused on seafood. The four-star rating, first and only so far, came after a string of savage, one-star put-downs of Orfeo, Dunbar Room, and the Bookstore Bar. Canlis only got 3½ stars, Shiro (!) 2½. If you look for hidden motives and evil conspiracies in the world of restaurant reviews, you'd be forgiven for wondering what Fairview Fanny was up to.

So it gives me great pleasure to report that the Times reviewers could (and should) alight in Madrona's thriving commercial center and find a terrific new spot, run with energy and efficiency by Brian Clevenger, who was once part of the Ethan Stowell brigade. I'm speaking of Vendemmia and its brand new, next-door offshoot, East Anchor Seafood.

Brian Clevenger and Kayley Turkheimer

Clevenger, an Anacortes native, has a degree in hospitality management, and has cooked in Michelin-star restaurants in France and Italy as well as San Francisco. Working with Stowell also influenced his culinary style. "We don't over-complicate things," is his motto.

When Clevenger opened Vendemmia (the Italian word for grape harvest or vintage), he had a couple of months to learn how things worked in Madrona, the ebb and flow of pedestrian traffic, the habits of a neighborhood whose hilltop grocery is now long gone (replaced by a Group Health center, also departed), whose neighborhood Asian spot (Cool Hand Luke) was replaced by a fancier dinner house (St. Cloud's), whose foray into fast & fresh (Plenty) is gone, whose corner dry cleaner is now a Pilates studio.

It's not easy to understand why a business owner would want to drop an oyster bar, fresh-fish counter, and deli into this particular urban mix, but it makes more sense when you own the restaurant next door. It's both an overflow bar and walk-in cooler for Vendemmia, it's a place to sell those kusshi oysters you might not want to keep around another day, that black cod fillet, those whole branzino. Keeps customers coming back, gets them used to seeing some activity on a block where the late Alexander Conley III used to make customized Easter bonnets or replace the sweatband on your favorite fedora.

Black cod

At East Anchor, during the lunch hour (before Vendemmia opens), you can buy a sandwich or a salad. The smoked salmon on a baguette was enlivened with crunchy red onion; the Dungeness crab was tossed with snap peas and a light mayonnaise. But the real treat comes at Vendemmia itself during the dinner hour, especially if you book a seat at the Chef's Table. Show up at 6 p.m. sharp and be prepared for a $50, seven-course stroll through the menu conducted by Clevenger himself. Ahi tuna, beets with crab, beef tartare, black cod, wild prawns with spaghetti, New York steak with mushrooms and pea vines, and a chocolate terrine to finish. At the end of the evening, he hand-writes your menu because he's combined elements of most of the two dozen dishes he serves every night. The restaurant only seats 34 people but often does over 100 covers.

Vendemmia's seasonal menu includes half a dozen house-made pastas (ravioli, tagliatelle paccheri) as well as a commercial brand of dried spaghetti. Okay, so you look at the menu with its 20-plus items, but everything looks good, and you can't choose. You sit at a butcher-block counter, the Chef stands on the other side. All he tells you, up front, is four appetizers, a pasta, a meat course, (can we please stop calling it an "entrée"--it's the main dish, not a starter), and a dessert. From his vantage point, Clevenger can pivot to the stove or fuss with tweezers over a dish before sending it on its way to a table. Or slide plates over to his guests at the counter.

Spaghetti with wild prawns and basil

The first to arrive was a splendid portion of bright red, sushi-grade ahi tuna with a couple of orange slices, a few kernels of sea salt, and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Then came a mini-football of beef tartare, taken from the lower flap of the teres major (the top part would appear later as a prime New York fillet), chopped with shallots, chives and vinegar, bound with egg yolks and surmounted by a sliver of white anchovy. Nary a caper in sight, just smooth and meaty. Meantime, Shelly Guerero plates the beet salad at the pantry station (with Dungeness crab and avocado), and Clevenger pulls a delectable morsel of black cod off the fire, its tangy crisp skin complemented by the sweetness of preserved lemon and bitter leaves of Brussels sprouts.

While Chef Brian quickly shucks a few oysters for another table, his sous-chef, Brandon Waddell, fires up a handful of wild prawns with fennel and basil; they're destined for the next course: spaghetti in a made-fresh-daily tomato sauce. Vendemmia uses canned tomatoes, as one must, but not the predictable San Marzano variety; they're too "dark" for Clevenger's taste. He prefers the vibrant acidity of plum tomatoes, which he cooks down over high heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, for no more than 45 minutes. The result is brighter and more flavorful than what many "red sauce" Italians serve.

Clevenger and Brandon (at stove)

When I walked in, I noticed a slab of beef the size of a tennis ball sitting on the warming shelf atop the stove. In the course of the evening, it was grilled "standing up," as it were, to render the fat from one edge, then roasted in the oven. It spent a lot of time just resting. "As much time resting as cooking," is how Clevenger describes it, twenty minutes at least. When the time comes, it's plated with wild nettles, mushrooms, and pea vines. Dessert is standard-issue chocolate terrine, with a nicely done salted caramel ice cream.

New York steak

If you haven't been to the restaurant before, or you live in the neighborhood and plan to return, you really do have to try the tasting menu. "Value bridges the gap between good and great," Clevenger says. And this is pretty great.

Vendemmia
1126 34^th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
206-466-2533
vendemmiaseattle.com

May 2016

Ronald Holden's new book, "Forking Seattle," with more tales about local food & drink, comes out this summer.