Sutra

Repeatable: Yes for veggies; maybe for omnis. Visits: 1

Sutra's beans, cashew cream, and carrots with fried sage

There are two types of vegetarian restaurants: the ones that lavish their efforts on eaters seriously smitten with vegetables and the ones that want to cater to meat-eaters too. The differences between them aren’t readily apparent unless you’ve been a vegetarian for a significant length of time. As a recidivist vegetarian (these spells can last for years) with many hard-core veggie friends, let me assure you that there are indeed differences. Most of Seattle’s vegetarian restaurants target an omnivorous audience, with menus full of pasta, pizza, bread and various forms of tofu coyly pretending to be meat.

Wallingford’s tiny Sutra, however, doesn’t play that game. No soy-carb fillers distract from the main show here: Vegetables, in all their lively glory, sometimes wild and foraged, always organic and seasonal. Three thoughts kept recurring during dinner as I scraped my plate clean: ” 1) Hallelujah! 2) Finally. 3) Yum.”

There was another thought too: “$33 for a four courses? What a steal!” With ingredients as pristine as the ones offered here, Sutra’s dinner provides amazing value. If I lived within 10 blocks of this place, I’d walk here for dinner every week.

Chef Colin, a whippet-thin man with yogic calmness, introduces the meal, explaining the ingredients and concluding with a brief statement of gratitude and awareness. I thought this prelude was low-key, brief, and appropriate–and quite frankly, I barely noticed that a gong was used, though every other reviewer in town fixated upon it.

We started with the generously sized celery root-roasted beet Napolean, a composed pile of sliced root vegetables given interest and tang by sun-dried tomatoes, roasted garlic, capers, and an amazing wild nettle pesto I wanted to cram into my mouth by the spoonful. Nettles are extremely earthy, like bracken fiddlehead ferns, which taste extremely meaty and earthy, a bit like mushrooms.

The second course was a savory, intense tangle of braised winter greens and fresh watercress with slices of tangelos and crisp Jerusalem artichoke chips, dressed with olive oil and a balsamic reduction. Mmmmm.

The smoked great White Northern beans of the third course had a beautiful musky flavor that was complemented by a silky puddle of Hedgehog mushroom-cashew cream sauce. I loved the crunch of the roasted whole baby carrots and the crisp of the fried sage, too. The arrangement would have been perfect had the beans not been a tad undercooked. Still, I managed to eat most of them–even though I regretted their malodorous reminders several hours later.

Dessert was chewy circle of coconut-date-basil macaroon, topped with a local honey sorbet. I’m pretty sure the macaroon was raw–I don’t mean that it was undercooked, but that it was a purposefully uncooked formed dessert, which are quite popular among raw vegetarians (the various kinds: ovo-lacto (eat milk and egg); vegan (no animal or insect products); raw (no vegetables processed or heated above 116 degrees). Quite frankly, I didn’t care if it was cooked or not–it was delicious. But anyone expecting a traditional tart would have been utterly nonplussed by this chewy brown composition, which more closely resembled a chewy fat cookie.

If you decide to visit Sutra and have never really eaten much vegetarian fare before, please keep in mind that context is important. You wouldn’t judge a sushi restaurant by your understanding of a steakhouse, would you? So a vegetable that would be considered undercooked in a steakhouse is probably supposed to be that way in a place like Sutra (except for beans. Beans, like rice, should NEVER be al dente. We’re talking basic digestion issues here, folks.)

If flavors are too intense or too mild–well, sometimes that’s how ingredients actually taste (think of raw garlic). A great vegetarian chef understands how ingredients relate to each other and composes a dish that achieves a balance between loud and quiet flavors, acid and cream, crunch and goo. Chef Colin is still a young guy. The longer he cooks like this, the better Sutra’s going to get. His food was clean and pure, practically thrumming with positive intent and boundless energy.

So maybe I sound like I’ve drunk some of Sutra’s ginger-lemon Kool-Aid. I did. And I’ll do it again. (BTW, the ginger-lemon tonic is QUITE intense. Add some of the super-filtered house water to tone it down for personal tastes, and you’ll be very happy with it.)

Spur Gastropub

Repeatable: Yes! Visits: 2+

Spur's dangerously addictive deep-fried hominy

Forget what you’ve heard about Spur, because most of it isn’t accurate. Here are some of the myths circulating out there:

1) That it does molecular gastronomy, like Ferran Adria’s El Bulli, so the food is pretty whacked out and weird.
2) That because it does molecular gastronomy, it will only appeal to food snobs, culinary daredevils, or Belltown bar-hoppers too drunk to notice what they’re eating.
3) That real men won’t eat there, because the food is pretty whacked out and weird.

First, let’s dispense with the myth that it specializes in molecular gastronomy. Would you call a restaurant serving ice cream on its dessert menu an ice cream shop? Or insist that a restaurant with a foie gras appetizer must be classically French?

So it stands to reason that a restaurant offering a bit of parmesan foam here and a flavor bubble there isn’t necessarily a temple of molecular gastronomy. Said restaurant, however, just might be steered by two chefs–Brian McCracken and Dana Tough–who are keeping abreast of the latest cutting-edge techniques and deploying them with intelligence, daring, and wit.

It’s not the HOW that matters at Spur, but the WHAT–the end result, the  food, which is some of the most deliciously original, creative, and likable fare I’ve had the pleasure of eating in Seattle in recent memory.

Consider the humble deep-fried hominy, for example, Spur’s complimentary amuse bouche (or bar snack). Hominy is dried corn kernels, soaked in lye with the hulls removed. Hardly anyone eats it anymore. Except at Spur, where it has been deep-fried into an addictive golden crackle. “The most amazing corn-nuts ever,” exclaimed by my husband. I single out those corn nuts because they embody Spur’s refreshing approach to cooking. Take a common ingredient, like corn, and make us appreciate it anew.

That’s what the widely (and justly) lauded tagliatelle ($14) with sous vide duck egg, oyster mushroom, and Parmesan foam does: Startle us into appreciating its separate components of noodle, egg, and cheese. At heart, it’s comfort food–a linguini carbonara really–but comfort food made by someone who can chew gum and talk at the same time.

Want a burger? Then try the pork belly sliders with diced apple and mustard bourbon sauce ($12). Really crave beef? Take a chance on the Ostrich burger ($15). It has the full robust meaty flavor similar to cow with none of the cholesterol (there’s a skirt steak for those who absolutely must, for $24). Of course you can get fries here–Spur is a bar, after all. The hand-made jojos, drizzled with smoked olive oil, will make you wonder why everyone else doesn’t deep-fry fingerling potatoes. (Because they can’t. Spur really knows how to fry, in addition to everything else.)

My only gripe is a paltry one: that the menu is too brief at a dozen items. We sampled half the options in one visit, and everything was fantastic, including the fried potato dumplings ($9; imagine a tater tot with a creamy knish-like interior) and Sockeye salmon crostini ($9; delicious but the least original item on the menu). Thrilled by the unexpected success of our meal, we tried three desserts too: Sarsaparilla sorbet with vanilla bubbles ($6, refreshing and light); “Corn Flakes” ($6, pastry flakes with straight milk ice cream); and the caramel apple mille feuille ($11; with pistachios and a layer of foie gras in the pastry; just forget it’s foie gras and you’ll swear it’s a nut butter). We finished every bite of our 8-course meal.

Spur is perfectly named: It’s an agent of change, a kick in the pants to the local dining scene, where gastronomical innovation sometimes means changing the dining room setup. But forget those cumbersome platters, gritty communal tables, secret “underground” restaurants, and silly paintbrushes in sauces–they’re trying way too hard. Instead, look for a kitchen that’s cooking with heart, gut, and head in the right place—and having fun in the process. The guys are Spur are doing just that–and doing a damn fine job of it.