Food News: Mistral Kitchen to open this fall

William Belickis, former chef/owner of the late Mistral in Belltown, disappointed many when he closed Mistral in 2008. But now he's back: He signed a lease yesterday for a location in the West 8^th building situated between the retail core of downtown and South Lake Union. The 100+ seat restaurant he's planning to open, to be called Mistral Kitchen, will be located in the triangular space in the 26-story building enclosed by 80 feet of glass on two sides.

Belickis describes the layout of Mistral Kitchen as something unique to the Seattle restaurant scene. Outside of the 45-seat main dining room, there will be a sprawling bar where diners will get a front-row view of the pastry station, the artisan cocktail bar, and a wood-fire oven.

The main dining room will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week, with an accessible menu of shellfish, pastas, and pizzas in the $8-$20 range. A 24-seat jewel box--a secluded, sound-proofed fine dining room--will offer tasting menus ($80+) and four-course prix fixe options ($60). The sky’s the limit for the eight-seat chef’s table, located directly in the main kitchen, and the private six-seat lounge upstairs.

Is this vision too lofty, given the economic downturn? Belickis doesn’t seem fazed by this question. “I’m giving consumers a choice as to where they want to be in this restaurant. I’m not requiring anyone to stay and eat for three hours (like I did at Mistral). Come for happy hour at the bar, come for 10 minutes. Have a seat, or don’t even sit down, if you don’t want to.”

Though Belickis is mum about the amount of money invested in this project, one gets the sense that Mistral Kitchen is poised to make a big splash in the Seattle dining scene.

That wood-fire oven? It’s being imported from Naples. (“That oven’s being made in the same area where my family’s from,” says Belickis. “I’m not putting anything in that oven that’s not supposed to be there, like a Thai chicken pizza.”)

There will also be a tandoori oven for bone-in ribeyes, and Happy Hour naan bread, topped with truffle oil and Parmesan. Belickis plans to bring in whole pigs and lambs to butcher every week or two, and whole sides of Vashon grass-fed beef. (Yes, there will be a bandsaw in the kitchen.) Belickis’s film editor wife, Meagan, will be compiling footage from two web cams in the restaurant (one installed above William’s personal prep area, and the other over the main pass) so foodie-voyeurs can get a behind-the-scenes glimpse via the restaurant’s website.

Chef Belickis is currently putting together his all-star team, four of whom have worked under him at Mistral. Patrick Hymer will be joining the new project as chief of staff, Amber Johannson as head of hosting/reservations, and Juan Lizarraras as Belickis’s right-hand man in the kitchen. Skye Swett, who cooked under Belickis at Mistral in years past, is returning to Seattle as production chef. (Swett’s impressive resumé includes two years as private chef to Jack and Suzie Welch (CEO of GE) and a year at Per Se in New York.) Ben and Casey of Zig Zag will be consulting on the bar set-up (and the hunt is on in major US cities for a bartender worth his or her salt.)

Belickis hopes to open Mistral Kitchen by fall 2009.

My husband and I have been loyal Mistral diners for years, and we know Mistral Kitchen has been a dream of William's for years.  A lease signed just days before his 40^th birthday? Well, that’s just the icing on the proverbial cake.