allison.scheff's blog

Look out, Ballard: Phinney Ridge is giving you a run for your money! At least when it comes to new restaurants. A year ago it was all Ballard all the time (Walrus, Staple), but this summer it's all about the Ridge.

I mean that literally: The Ridge Restaurant, from the owners of Prost! and Nickerson Street Saloon, will be supremely kid-friendly, from the pizza and sandwich menu to the large tables and shuffleboard table in back. The opening is set for early September, and they’ll serve both lunch and dinner.
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Summer nights call for sitting outside, smoke from a wood-fired grill in the air, a glass of rosé sweating in the heat at your fingertips. Agree? Then put a revisit to Revel on the summer to-do list. Read more »

Of course, it wouldn't be the smartest move to open a restaurant on a holiday weekend, but oh-so-many are opening right after this weekend. Read more »

With stints at Canlis, Restaurant Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon at the MGM (both in Las Vegas) on his resume, pastry chef Neil Robertson is arguably Seattle's brightest pastry star. He's spent the last two years at Mistral Kitchen< Read more »

It all started back in March, when my husband and I, regretting our lazy lack of planning (and therefore with no sunshine-filled vacation in sight), felt desperate to get away.
So we booked a long weekend with our kids on Orcas Island. Of course it wasn't sunny that weekend, but we did manage to hire a local babysitter so that we could have dinner--just us two--at Allium. Read more »

It's been a month of newsworthy moves. First we heard that bar legend Murray Stenson was leaving his longtime bartending home, Zig Zag, to tend bar at RN74. Read more »

RN74 Seattle, the local outpost of the Michael Mina wine bar concept so popular in San Francisco, debuts today on 4th and Pine Streets (for lunch) and Thursday for dinner. The restaurant held some soft-opening parties this weekend; see pictures of the place over on Eater. Read more »

Two recent food trend stories hit my radar within minutes:

First Food and Wine declared that the "Farm to ___(fill-in-the-blank)" construction had effectively jumped the shark with the phrase "farm to tumbler" to describe cocktails made with fresh, seasonal produce. A. Greed. I just wish there was an acronym for the Local.Sustainable.Organic.Seasonal contingent. S.O.L.S.? (Too bad those words don't all start with Z's, amIright?)

That story led me to read Eater NY's 10 Dead Food Trends story, and boy is that a study in Us vs Them. Read more »

Hey, didja know? We run a column in every single issue featuring a local producer!  Some months it's a farm, as it is this month: Skagit Sun grows those incredible ruby red Shuksan strawberries you'll be eating by the handful later this month. Read more »

There was excitement last fall when the news broke that Greg Atkinson, the former Canlis chef, cookbook author (his sixth book, At the Kitchen Table, is due this fall and he's long been a contributor to Pacific Northwest, the Seattle Times Sunday Read more »