Stefanie Ellis
Edible Art
Check out these elegant practitioners of pastry just in time for Valentine's Day
Whether you like Valentine’s Day because you enjoy celebrating all the ways love exists in your life, or you want an excuse to eat delicious dessert with your girlfriends for Galentine’s, plenty of Seattle pastry shops and chocolatiers will keep you well fed.
The Sea Cowboy
Nick Mendoza wants his snacks to provoke thought as well as taste
The sea-loving part of him first pursued a career in marine science. He tagged great white sharks in California, researched ways to improve the sustainability of oyster farms in Scotland, and explored the inner workings of a large shrimp farm in Central America. He soon discovered that his advocacy for the ocean could only go so far in his chosen field, though he never thought he’d launch a seafood snack company.
The Seattle Naturals
Gaurav Tiwari and Andy Comer are on an unadulterated mission: to bring awareness of naked wine to the masses
Though not a wine critic by any means, I’ve had my fair share of wine from all over the world, even geeking out over Vinho Verde for a time, but I had no clue what a pet-nat was. When a glass of sparkling white wine was placed before me, I liked that its bubbles were only mildly flirtatious, keeping me entertained by its delicate effervescence. My first sip reminded me of an apple just before it begins to ripen.
A Pandan Treat
How a Vietnamese coffee shop became one of the city's best under-the-radar waffle spots
Whether it’s a hot puff of steam pushing through a tightly packed mound of grounds, or beans whirring in a grinder perfuming the air with their bitter oils, in almost every coffee shop on the planet there’s only one scent that dominates: coffee. So, it can be a little surprising to walk inside Phin Vietnamese…
No booze in Seattle? No problem
Seattle is a national leader in the booming nonalcoholic drink category
Kamp Social House in Madison Valley is alive on a Friday night. Customers pile up by the front door and politely squeeze past each other in the narrow path to the host stand, hoping to snag a table, but the place to be is on a bar stool, talking to bartenders Jeannie and Angela. Jeannie…
Decolonizing dining in Seattle
Hillel Echo-Hawk is at the forefront of Seattle’s Indigenous food movement
In 2022, an Indigenous-owned restaurant serving a precolonial menu — Owamni, in Minneapolis — earned a James Beard Award as the best restaurant in the country. Names like Sean Sherman and Crystal Wahpepah (respectively, a Beard award finalist for best emerging chef, and the first Native American chef to compete on the Food Network’s Chopped)…
Sea to shining snack: Seattle’s seaweed syndicate
Hot superfood kelp has arrived in Seattle by way of an unexpected treat
Travis Bettinson wants people to fall in love with kelp. His organic, gluten-free, and vegan puffed kelp snacks, Seacharrones, hit the market last March with a mission to create a sustainable product that bucks the stereotype that seaweed can’t be crave-worthy. With consumers a lot less salty about the idea of sea-based snacks, thanks to…
Dining in Seattle – Back to the Table
The growth of Seattle's Indigenous food space reclaims the origins of North American cuisine
At Seattle’s newest Indigenous-owned restaurant, ʔálʔal Café (the Lushootseed word means “home” and is pronounced “all-all”), diners can enjoy dishes from tribal nations across the United States. There’s wild rice from the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota; chocolate from the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma; maple sugar and syrup from the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine; blue…
Pastry: An Affair to Remember
Chef Ewald Notter of Dote Coffee Bar makes it easy to fall in love with pastry and chocolate
Most romances unfold in predictable ways. An invitation for lunch, where you share sandwiches in a loud café, silently wishing your bread was crisper, but never giving up on the idea that one day it might be. An awkward laugh as your fingers touch while you both reach across the table for sugar in that…
Dining In, Dining Outdoors in Ballard
Ballard restaurateur Tommy Patrick helped reimagine Ballard’s outdoor dining scene at the start of the pandemic, sparking a trend that’s likely here to stay
In a past reality that seems almost like a dream, Seattle’s outdoor dining existed only in the summer months, when we were all just happy to be in actual sunshine, even if it disappeared as quickly as the tables and umbrellas. Then, during the early days of the pandemic, dining stopped. Everything stopped. From a…
Seattle’s First Woman of Whiskey
Carolyn Sellar is blazing new ground as one of only a few Asian women in the world of whiskey
By day, Carolyn Sellar looks after apes, primates, lions and tigers. By night, she’s one of the country’s foremost authorities on whiskey. Sellar, a zookeeper at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, also owns Adventures in Whisky, a Seattle company that has produced hundreds of whiskey-themed events across Washington state. Sellar is also a brand and marketing…
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