CAMPAGNE
(86 Pine, 728-2800)
Related Content
More About
Voting for Campagne is hedging your bets. Between the formal restaurant and the casual cafe, sweetie pie sommelieuse Shawn Mead provides as many as 45 by-the-glass choices and countless bottles of regional French treats—it's two complete lists to sample! Not content to just taste other folks' concoctions, she's even gone so far as to make her own (a 2000 cabernet franc). Next up is Campagne's own cuvee; it'll be from southern France, but all else is undecided. Most welcome to the Seattle wine world is her focus on visual memories—tiny Loire valley vineyards and individual stories—rather than another tedious set of "fruity-oaken-mellow" adjectives. There's a great divide between wine wisdom and passion, and you have to love a sommelier who bridges that gap with flair. J.L.
Second place: Canlis (2576 Aurora N., 283-3313)
Best Wine Shop
PETE'S SUPERMARKET
(58 E. Lynn, 322-2660; also Pete's of Bellevue, 134 105th N.E., Bellevue, 425-454-1100)
Originally a humble neighborhood grocery for the Lake Union houseboat set, Pete's was purchased 20-odd years ago by wine buff George Kingan, and little by little, wine has encroached on the original wooden shelves to the point that you can pick up a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and a bag of Chee-tos without moving from one spot. Apart from ample selection and agreeably funky atmosphere, Pete's is notable for its fire-sale prices on top-of-the-line wines: some 30 or 40 each month at prices you just won't see anywhere else, including Costco. For champagne lovers, Pete's wide selection and rock-bottom prices make imbibing real French bubbly daily seem like a positive duty. There's a Pete's in Bellevue, too: bigger, but no Chee-tos. R.D.
Second place (tie): Garagiste (by appt. only: 264-1494, www.garagistewine.com)
and McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants (2401 B Queen Anne N., 282-8500 and 6500 Ravenna N.E., 524-9500)
Best Place to Spend $200 on a Shirt
NORDSTROM
(various locations)
So you've put in your time at Value Village, Marshall's, and the Bon clearance sales. Now you finally make enough to have something left over at the end of the month, and you don't want a Circuit City gadget or an extra-nice bottle of wine or a new set of tires—you want something fabulous, something that makes you look sexy and skinny and unstoppable, something you want to wear right out of the store. At Nordstrom, they'll coddle you in their cozy, carpeted dressing rooms, asking if you'd like another size, if you'd like it altered—hell, the only thing they don't ask is if you'd like a beverage. Which is good, actually, because you'd hate to spill on your sexy, skinny new shirt, wouldn't you? L.G.
Second place: Barneys New York (1420 Fifth, 622-6300)
Best Hotel
FOUR SEASONS
(411 University, 621-1700)
A lot of new places have tried to compete for our attention in the last year, but we can tell that underneath all that butt-wiggling flirtatiousness, they really just want One Thing. We're saving ourselves for that last of the great ladies, the Four Seasons. If you wore white gloves to W, they'd think you were a performance artist; if you wore them to Ace, they'd assume you were allergic to the world. At the Four Seasons, white gloves seem appropriate. Dainty. Formal. Polite. Makes you want to strip 'em off and get to that steaming underbelly of sensual pleasure that you just know is waiting behind the mini bar. C'mon, Ms. Four Seasons—we'll show you ours if you show us yours. This time, it's the real thing. J.L.
Second place: W Hotel (4th and Seneca, 264-6000)
