Perfectly Served at Branzino

And, of course, simple Italian food means that when your flatiron steak comes with only a chilled pat of ramp butter, fingerling potatoes, and some slow-cooked tomatoes, it's easy to notice that the meat is medium instead of medium-rare, and that the veal meatballs on your spaghetti with red sauce are packed too tightly and with too much salt.

But for every "Well, that was pretty good," there is a dish like the lobster gnocchi: snipped potato dumplings, light and far from gummy, with fat hunks of crustacean meat and, to interrupt their richness, the fresh crunch of barely blanched snap peas. Like a scrim behind—or maybe in front, it's hard to tell—the action on the stage, all the flavors are made softer and dreamier by the faint aroma of truffle oil.

Steven Miller

Michael Don Rico, steering plates in the right direction.

Details

Branzino 2429 Second Ave., 728-5181, www.branzinoseattle.com. BELLTOWN. Open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday.

Location

Branzino

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More About

• Michael Don Rico
• Belltown
• Ashley Merriman
• Eating Out
• Italian Food and Cooking

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At 8 p.m. on an already too-perfect summer evening, Branzino's romantic patina seems a little thickly applied: Umber walls stretch up to a high, dark-brown ceiling, broken only by a flash of red tile behind the galley kitchen. Customers slide into dark-wood, high-backed booths that seat six (or eight Belltown beauties, provided they're carb-restricters). The men's bathroom stall is lit only by candlelight. But Seattle is only picnic-worthy three months a year; during our nine months of drippy gray nights, the paper-covered lamps will cast the creamiest, most inviting glow.

Branzino's Italian bistro fare is an awful lot like that at Tavolata, not even a block away, but the restaurant is designed more for quiet talkers who perhaps don't want to sit next to strangers or share all their food (I'm not being sceneist, mind you). It should be a successful formula, since wild experimentation is not what the neighborhood seems to want. In the past three months, most of Belltown's ambitious restaurants have fled: Qube never made it. Cascadia's chef-owner is leaving for the hotel world. Lampreia's moving. Mistral's chef is "reformulating concepts." Maybe the neighborhood never fully recovered from the loss of its brash dot-com high-rollers, maybe the zeitgeist doesn't favor splashy, big-budget restaurants.

So with its approachable, timely, affordable Italian food, an ambience perfect for couples and winter nesting, and service so good it attracts the notice of a former cook whose blinkered mind is normally fixed on reverse-engineering dishes and thinking about what's going on in his mouth, I'm confident Branzino is going to do well. To make the most of your meal there, Seattleite, relax and enjoy the attentions of the servers. Just don't smile at them too often, you perv.

Price Check
Panzanella $9
Maltagliati with rabbit sugo $16
Linguini with clams $16
Branzino $21
Flatiron steak  $23

jkauffman@seattleweekly.com