Serves: dinner, late-night. 2030 Fifth Ave., 448-2001. BELLTOWNtomdouglas.com/restaurants/palace-kitchen
Poppy
Renee McMahon
HTCAW is bigger than a breadbasket (but just barely).
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Circles abound at Jerry Traunfeld's 6-month-old restaurant, from the orange rounds inscribed in the banquettes to the ones on the menu cards. And the chef's daily "thali," a prix-fixe meal modeled after Indian meals, packs an 18-inch tray with eight to 10 tiny bowls and cups. These circles within circles are a visual metaphor for Traunfeld's cuisine, which layers flavors upon flavors to almost dizzying degree: A parsnip soup is perfumed with bay leaf, cardamom, and vanilla, each emerging and fading on the palate in its own time. Albacore tuna comes with cilantro slaw and pickled shallots. A roast quail rubbed thickly with spices sits atop a pomegranate-walnut compote. If the thali (or its smaller, cheaper sister, the "smali") doesn't leave your belly feeling like a taut, round balloon, Dana Cree's dessert thali, itself filled with miniature scoops and slices, will complete the effect. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
Serves: dinner. 622 Broadway E., 324-1108. CAPITOL HILLpoppyseattle.com
Spur
At their tiny cocktail bar–restaurant, decorated in a style you might call West Elm Western, Dana Tough and Brian McCracken have rightly picked up a reputation for being among Seattle's most adventurous chefs. Given their work with molecular-gastronomy devices, I imagine their kitchen as a cross between the set of Flubber and a high-priced hair salon. But most of the unsuspecting diners on whom the pair bestows their gels, foams, and creams will only notice how good everything tastes. That's because in terms of flavors McCracken and Tough are echt-Seattle, calling on the best of the seasonal, local produce within their reach. The two both trained under Maria Hines, whose all-organic restaurant, Tilth (see below), is a model for sustainable, ingredient-driven cuisine. Their playfulness comes out in texture: a Parmesan foam floating over a plate of fresh tagliatelle with hedgehog mushrooms and a duck-egg yolk; the sashimi-like feel of a chunk of smoked salmon croustade with mascarpone and pickled shallots. This is food that your retired parents, as well as your Top Chef–addicted college student, will fall for. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
Serves: dinner, late-night. 113 Blanchard St., 728-6706. BELLTOWNspurseattle.com
Tilth
When Maria Hines first opened Tilth, the food was good—the duck burgers with fingerling chips damn good—but you could sense the strain the four-star chef felt cooking organic on a tight budget. Two years on, she's upped the prices on her dishes by a few bucks (all still available in small and large portions), and her creativity has taken flight. A truffled cauliflower flan with bits of Meyer lemon and fried capers is as unctuous as a French triple-crème cheese, and a sablefish fillet cooked sous-vide has the texture of a poached marshmallow. (Hines also uses this high-tech cooking method to amplify the flavor of the braised fennel with which she anoints the fish.) Hines' servers can muster all the polish of a much pricier restaurant without dumping the friendliness befitting a restaurant housed in a tiny Craftsman. And her version of choucroute garnie—braised sauerkraut, velvety pork cheek, and a breaded patty made of the meat picked off a pork trotter—is the best pork dish I've tasted in the Year of Bacon Overkill. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
Serves: dinner. 1411 N. 45th St., 633-0801. WALLINGFORDtilthblog.wordpress.com
Trellis
Brian Scheehser's 2-year-old Trellis fights back commendably against its setting—a chi-chi hotel on a heavily-trafficked Kirkland street. Even as halogen car headlamps rake across the room (drapery, anyone?), even as other diners attend to their BlackBerrys, the plate commands your attention. Delicate Pink Lady apple shavings nicely punctuate the blue-cheese salad starter; the fresh tomatoes and basil on the Caprese flatbread are excellent; a tomato soup holds its texture, with enough bite to make pepper superfluous. The pan-seared salmon, of all things, is a truly marquee dish (though not always on the menu). Served in an apple glacé, it was the most exquisitely tender salmon this Northwest native's ever eaten. BRIAN MILLER
Serves: breakfast, lunch, dinner. 220 Kirkland Ave., 425-284-5900. KIRKLANDheathmankirkland.com
Union
At the intersection of one of downtown's most hellish corners of traffic, across the street from the crumbling financial industry that is WaMu, is a restaurant that begs you to slow down. A plate of blackback sole may be your entrée, but you'll need all the accompaniments you can get to make it a meal. And that's just the point. Ethan Stowell has designed Union's portions and menu (you choose four items plus dessert for $50) around an evening of grazing. For the drifters, the nookish bar with a (partially) surviving sunset view kitty-corner from the new Four Seasons isn't as recession-friendly as some of its peers. But if you want to impress your significant other with an alternative to the $2 cheeseburger, or sit in solitude with a artfully-made French 75 or Old Fashioned, this is the finest place to do it on First. CHRIS KORNELIS
Serves: dinner. 1400 First Ave., 324-1108. DOWNTOWNunionseattle.com
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