Crush Groove

It was such a simple and stupid thing (and, in fairness, not even really the restaurant's fault, because had I been a few inches taller I would've felt just fine), but it stands as a benchmark of how well everything else is done. One seat at the bar is too short: the sum total of my criticism.

On Missing-Wilson Friday, while I amused myself watching the clockwork actions of the kitchen staff building entrées, wiping plates, working six small copper pots of sauce at once without ever losing track of which was meant to go where, a waitress quietly delivered my final course. It was not simple, exactly, but controlled—a white plate of black cod, the meat a perfect square of flesh, served with a second square of pork belly that'd been lacquered and slow-roasted and served with a drizzle of green-scallion glace.

Peter Mumford

The New Busy are quiet and efficient.

Location Info

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Crush

2319 E. Madison St.
Seattle, WA 98112

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Madison Valley & Madison Park

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Details

Crush 2319 E. Madison St., 302-7874, chefjasonwilson.com. Dinner only, 5:30–10:30 p.m.; closed Mondays.

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More About

• Jason Wilson
• Thomas Keller
• Jean-Georges Vongerichten
• Foods
• Meat

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No vegetables were in evidence on the plate, a bold departure from the protein/starch/veg tradition of the American dinner plate. It instead presented a study in fatty luxury—first the cod, ideally cooked with the skin left on and crisped, the flakes of meat all oily and tasting of nothing but salt and fat and the sea; then the pork belly, ultimate indulgence of the pig-obsessed. Everything else on the plate served only to point up this dramatic excess of soft, slick, and fatty pleasure.

This, then, was the Wilson influence: a surfeit of luxury, restrained only by the hands of the cooks whom he'd instructed, balanced against some hypothetical eater's potential tolerance for fatty indulgence. Though the tagliatelle that'd come earlier was perhaps more affecting, and the other plates of tuna, short rib, foie gras, or fried octopus more standard and beloved by Crush's regulars (of whom there are many), it was this one plate of pig and fish—so perfectly paired, so perfectly goofy together—that showed where chef Jason Wilson's mind is today, what chef Jason Wilson can truly do.

Even when chef Jason Wilson isn't in the kitchen.

jsheehan@seattleweekly.com