Tom Waits, Herb Farmers, & $10 T-Bones

The Little Red Bistro is Seattle's most adult restaurant. It's located in the stridently childless techno-borough of South Lake Union, and sits across the street from KING-5, whose building hearkens back to a day and age when most news anchors chain-smoked, wore mustaches and plaid suits, drank Scotch at their desks, and thought the etymological root of San Diego to be "a whale's vagina." Its large, red outdoor clock is stuck on 4:20—and not by accident, as the LRB hosted the city's first medical-marijuana farmers market this past Sunday, a kind event that will recur monthly.

G-Love

You know what time it is . . .

Location Info

Map

Little Red Bistro

400 Dexter Ave. N.
Seattle, WA 98109

Category: Restaurant > French

Region: Eastlake & South Lake Union

Photos

0 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare	0

Details

Little Red Bistro 400 Dexter Ave. N., 328-5981, littleredbistro.com.

Related Content

• Neighborhood Sales Report
  December 7, 2011
• Tom Waits Speaks Through Cookie Monster: God's Away On Business
  August 18, 2011
• The Little Red Bistro Is Seattle's Most Adult Restaurant
  February 25, 2011
• From Steve Miller to Bob Dylan: Rock's 10 Most Essential Greatest Hits Compilations
  May 8, 2012
• The Neighborhood Sales Report
  January 4, 2012

More About

• Tom Waits
• Lean Cuisine Meals
• Cape Cod
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Dining Newsletter: The week's top local food news and events, plus interviews with chefs and restaurant owners, dining tips, and a peek at our print review.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The LRB's cocktail menu consists of "seven deadly sins," each elaborate concoction priced at $12 and named after a Tom Waits song. The interior is dark and sexy, punctuated by burgundy drapes, suggestive wall art, and a mahogany bar. It has a performance area in back, called the Little Red Studio, which hosts live jazz, tango lessons, and erotic poetry, where attendees are likely to receive a "complimentary hand massage." And its entrées primarily comprise hot, pink beef.

Mondays—$10 T-bone nights—are perfectly geared toward stingy SLUsters who long to digest flesh outside the confines of their ground-floor condos. Steak campagne ($15) is a rib eye smothered in shallot butter and parsley. It's a little skimpy for what it should be, but seasoned to the point where any meaty mediocrity is shrewdly obscured by accompanying flavors, and the plate's red potatoes are perfectly baked. We were, however, a little perturbed by the number of microwave beepers going off in the kitchen, which might have explained why the beef Bourguignon ($13, served with basmati rice) came off like a plate of Not-So-Lean Cuisine.

Those are minor quibbles when considering LRB's unique function and high-powered drinks, in which non-alcoholic mixers are as nonexistent as they rightfully should be. Booze, if it's mixed with anything, should be mixed with other forms of booze. You think Tom Waits has ever downed a Cape Cod? Maybe if it were offered free at a summer potluck, but otherwise he'd surely opt for an On the Nickel, a potent blend of bourbon, dry vermouth, St-Germain, and absinthe. No wonder he so epitomizes the term "haggard."

mseely@seattleweekly.com