Restaurant Review
Kirkland's Purple Cafe offers plenty to nibble and sip

By Providence Cicero
Special to The Seattle Times

	ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Mary Conway, a server at Purple Cafe & Wine Bar in Kirkland, pours a syrah from Januik, a Woodinville winery, at the restaurant's bar. Purple Cafe is quiet at lunch but can be packed in the evening with well-dressed Eastsiders. The cement-topped wine bar winds through the main room and wine racks go from floor to ceiling, filled with the 200 wines on offer, 70 of which are available by the glass.
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Kirkland's Purple Cafe & Wine Bar is the answer to all of the above.

Wine is the restaurant's raison d'être — no mistaking that. Singles like to attach themselves indefinitely to the wine bar, a wide concrete slab, backed by towering wine racks, that horseshoes its way through the main dining room. Large parties can reserve the 17-seat private room, but most of the capacious restaurant tends to fill with couples, small groups and even families — a crowd that ebbs and flows with show times at the nearby movie theater.

The menu is long, but the wine list is longer. Skewed toward American wines, with a solid Northwest representation, the list numbers nearly 200 bottles, more than 70 of them offered by the glass ($4.75-$15).

Deliberating over what to drink can take some time, especially if you don't know a pinot noir from a pinot gris. There is no sommelier to offer guidance, but servers are quick to offer a taste to help you decide and trained to ask questions like "What kind of wine do you usually prefer?" so they can steer you toward something familiar.

Purple Cafe & Wine Bar 323 Park Place, Kirkland; 425-828-3772 American/eclectic $$ **½ Web site: www.thepurplecafe.com Reservations: accepted for parties of six or more only. Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, noon-9 p.m. Sundays. Prices: starters $2.95-$10.95, salads and sandwiches $5.95-$10.95, pizza and pasta $7.95-$17.95; dinner entrees $13.95-$25.95. Wine: a predominantly American, heavily Northwest list offering more than 70 choices by the glass, many more by the bottle; tasting flights available. Parking: free in lot. Sound: loud. Beer and wine only / major credit cards / smoking permitted on patio / no obstacles to access.

An easy, if not inexpensive, way out of the conundrum is to sample one of the dozen suggested tasting flights — a 2.5-ounce measure of four wines presented in a handsome wrought-iron caddy ($15-$24). You can also invent your own.

In contrast to the wine list, everything on Purple Cafe's menu is likely to be familiar, from meatloaf and mac 'n' cheese to coconut prawns and baked brie.

Salads, sandwiches, pizza and pasta comprise the bulk of the card, which begins with a long list of appetizers and ends with a selection of dinner entrees available after 4 p.m.

Grazing is a good way to make a meal here, especially if two or more are sampling several wines. Create your own meze plate by choosing from among five savory spreads like feta with walnuts, or sun-dried tomato pesto served with crackers and flatbread ($5.95 for two). Share a pristine bowl of clams ($10.95) steamed with white wine, garlic, tomato and onion, or divide two plump, peppery crab cakes ($10.95) paired with a lemony tartar sauce.

Skip the dry grilled chicken skewered with mushrooms, pepper and onion ($7.95) and the pan-seared scallops in a too-sweet citrus sauce ($9.95). Nosh, instead, on superb little salmon medallions ($8.95), sautéed medium-rare and moistened with a mild wasabi-soy reduction, or split one of the impressively stacked sandwiches: perhaps pork tenderloin and red onion on a bolo roll slathered with pungent apple-ginger chutney ($8.95).

A small green salad accompanies the sandwiches, or substitute one of eight other salads, all of which come in half portions. Goat cheese, roasted pepper and pine nuts make a pleasing ensemble over mixed greens dressed with balsamic vinaigrette; bacon, avocado and red onion accent the similarly dressed chopped salad; shredded carrot, snow peas and bell pepper lend color and crunch to spicy peanut noodle salad (each $5.95 half/$8.95 full). Add grilled chicken, shrimp or flank steak to any of these for a few dollars more.

Chicken or shrimp also can embellish any of the 10 varieties of pizza, as well as most of the pastas, though neither the gorgonzola and prosciutto penne ($13.95) nor wild-mushroom pizza ($8.95) need such enhancement.

Walnuts, scallions, red pepper and crispy shards of salty prosciutto stud the creamy pasta. The pizza crust lacks personality, but the topping of mushrooms, roasted garlic, onions and mozzarella is full of character. (Gruyère, if it was there, went undetected.)

Bring a child along if you want the classic mac 'n' cheese ($5.95) from the kids menu. The grown-up version ($11.95), gussied up with Gruyère, mozzarella, gorgonzola and Parmesan, is a dry affair burdened with over-herbed bread crumbs. Dinner entrees include chicken marsala ($13.95), grilled salmon ($15.95), baked halibut in coconut-curry sauce ($20.95), old-fashioned meatloaf with excellent mushroom gravy ($12.95) and a thin, spice-rubbed rib-eye ($18.95), cooked a juicy medium-rare. A side of green beans shriveled in the sauté pan, but snow peas and carrots arrive bright and tender. Sour-cream topping gives garlic mashed potatoes a welcome boost of flavor and richness.

Managing partner Larry Kurofsky and his wife and operations manager, Tabitha Kurofsky, opened the first Purple Cafe & Wine Bar, a modest 40-seat eatery in a Woodinville strip mall, less than three years ago, but they are hardly restaurant novices. They launched a similar cafe, called Grape Street, in Las Vegas, selling it when the family moved here in search of a life-style change.

Now, six months after their Kirkland debut, the Kurofskys are expanding the Woodinville site, attempting to maintain its rustic charm while tripling its size.

Meanwhile, Purple Cafe's persistent rock sound track and metrosensual décor — natural wood, weathered brick, concrete slabs and weighty wrought-iron furnishings — seems to suit downtown Kirkland. Judging from the 20-30 minute wait for a table on a weeknight, the neighborhood emphatically agrees.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company