Restaurant Review
35th Street is jaunty junction of simplicity, creativity

By Kathryn Robinson
Special to The Seattle Times

KEVIN P. CASEY / THE SEATTLE TIMES Fremont's 35th Street Bistro, formerly Still Life Café, is a French-style bistro with elegant décor, an outdoor patio and beautifully simple dishes such as grilled trout and roasted free range half-chicken.

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Fremonsters who have never gotten over the relocation of their beloved Still Life Café, which bore the unrivaled distinction of being the epicenter of the Epicenter of the Universe, may not take well to what I'm about to reveal. You'd best stop reading now if it would hurt you too much to discover that the dazzling new occupant, the 35th Street Bistro, makes the Still Life's departure seem ordained, even overdue.

This may seem unlikely, for a number of reasons. After he bought the place two years ago, Bob Day tried unsuccessfully to maintain Still Life as a casual coffeehouse. This last March he reformatted it as a dinner bistro, rechristening the place into the rather generic-sounding 35th Street Bistro. If you've gamboled by lately, say around brunchtime on a weekend, you may have seen a whole lot of empty seats through those mile-high windows. And, not to be rude or anything ... but who's Bob Day?

Turns out this newcomer is a foodie and wine aficionado who ultimately had the great good sense to hire Renée Erickson to help him envision a restaurant like his favorite bistros in Paris. You remember Erickson, whose Boat Street Café behind the University of Washington transported us, for too brief a moment, directly to the banks of the Seine.

35th Street Bistro 709 N. 35th St., Seattle; 206-547-9850 French-Italian Bistro $$ *** Reservations: available. Web site: www.35streetbistro.com Hours: Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays; brunch 8 a.m.-3 p.m. weekends. Prices: Lunch $5ish to $10ish for soups, salads, sandwiches, and entrees; dinner $5 to $10 for starters, $10.95-$18.95 for entrees; brunch $5ish to $11ish for egg dishes, pastries, and grilled sandwiches. Sound: moderate. Parking: nearby street and $3 lot parking. Who should go: Parisian expats, frugal romancers, former Boat Street Café groupies. Full bar / AE, D, MC, V / No smoking / No obstacles to access

Though she was only engaged at 35th Street long enough to impart her signature style to the menu — toothsome, down-to-earth comfort fare; flavors distilled as a splash of Pernod — her influence clearly remains in the kitchen. And therein lies its glory.

I'm talking about an appetizer of pan-seared sea scallops ($9.95), draped in hot bacon dressing, served over fresh green beans and a refreshing tiny dice of green apples. This was a beautifully conceived dish, its sweets and savories in complementary proportion, its extraordinary mouth feel conveying those smoky flavors with maximum pleasure.

Or a roasted free range half-chicken ($12.95), served gilded and crackling in its own juices over fresh mushrooms, fingerling potatoes and sweet-pea vines. Earthy, simple, effortlessly moist — this dish was textbook bistro food, executed very well.

The entrée list stays similarly grounded in the basics — a couple of steak preparations, a couple of fish plates, a couple of pastas — with embellishments that predictably enhance, rather than overwhelm, the main players. A plate of grilled trout ($14.95), the whole unfortunate fella, was presented over a burnt orange vodka-tomato-sauce (assertive, divine) and a heap of the plump, mellow-tasting wheat grain farroto, then topped with just the right fillip of watercress.

This dish displays in microcosm the 35th Street Bistro's most defining characteristic: It's a place that has its simplicity and its creativity in exquisite balance.

Not to mention its affordability. The place is underpriced in general — a remark I almost never get to make — but a happy hour on weekdays delivers $6 cocktails and impossibly cheap $2 appetizers from 5-6 p.m. Little plates of sautéed calamari, fresh clams, organic greens in a sweet honey-chive-lime vinaigrette; hot garlicky frites dusted with pepper, chives and Reggiano, then wantonly drizzled with crème fraiche — all for two bucks. At one such feast we enjoyed Harry's Bellinis ($6), flutes of the Italian sparkling wine prosecco with organic white peach puree. "Like an Icee ... for grown-ups!" chirped my giddy companion. (Frugal romancers, take note.)

Weekdays there is lunch, and weekends, brunch — meals where we finally spied 35th Street's feet of clay. Overdressed salads. A fried-green-tomato sandwich ($7.25), primarily a beautifully oiled marvel but lacking the promised honey-thyme aioli. A bland brunchtime strata ($7.95). A plate of orange-vanilla brioche French toast ($8.50), crowned with fresh raspberries and toasted almonds and crème fraiche, which became a flood zone when poured over with the syrup one needed to sweeten the dish.

Then again, that was the meal where we encountered a hugely satisfying fry-up of corned beef hash ($9.95), with big moist chunks of meat and shredded potatoes, smothered in eggs, served with triangles of grilled rye toast alongside. All things considered — great Caffe Vita coffee, the affordable prices, the (inexplicable) lack of crowds, an ethereal wedge of sour cream coffee cake, and of course that lovely liquor license — 35th Street gets my vote for one of the best brunch spots in town.

The space doesn't hurt, a classy redo of the familiar old Still Life whose lofty ceilings, calm celery hues, natural greenery and light-gushing wall of windows evoke nothing so much as a Parisian boulevard. A sidewalk patio seals the deal.

Aside from the midday missteps, my biggest caveat concerns service. Folksy and friendly, our waiters were also varyingly pokey, underinformed, unrefined in their approach ("So ... whaddya want me to do now?"), and shamefully slow to greet guests at the door. What Bob Day needs now is a service expert to impart some savoir faire to the waitstaff — much the way Renée Erickson delivered her inimitable je ne sais quoi to the kitchen.

Kathryn Robinson: kathrynrobinson@speakeasy.net

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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