A talent for food that's artistic, organic, fantastic

Maria Hines, the diminutive dynamo who made a big name for herself at Earth & Ocean in the W Hotel, recently got a whole lot smaller.

She did it — as many successful hotel chefs have done before her — by taking what she learned in a fabulously financed corporate kitchen and using it as a platform to dive into the wild, uncertain world of independent restaurant ownership.

Hines took that leap this summer and opened Tilth, a certified organic restaurant in the hungry, hippified heart of Wallingford.

Today she's at home in a Craftsman bungalow whose sunny interior is splashed with a buttercup paint job, set with plain wooden tables and garden-green chairs, and hung with a blackboard extolling the virtues of American artisan cheeses. The mood is that of a modern-day one-room schoolhouse — one where the lessons learned have as much to do with eating wonderfully well as irreproachably "right."

Tilth is as casual as it is adorable, adjectives that extend to Hines — who last year was dubbed one of the country's "Best New Chefs" by Food & Wine magazine.

Add to that accolade her recent certification by Oregon Tilth and close ties with local farmers, ranchers, foragers and fishers. Then bear in mind that, national recognition and sustainable voodoo aside, this gal is foremost a culinary artisan who keeps the drama where it belongs: on the plate.

Sit at one of five counter stools in the sparsely decorated dining room, and you'll get a front-row seat with a view of her gleaming kitchen. Here she supervises a crew that has at its fingertips ingredients organically farmed, humanely raised or plucked from the wild.

Everything on the dinner menu, from soup to desserts, comes in two sizes: small ($6-$15) and large ($10-$27). So, in keeping with the New Seattle restaurant tradition, you might spend an hour — or an evening — grazing from small plates. Hate that? Live large, and go the starter-and-entree route instead.

Come for dinner, and you'll learn that the menu changes frequently and the meal begins, just like in the fancy restaurants, with an amuse-bouche. That little gift might be something as simple as a miniature salad of breakfast radishes, or a heavenly bite-sized "ham and cheese sandwich" composed of pork belly and Gruyère.

You could opt for a bigger blast of that belly served with French lentils or cranberry beans. The rich slab of porky-tasting pig ($12/$22) wears a layer of luscious lard beneath its crisp skin.

Looking for something equally thrilling but less filling? Chummy servers will tell you how to order ("I can eat three small plates myself") and what to order ("You really should have the tuna"). They'll also make solid suggestions when it comes to pairing food and wine.

And you really should have the tuna. It's astonishing albacore, troll-caught by the Seattle-based fishing vessel St. Jude and presented as a Northwest version of salade niçoise: The thick fish fillet is silky-textured and rare-centered, with heirloom tomatoes, a fine dice of haricots vert and a darling little deviled egg. But that tuna wasn't the only seafood sensation that elicited OMG-moments.

This jaded palate was also bedazzled by smoked paprika whitefish with mussels, cannellini beans and caraway, and by Alaskan sablefish seared to a balsamic-sweetened crisp and served over a properly crispy-yet-creamy polenta cake.

At brunch, I sampled a sophisticated scramble of smoked sockeye-salmon hash, gently stoked with capers and red onion and served with thick slices of raisin toast spread with fresh huckleberry jam ($13). And I couldn't make up my mind which I preferred. That, or the towering croque madame layered with ham, Gruyère and béchamel and crowned with a farm-fresh egg ($14).

If ever there were a daffy dish built for visual delight, it's Hines' mini duck burgers. The ground meat is cooked exceedingly (though some might say excessively) rare, and served on toasted brioche-style buns lavished with "heirloom ketchup" and "fig mustard." Better yet, these come with housemade fingerling-potato chips that could hide behind a dime. In a blind taste-test, I couldn't say for sure that I was eating duck (veal, maybe), but I can certainly say that these burgers gave new meaning to the definition of fun-on-a-bun.

Hines serves up small plates, but they encompass big — and new — ideas. Witness her porcini mushroom brulee with its proper brulee crust, milk-chocolate-hued custard and vanilla bean foam. This sly savory looked like dessert but tasted like an autumn walk in an enchanted forest.

Desserts, by the way, deserve your full attention. And they're bound to get it whether you're being wooed by complimentary sweeties like a shot glass of huckleberry soda rimmed with coriander sugar, or wowed when paying full quid for a precious pecan tartlet whose side of bourbon-flavored ice cream packs a pure Southern punch.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com. More of her reviews are at www.seattletimes.com/restaurants.

Sample menu

Porcini mushroom brulee $6/$11

Balsamic-glazed Alaskan sablefish $13/$24

Heirloom bean cassoulet $11/$21

Chicken leg confit $11/$22

Mini duck burgers $13/$24

Artisanal cheese selection $4/$12/$15

Pumpkin panna cotta $6/$8