Chef at Seattle's Lampreia sets out to make not a bigger eatery, but a better one

Scott Carsberg has come far since he first stood behind a professional stove — at the tender age of 17. Since then, he's cooked beside European chef-mentors Andreas Hellrigl and Gunter Seeger here and abroad. He's gained well-deserved national attention and won the 2006 "Best Chef" award from the James Beard Foundation. But later this year, when Carsberg packs up his fancy French Morice stove and relocates his Belltown restaurant, he won't be going far at all.

That restaurant, Lampreia, is set to anchor the new Gallery building at Second Avenue and Broad Street — a commercial condominium that gives Carsberg the opportunity to own the space his restaurant resides in.

Unlike many stars in Seattle's culinary firmament, the West Seattle native has been at home in his restaurant every day it's been open — and it's been open for 16 years. The move from the corner of First Avenue and Battery Street, says the notoriously outspoken chef, gives him a chance to design and build a dining place that will meet his own famously exacting standards.

When Lampreia made its debut in 1992, in what was then a new mixed-use condo complex in a not-quite-burgeoning Belltown, "the landlords basically gave us a raw shell and it was up to me to do the rest," Carsberg recalls. With the help of his brother-in-law's friends, students from the University of Washington, "I built the place myself. I laid the floor. I painted the walls."

And then he went into the kitchen and, along with his wife and business partner, Hyun Joo Paek, invited discerning diners into a dining room that has since garnered comments such as "stark," "austere," "chilly" and "museumlike."

When confronted with the critical notion that patrons and professionals alike have been less than enthusiastic about his restaurant's interior design, Carsberg says, "I concur. What I tried to focus on was building my reputation as a really good cook. That was my goal for the space — to have a place where I can work every day, in quiet, focusing on the ingredients." With the new Lampreia, he insists, "I want to make a better restaurant, not a bigger one."

Still cooking at First and Battery, he's got building permits in hand — along with health-department approval and a thick set of blueprints for the second coming of Lampreia. If all goes smoothly, build-out should begin in a couple of months, with an 8- to 10-week completion date thereafter. He hopes to open before the year's end.

"Scott's an engaging person, an interesting person, and what he wants to do was a real challenge," says Kenny Wilson, the Irish-born designer who's been playing yin to Carsberg's yang on this project. "Working on the design for this location has been an intense, fun and insightful process," says Wilson. One that's spanned several years and involved many hours spent watching the chef at work.

But Wilson isn't just interested in the chef's point of view: He's also looking at the project from the diner's perspective. When it comes to the new restaurant, says Wilson — who's impressed with the chef's deep knowledge of architecture and design — "it's not just design for the sake of it. I'm working with a person who really wants to push it."

And he means that literally.

From details like the front door — where they hope to make a strong statement though the use of chestnut (common to Italy) and cedar (in a nod to the Northwest), to custom-built carts for cheeses, grappa and tableside service, the pair have conceived changes that will bring Lampreia to another level: one detractors have long said was a missing element. "I wanted a restaurant that would suit the kind of cooking that would evolve with me," says Carsberg, a self-described "micromanager."

To that end, Wilson has designed a kitchen work space where, says Carsberg, "I can see every cook, see what they're doing and control quality at all times." The original restaurant's tight galley is sectioned off from the spacious kitchen by a wall. He's also jazzed about plans for an "antechamber" where customers can "decompress" once they walk through the front door: a small but welcoming space where he can greet them from his kitchen post.

Carsberg and his longtime patrons will be able to bid good riddance to Lampreia's utilitarian restroom — a veritable half-day's walk beyond the restaurant proper. At the new place, he's tasked Wilson with creating a sanitary sanctuary that's both luxurious and sophisticated. (Move over Canlis?)

Between Carsberg's wants and his restaurant's needs, "I understand where he's coming from," Wilson says, describing a "back and forth" between chef and designer on everything from doors to floors.

"A lot of the restaurants he liked were European: large front doors and grand entries. I took my reference for the new space from Scott's early days working at the Hellrigl's hotel Villa Mozart in Northern Italy — a Josef Hoffman-inspired house."

The antechamber was Wilson's idea. "It's a transition space, and that's important," he says. Like the dining room, that chamber is meant to allow the diner to "feel as if you've left one world, and entered another." The new 45-seat dining room will be "self-contained and a lot more composed" than the original, notes Wilson, allowing patrons to enjoy their meal without distraction. The floor will be concrete, and the softness of the space will come from window treatments and the physical layout, he says, describing a single corridor that allows the chef to keep a watchful eye on most every table from the comfort of his kitchen.

As before, Lampreia will offer a small bar for dining, not drinking — one that Carsberg hopes will feel "more comfortable and intimate." The dining room's 12 elegant tables and upholstered armchairs will be familiar to those who've eaten at the original. As will his small staff, including chef Fernando Lopez, who's worked at Carsberg's side for 15 years. "There will not be a communal table," Carsberg emphatically states.

"Change is good," says the 45-year-old chef, "but words like 'trends' and 'reinvention' are signs of changing to be different — rather than changing to improve." Though he once dreamed of owning a small inn with a restaurant, built in the European tradition, he's convinced that this change is one for the better.

Nancy Leson: nleson@seattletimes.com