After our visit to Piroshky Piroshky and some touristic wandering of Pike Place Market, we decided to continue our explorations of Seattle’s major tourist attractions with a visit to Chihuly Garden and Glass (which was still finishing construction on my last major visit to Seattle). After a short ride on the monorail (which is uniquely suited to this purpose, and few others), and a nice morning enjoying the gardens and glass art, we decided to grab a light lunch before everyone started to split up for their future travels. Turns out, we didn’t need to go anywhere, there’s a great spot right at Chihuly Garden and Glass: The Bar at Chihuly Garden and Glass.
The Bar at Chihuly has an interesting interior. You’d think that the overarching decor would be “glass”, but they went a different direction: the bar, display cases, and tables are all themed after various collections of Dale Chihuly. The ceiling is Chihuly’s accordion collection. There are display cases of collectible figurines and vintage cameras. Our table itself was fly-fishing themed.
Since this is primarily a “bar”, and we were in the mood for cocktails, we decided to go for one of the options served up as “Gather Around”, their fancy in-house name for serving up cocktails by the picture. We did the PNW Margarita, which was a pleasant riff on the classic margarita, with cedar infused tequila, lime, agave, and jalapeño ash. Both the cedar and ash notes were distinct, giving this a nice overall note different from just the tequila and lime.
We also ordered a handful of appetizers. The calamari was your classic deep-fried version, but with a particularly good breading of cornstarch and , furikake crusted, making this nicely crispy with some good herbal and seaweed notes. The calamari itself was cooked properly, just to the point of tenderness without getting rubbery. Rounding it out was a bold serrano aioli that was both tangy and peppery, for a nice overall combination.
Howard had ordered the Street Corn “Ribs”, these were essentially elote, but with the corn cut into narrow wedges like ribs. The result was essentially a less-messy elote that you could eat as a finger food, and nicely-composed.
But for me, the real attraction was the soup. Way back when Carol and I lived in Minnesota, one of our favorite hangouts, Sweeney’s Saloon, had a regular special on their menu of “The Catholic Grade School Lunch”, which was essentially just a bowl of good tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. The Bar at Chihuly had what was basically a perfected version of this as a lunch item. The soup was a rich and flavorful tomato basil soup with roasted tomatoes, basil, onion, garlic, and carrots in the soup. The grilled cheese used pretzel bread, scamorza cheese for the sandwich, and a perfect light grill. Both enjoyable in their own right, this was elevated to perfecting by dunking the grilled cheese in the soup. A combination of flavor, comfort food, and nostalgia, all in one.
Overall, for a respite from a busy museum, you’d have a hard time doing better than The Bar at Chihuly. The cocktails were excellent, the environment pleasant, and the food flavorful and well-prepared. And, even if you aren’t going to museum, you can get access to the restaurant.
