Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
honing the restaurant's edge and resisting
stodgy complacency.
The current executive chef, Aaron
Wright, has been at Canlis since 2000. Like
his predecessors, he continues to burnish
the Canlis tradition. There are certain menu
items you don't mess with, like the Peter
Canlis prawns (cooked in dry vermouth,
garlic, red chilies, and lime), the creamy
house seafood chowder (Dungeness crab,
prawns, and Manila clams), steak tartare,
escargot in puff pastry, raw oysters, Wagyu
beef tenderloin, the twice-baked potato,
the Grand Marnier soufflé.
Saveur
maga-
zine has called Canlis's trademark salad—
crisp romaine topped with bacon and
Romano cheese and a special dressing of
lemon, olive oil, and coddled egg—“one of
the 100 best dishes in America.” But Mark
and Brian Canlis have clearly given Wright
plenty of creative freedom to supplement
the classics with items such as duck confit
and plum salad with Oregon blue cheese
and candied walnuts; sesame-crusted mahi-
mahi with spiced mango coulis and smoked
shiitake mushrooms; Australian lobster
with wild mushroom gnocchi, dripping with
yuzu butter and a soy truffle reduction; or
delectable hand-cut french fries drizzled
with white truffle oil. The five-course tasting
menu is a sort of chef's prerogative, and it
tends to favor Wright's more creative dishes,
with the most seasonal ingredients front and
center.
Set in an affluent Queen Anne neighbor-
hood, Canlis looks like the 1950s landmark
it is, a modernist beauty of massive cedar
beams, rugged stone columns and fire-
place, a copper charcoal broiler in the
middle of the dining room, angled win-
dows and a soaring glass wall open to the
surrounding greenery (not to mention the
dazzling view of downtown from the pent-
house level). Canlis strikes a perfect bal-
ance between its cozy hunting-lodge aura
and dressed-up fine-dining elegance—but
after 50 years, that balancing act is bliss-
fully assured.
2576 Aurora Ave. N (
&
206/283-3313;
www.canlis.com).
(
Seattle-Tacoma International (14 miles/
23km).
L
$$$
Inn at the Market,
86 Pine St.
(
&
800/446-4484
or 206/443-3600; www.
innatthemarket.com). $$
Bacon Mansion
Bed & Breakfast,
959 Broadway E
(
&
800/240-1864
or 206/329-1864; www.
baconmansion.com).
American Regional Stars
161
Merriman's
Hawaiian Punch
Waimea, Hawaii
Truthfully, there's not much else in
Waimea besides Merriman's. Plunked
down in the middle of the Big Island, in the
heart of what used to be cattle ranch
country, this low-slung, tin-roofed bunga-
low hardly looks like the culinary cross-
roads of Hawaii. But there's got to be
some reason why every concierge at the
luxe resorts on the Kohala and Kona coasts
keeps a set of directions to Waimea at the
front desk.
Ever since Peter Merriman and his wife
Vicki opened their upcountry restaurant
in 1988, it has been ground central for
Hawaii Regional cuisine. After moving to
Hawaii in 1983 to cook at the stellar Mauna
Lani Bay Hotel, Merriman quickly figured
out that creative sourcing was the way to
