Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ron and Carrie are still very much at the
heart of things here, though Traunfeld
handed over the reins to young rising star
chef Keith Luce in 2007, decamping to
open his own restaurant in Seattle. Like
Traunfeld, Luce—a former White House
sous chef—serves a nine-course set menu
every night, drawn from the morning's
harvest as well as products from several
other small local growers and food arti-
sans. Menu items are full of specific place
names and odd heirloom ingredients—
things like Lummi Island sockeye salmon
served in a squash blossom with lemon
and thyme, stinging nettle soup with Puget
Sound mussels, grilled squab on a pat of
onion pudding with a rainbow of beets and
fillet beans, or a braised shank of Ander-
son Ranch Oregon lamb served on emmer
wheat. Luce's finely honed sense of con-
trasting flavors comes out in dishes like
a trio of paddlefish caviar on crisped
salmon skin, skewers of rosemary-mussels
with cucumber kimchi, and Westcott Bay
oysters with sorrel sauce. Wine pairings
do a beautiful job of promoting the best
Pacific Northwest wines.
Herbfarm is very much a Big Deal res-
taurant—a meal can last up to 5 hours and
the price edges close to $200 with wines
included. Single diners will be happy to
know that there's a communal table every
night where individuals can be seated.
Check out the website for the frequent
themed dinner evenings, which may focus
on anything from mushrooms to wild
game to truffles to exotic spices.
14590 NE 145th St. (
&
425/485-5300;
www.theherbfarm.com).
(
Seattle-Tacoma International (28
miles/45km).
L
$$$
Willows Lodge,
14580 NE
145th St., Woodinville (
&
877/424-3930
or 425/424-3930; www.willowslodge.
com).
Straight from the Farm
179
L'Etoile
The North Star
Madison, Wisconsin
Surely L'Etoile is the sort of place the Slow
Food founders wanted to inspire—a
French-style restaurant in the capital of a
big farming state, where as many menu
items as possible come from local, sustain-
able, organic farms.
Founded in 1976 by Odessa Piper, who
had been both a chef and a farmer before
opening her own place, L'Etoile was one of
the very earliest restaurants in the Mid-
west to espouse Alice Waters's farm-to-
table gospel. Piper had always cooked
ambitious menus, which garnered her a
2001 James Beard award for the Mid-
west's best chef. New York-trained Tory
Miller has done likewise since he took over
the restaurant in 2005, after working as
Piper's head chef for 2 years before she
stepped aside. Look, for example, at his
Tuscan-style bread soup: It's made with
chicken, cheese, a sage-and-truffle meat-
ball, and a mélange of vegetables includ-
ing mushrooms, rutabaga, celery root,
turnips, and radicchio—all of it except the
truffle from nearby farms. Taking a local
poultry farm's organic free-range chicken,
Miller will cinnamon-smoke it, then serve it
with creamy sage polenta, oyster and shii-
take mushrooms, braised bok choy, and a
Pinot Noir truffle sauce (there's that alien
truffle again). A pan-roasted sturgeon may
come from far away, but it's wonderfully
savory accompaniment is locally raised
braised short ribs, roasted beets, cab-
bage, and cauliflower purée. Cheese is
a particular passion for Miller—a great
