Eating at the Back Door of the Restaurant

A Restaurant Review by Angela Garbes

First, a confession: When Anchovies & Olives opened on the ground floor of an ugly new building
just a few blocks from my house (at 15th and Pine), I was annoyed. I grumpily wondered aloud if Seattle really needed another Ethan Stowell restaurant. Selfishly, I was also concerned about the disappearance of on-street parking at the hands of smug, upper-class foodies. My boyfriend and I made a point of “forgetting” the restaurant’s name, walking by and gesturing towards “Artichokes & Ostriches” or ...

The food at Anchovies & Olives is undeniably great. And while A&O is too pricey for us to have dinner there often, it’s now my favorite neighborhood restaurant. Why? Because they’ve created incentives for local residents to drop in casually for a drink and some snacks. ...Case in point: Their twice-daily Power Hour, featuring $1 oysters (and we’re talking good oysters—Totten Virginicas, Kusshis, Kumamotos), $2 Peronis, and $5 wine and prosecco. ...

During late night ...on Friday and Saturday .., A&O is offering $5 “Chef’s Choice” specials. Five bucks gets you a plate of whatever the hell the kitchen wants to make you, and believe me, you want to be picking up whatever they are throwing down. Such as:
• Smoked mackerel over a salad of fennel, peas, chickpeas, and red currants. ($5!)
• Fried skate “riblets” (scrumptious long pieces of tender cartilage with plenty of meat to suck and pick off) with celery, pine nuts, onion mostarda, and chilis. ($5!)
• Saffron risotto with geoduck and sorrel. ($5!)

Angela seems to me to have a bad case of Pretensions on the Cheap. A menu tending to things like skates ribs and pigeon toes, usually flavored with olive oil make me wish for something as simple as putansca or even the great cacciatores of my childhood in Boston's North End..Just because it combines unlikely ingredients does not make a dish into an ouevre. Do I really want to feel like some beggar at the back door?