Dish-Off: Alone at the Top

Three Seattle chefs compete for the “Cooking Maestro” title by creating three delicious dishes inspired by songs of their own choosing.

Over the course of this year, Dish-Off challenged chefs at twenty-eight restaurants to create dishes inspired by songs with ingredients in their titles. The results were spectacular, from Olivar’s Weezer-inspired Pork and Beans, to Il Fornaio’s White Chocolate Space Eggs — delivered to the table as the Liz Phair song played in the background.

For this year-end playoff, we invited the three top performers back. They each had to choose a song that had some personal meaning and then create a dish inspired by it. Surprisingly, detachment turned out to be a theme of all three songs — though with delightful dishes attached to them. To which would I attach myself most?

Cafe Juanita
“Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie” by Joanna Newsom

ALASKAN KING CRAB WITH TART GREEN-APPLE SORBETTO
AND CRAB-BUTTER POWDER

Photoraphy by Rina Jordan

Chef Holly Smith of Cafe Juanita participated in April’s “Gizzards, Scrapple and Tripe” Dish-Off, in which her love of organ meats made her shine — especially in the meal-ending apple-and-gizzard tarte Tatin. She went a bit obscure for the year-end challenge, with an intriguing song choice that yielded an intriguing dish. Smith calls Newsom a genius, explaining, “At first she sounds pretty and childlike, but ultimately she and her music are elegant and sophisticated.” Like the song, the dish is one of contrasts: sweet and sour in the sorbetto (Newsom sings of being “celebrated sourly”), with textural and temperature differences (playing on the lyric “I am cold”) and a gutsy pairing of entrée and dessert elements. With just three components, the dish is exactly as Smith describes Newsom: simple and executed to technical perfection. Both performers display wit and whimsy. And the crab, of course, strikes a nautical theme. While life on the sea is isolating, and Newsom hints at separation, dishes like Smith’s show me why she has such a great following.

Cafe Juanita
9702 NE 120th Pl., Kirkland
425.823.1505 | cafejuanita.com

Boat Street Cafe
“Autumn Leaves” by Edith Piaf

BRAISED PORK SHANK WITH POTATO PAVÉ, SAUTÉED PORCINI MUSHROOMS AND COMICE PEARS

Chef Renee Erickson’s song choice is shot through with a sense of separation as well: Piaf’s “Autumn Leaves” is a romantic, bilingual song fitting for the French-meets-Pacific-Northwest Boat Street Café. Piaf croons, “I miss you most of all / My darling, when autumn leaves start to fall.” Fallen leaves are the perfect metaphor for lost love; for Erickson, the song “mostly has me thinking about the change of seasons and the romantic, rich, rustic foods that I long for this time of the year.” Erickson won me over in the May Dish-Off with her play off of the Rutles’ “Cheese and Onions,” which featured a beyond-juicy pork chop served with leek gratin. She does it again here with a pork shank with meat that, like the leaves in the song, simply falls — here falling off the bone and onto the brick-patterned potatoes. The mushrooms and pears are perfect fall ingredients, and the brown hues of the dish evoke the beauty of fall, just like Piaf’s voice and song. Erickson’s cooking, to put it briefly, is lovely and lyrical.

Boat Street Cafe
3131 Western Ave., Seattle
206.632.4602 | boatstreetcafe.com

ART Restaurant & Lounge
“Don’t Leave Me Now” by Pink Floyd

LOIN OF LAMB, HERB FOAM, BALSAMIC BEETS, PEARL ROOT VEGETABLES, VANILLA YAMS, CAVIAR CAKE AND LAMB JUS

Chef Kerry Sear of ART demonstrated his artfulness when he tackled Blue Oyster Cult’s “Mistress of the Salmon Salt” for the September Dish-Off. He does so again with his dish interpreting Pink Floyd’s eerie “Don’t Leave Me Now.” The song is from the album The Wall, which is about a character named Pink Floyd who has experienced lots of loss in his life: he lost his father to World War II, his wife to another lover and his soul to materialism. “In this song, Pink’s a rock star,” Sear explains, presenting me with the dish. “So on the left side of the plate, showing the extravagance of fame and fortune, there are rock-star ingredients beautifully prepared and plated: gorgeous cuts of fine lamb, caviar cake, herb foam, perfect pieces of vegetables, and so on.” In the middle of the plate is layered bread, reflecting the wall of isolation that Pink is building, brick by brick. The right side, says Sear, “is a garbage dump, the leftover scraps of food that look like they were ‘put through a shredder’ and simply thrown on the plate without care for how they would look, representing Pink’s spiral into insanity.” The song’s instrumentals contribute to a hauntingly hollow feeling, and the lyrics (“Why are you running away?”) provide powerful insight into Pink’s depressed and detached state. Sear’s dish captures the song visually and emotionally, leaving me with a haunting restaurant experience —
one worthy of clinching the Dish-Off title.

ART Restaurant & Lounge (Winner)
99 Union St., Seattle
206.749.7070 | artrestaurantseattle.com

Kerry Sear, City Arts’ Best Chef of 2009, talks Pink Floyd, Saran wrap and how lunch with his grandmother changed his life.

What’s influenced you most as a chef? My grandmother was the main force behind my getting interested in food. She lived across the street from my high school, so I had lunch with her every day. That was better than any restaurant.

What do you cook at home? I actually eat very plain and simple food. Some things I cook for the family are spaghetti with tomato sauce and grilled garlic bread, curries and pizzas. In the summer I pick herbs from the garden and cook outside on my tandoori grill.

What’s your favorite kitchen gadget? I have two. One is my offset cheese knife I have had since college. It’s thin, sharp and comfortable. The other is my Pacojet machine. It’s an amazing piece of kitchen equipment for purees, pâtés and more.

Any favorite kitchen trick you would like to share? Use Saran wrap when making canapés; it helps with slicing and ease in rolling.

What bands did you listen to when you were growing up? This will age me, but all the big bands: Pink Floyd, Genesis, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Yes, Peter Gabriel. Now I like all styles: lounge, world, dance, classical, opera…I just try and keep up.

If you were away from Seattle for three years, what is the first restaurant you would want to visit for a meal, your own excluded? Canlis. You can be sure it will still be there.

Dish-Off reviews are based on announced visits. Restaurants receive guidelines and choose what to serve according to the month’s song.