ART (@ four seasons)

After opening last Autumn to decidedly mixed reviews, I put Kerry Sear’s new flagship restaurant at the ultraluxe Four Seasons hotel on the backburner for a while.  May as well give them some time to work out the kinks, right?  Well, I’m happy to report that the wait was worth it, because ART Restaurant and Lounge is one of the most genuinely fun places to eat in town.  Located on 1^st Avenue across the street from the Seattle Art Museum (and, ahem, TASTE), everything about ART is designed to pull you in and chill you out.

And the heavy hand of hotel design cannot be denied.  This is restaurant by committee, a deeply calculated space from the textbook “downtempo mixtape” soundtrack to the contemporary clean lines and blonde wood paneling to the ovoid water glasses.  It is the Four Seasons after all.  And yet, despite the pretense, and despite myself, I really enjoy the place.  It has everything to do with the food too, which is impeccably fresh and surprisingly lighthearted.  It also doesn’t hurt that every seat in the house offers a picturesque view of Elliott Bay, tiny ferries coming and going from Bainbridge Island, Seacrest Marina Park in the distance.  ART was made for summer.

A long raw bar wraps around the center of the restaurant, all manner of strange and wonderful foodstuffs on display in various glass decanters and bowls.  And there is definitely a heavy focus on conventional sushi preparations and other Northwest pan-Asian standards at ART.  Ahi sashimi with pickled ginger and soy sauce is about as simple as it gets, until you notice the tiny green mound of freshly grated wasabi.  A Dungeness crab spring roll might be a little greasy, but contains such huge lumps of sweet crab and a pleasantly spicy chili poke sauce that you’ll hardly notice.  Even better: blue shrimp with horseradish and Bloody Mary dressing.  This dish in particular showcases both the focus on innovative plating and the lighthearted nature of chef Sear’s kitchen.  Ice cold shrimp chopped and tossed with diced tomatoes and microgreens and then arranged circularly around the base of a tall, salted shot glass filled with spicy Bloody Mary juice.  It took me a minute, but I eventually figured out that I was supposed to pour the sauce over the shrimp.  I know, Clever!

But nothing says playful quite like the “TV Trays” on offer during lunchtime (that’s Tres-Vite, ha?)  Each of the ironic/iconic trays has a different selection of offerings, including one that rotates seasonally based on what happens to be fresh at Pike Place Market at the moment (for example, a few months ago all four courses on the tray featured asparagus, including dessert!)  On that visit, I opted for TV Tray 2 – clam chowder as a starter, beef cheeks as main entrée with braising greens and a side of fries, and the dessert of the day, in this case a lemon cheesecake.  The clam chowder was creamy and mild, with puréed Yukon potatoes and pancetta and celery root.  The beef cheeks were served shredded and had a meaty, almost gravy-like flavor that completely obliterated any lingering reticence I may have had since that fiasco at Barking Frog.  The french fries were eminently snackable, served in a paper cone with sea salt, and the lemon cheesecake was tart and topped with tiny flecks of edible gold (“Tasteless, odorless gold… To EAT!”)  The courses are served all at once, on a compartmentalized tray, and give Spring Hill a run for its money on upscale lowbrow nostalgia food.

And yet, despite the startlingly good menu at the restaurant, if you need to find me, I’ll be in the Lounge.  In fact, it’s a safe wager that I’ll be in the lounge eating one of Kerry Sear’s legendary mini-burgers.  I’m fairly certain I only ever ate at Cascadia once during its storied history (forgive me), and I certainly would not have tried the burgers during my pescetarian days.  But mercy!  Now I understand all the weeping and gnashing of teeth when the place closed.  These are more than sliders, and less than burgers; a distillation of the hamburger experience, a hamburger vignette.  They are quaint, yet substantial.  You can order beef, salmon or veggie, with truffle butter, cheddar cheese, portobello mushroom or pancetta bacon as extra toppings.  They arrive deconstructed – beautiful sliced tomato, shredded lettuce and pickles arrayed along the top of the plate.  Three small porcelain cups hold ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise.  The combinations are limitless, but I will attempt to find them all.  (Although I must confess, I greatly preferred the plump, juicy ground beef to the salmon, which seemed like an afterthought.  As always, your mileage may vary).

I haven’t even mentioned the wine list, which reads like a catalog of my own personal Greatest Hits.  Some of my very favorites from Washington, Oregon and California, and some new discoveries (Broadley Vineyards Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, big and juicy with a nice mineral bite).  It’s one of those rare lists where anything you order is going to be great.  And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, ART has recently implemented a program by which you can sample any bottle of wine in the house.  It’s a two glass minimum, and they derive the price by splitting the cost of the bottle by four glasses.  Still!  If there’s something particularly spendy that you’ve always wanted to try, this might take the sting off a bit.  I think it’s a great idea.

One of many.  Forget what you may have heard, ART is fantastic.