Eden Hill is just a lot of fun – with surprising ingredients coming together to create what was infinitely and deliciously edible and oddly comfortable. I was on a short visit back to Seattle and lucky enough to be able to get a table (book ahead!) in this cosy restaurant at the foot of Queen Anne Hill. The restaurant’s website describes itself as “Avant Garde, New American” and I think that’s pretty appropriate although with food that incorporates sweetbread and foie gras and reflects chef Maximillian Petty’s well travelled tastes, it can be avant garde anywhere.

The menu is not extensive. Between my two Aunts and I, we managed to pretty much try every dish on offer. The restaurant just seats 24 in a fairly casual setting, befitting the young chef-owner and his team. You can sit and eat at the bar as well. In a way, this restaurant almost reminds me of Chateaubriand in Paris in that it’s presenting pretty high brow food in a more accessible setting. I’m not normally a fan of sweetbreads but Eden Hill serves this fried with super spicy habanero sauce, blue cheese and some pickles. They were like super tender buffalo chicken wings. And dessert was great too. “Lick the bowl” is really what we did to this foie gras “cake batter” mix. The sweet-salty taste reminds me of butter cream cake frosting. Oh so good.

I started with a cocktail – house infused gin with black pepper and fresh herbs. After an 11 hour flight, this was a nice way to start the evening. I had also just purchased a new pocket camera, the Fujifilm X70 on the morning I left Tokyo, which I decided was a friendlier and less embarrassing way to take photos of food. I was still figuring it out as the instructions were entirely in Japanese. I don’t think I got the hang of it just yet in these photos.

We started with the most amazing bread. Normally the bread is just part of the dinner to fill you before the food comes out. In this case, it’s an appetiser unto itself. It’s a cider whole wheat bread, nicely grilled, and accompanied with a sea salt butter and smoked fireweed honey. The butter is a cultured butter I believe.

 

 

The two veggie dishes: kettle corn brussels sprouts and a cauliflower chilaquiles. My Aunt is a big fan of brussels sprouts and she enjoyed these although it’s probably not the best dish that night and not as good as charcoal grilled brussels sprouts at Miller’s Guild. The cauliflower is served with cabbage and tossed in a hot sauce, jalapeño and manchego cream. The cream cooled down the cauliflower a bit and I’m not a big fan of cabbage. The other vegetable offering on the menu that night was the haricot vert salad which we didn’t order as it sounded a bit more “common”.

We tried two seafood courses – the geoduck and scallop crudo and the bloody mary mussels. As the name suggests, the raw geoduck and scallops are dressed with house cultured buttermilk with wild ginger, lime, leek and fennel. This was a nice, light dish and helped with the super fresh fish. And also an entirely different way of serving the raw fish which is usually seen either sashimi or ceviche style. The mussels are so named as the taste is expected to remind on of a bloody mary. Sriracha sauce gives a kick.

Now onto my favourites of the night (besides the bread). First, the aforementioned buffalo style veal sweetbreads. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this so much is that the super spicy habanero sauce and dollops of bleu cheese that dress the nicely crispy fried sweetbreads. The picked turnips and radishes are a nice accompaniment as well. And there there’s the crispy pork cheek that comes with caramelised onions, gruyere, whole wheat crumble, apple and wild onion.

However, the best surprise for me was the dessert. Lick the bowl is one of the best desserts I’ve had in a long time at a restaurant. I’m not keen on things are too sweet so this was right up my alley as the sweet-saltiness of the “batter” reminded me of butter cream frosting. I also really liked the way it was presented – in a cake mix bowl and spatula. There are two desserts on the menu so we figured we may as well try both. The second is a dark chocolate sorbet served with a yeast and peanut sponge, hazelnut crumble and chocolate. Not as exciting as the Lick the Bowl.

On the whole, I would definitely come back to Eden Hill. I hope that it finds the popularity it so deserves and is not deemed too avant garde for the Pacific Northwest. I really want to come back to try the five course blind chef’s tasting menu (omakase in other words). Other than the bread which was USD5, the other dishes generally range from USD12 to USD17. The mussels were the most expensive item on the menu at USD20. More info at Eden Hill’s website: http://www.edenhillrestaurant.com/#about.