Rustic and Homey

For our second stop on the Seattle Food Tour, we headed to Sitka & Spruce in Capital Hill's Melrose Building. I had never been to the Melrose Building and was excited to find a cheese shop, a butcher, a bar, and more located in the same space as Sitka & Spruce. The atmosphere is open and fun and really chill. I was worried that after eating at the Willow's Inn, I would be disappointed by all other meals (for the rest of my life??), and while the meal we had Sitka & Spruce does not live up to the amazing 21-course dinner at the Willow's Inn, it was lovely in a totally different way. The food is rustic and served family style, but is still creative and fun.

Most of the food comes from the chef's farm on Vashon Island, and the menu is constantly changing. I definitely want to go back and would like to try his other spot, the Corson Building.

Here's what we ate:

Bread with butter and duck pate-ish
Alsace style sausage
Sauteed leeks with egg and mustard (this was super delicious)
smoked manila clams with roasted beets
Salmon with some sides...can't remember b/c the rabbit was so good...
Rabbit with chard and potatoes (loved loved this...so flavorful and amazing)
Hot chocolate and cookies (Mexican wedding, almond, buckwheat with cocoa nibs, chocolate chip, ginger) (super fun, and I loved the almond cookies which happily did not have any almond extract in them)
persimmon bread with goat cheese sorbet (Sean was a big fan of this...I was too full of cookies to enjoy it)

After dinner, we spent some time talking to the super nice chef (how did I get here??), Matt Dillon (not that Matt Dillon!) and found out that he is a big Haruki Murakami fan (he was reading 1Q84). He even has a Murakami tattoo, but I didn't get to see it!