Sweetness in Seattle
By: Jo-Anne Lauzer

Post Date: September 8, 2022

Post Date: September 8, 2022
If you have been following Christine on Instagram, you know that this has been a busy year so far. So when the opportunity came to take a bit of time off, she jumped at the chance to drive to Seattle and spend the July 4th long weekend there savouring all of her favourite restaurants, markets and sweet treats.
“I find that Seattle is welcoming, hospitable, culinary and full of great taste,” says Christine. “They represent the Pacific Northwest really well.” With each visit, and with her love of markets and great food, she makes it a point to stay at a hotel close to Pike Place Market.
“Pike Place Market makes my heart sing. ”
“The market makes my heart sing,” says Christine. “I just love being able to walk down and have breakfast at Lowell’s Restaurant & Bar. You sit upstairs and you watch the ferries come into the dock and the cruise ships are in front of you, and the tankers are there too. It's always amazing to be able to just sit and watch the world go by while having a proper diner breakfast.”
Another much-loved food destination is
Serious Pie, which is one of
Chef Tom Douglas’s restaurants. “I went for lunch twice in three days,” says Christine who just can’t get enough of the Ferndale Farms mozzarella, tomato sauce and fresh basil pizza. But as much as she loves their pizza, she also couldn’t help indulging in one of the mini-coconut cream pies, called a coco-bite, from the
Dahlia Bakery next door. She first discovered the decadent dessert at the iconic Dahlia Lounge, which is the restaurant that launched Douglas’s current culinary empire. “I loved going to the Dahlia Lounge for dinner,” says Christine, “and having one of his most famous desserts, the triple coconut cream pie.” The Dahlia Lounge closed in 2021 but Christine was excited to see their most addictive dessert available in a variety of sizes at the Dahlia Bakery, which is also owned by Tom Douglas.
“I went to Serious Pie for lunch twice
in three days.”
Christine’s other favourite place for lunch in Seattle is the American burger chain Shake Shack, which recently opened a new location in University Village just North of downtown Seattle. “I cannot pass the restaurant without wanting a Shake Shack burger,” says Christine who took time to visit the area for some fun shopping and of course to have lunch. “University Village is a cool outdoor mall where you walk around without any cars and there are big umbrellas outside every store for people to use on site if it starts to rain.”
And speaking of shopping, no visit to Seattle for Christine is complete without a visit to Watson Kennedy. Makes sense, given her penchant for home décor and hosting lovely dinner parties. “As you know, I love to think about how to create a dinner, pull together recipes and think about how I am going to set the table. And there are people who do exactly as I do, and one of them owns one of my favourite stores in the world—Watson Kennedy. The gentleman that owns it is Ted Kennedy Watson. His stores are filled with how to set a table with just the perfect little dish and the most amazing placemat, little salt cellar, vintage silver from London or even Pillivuyt dishes from France.” He also recently published another book - Ted Kennedy Watson’s Guide To Stylish Entertaining, which according to Christine, “Is filled with great tips and tricks and tastes for amazing gatherings with friends and family.”
While in Seattle, Christine also managed to have some incredible dinners and four top restaurants: 84 Yesler, Stateside, Goldfinch Tavern and MKT. They were all wonderful, but one stood out in particular. “It was my second time at 84 Yesler and it was just absolutely gorgeous, beautiful and inspiring with great cocktails and the most amazing food.”
"It was my second time at 84 Yesler and it was just absolutely gorgeous, beautiful and inspiring with great cocktails and the most amazing food."
In between visiting her favourite foodie destinations and doing a bit of shopping, Christine also managed to book a fascinating underground tour of the city’s infamous tunnels, take in the 4th of July fireworks and have cocktails in a 1920s speakeasy-inspired bar cleverly hidden behind a bookcase at the Fairmount Olympic Hotel. According to Christine, “You need to get permission to go in and once in, I had a delicious bourbon cocktail.”
And of course, Christine made time to visit a local independent bookstore, frequently. “Elliot Bay Book Company,” says Christine “is one of my favourite bookstores and most nights after dinner I would wander over, just because it was there.”
Christine managed to fit in quite a bit during her five days in Seattle and was grateful that she did not fly this time. “Usually I take the Seaplane, but because we drove I bought a new cooler for the back of the car and it meant that I could run through Pike Place Market on my last day and fill it up with all of my favourite things to take back home.” No doubt this also included some sweet treats like the mini-coconut cream pies as well as chocolates from Fran’s Chocolate.
Join us again next month as Christine will be sharing some of her favourite picks for the new cookbooks coming out this fall.
"Stay tuned, as each month I will share some of the most important food news that have caught my eye and dispatches from my travels. There will be guest takeovers, mini interviews and behind the scene tastes!"
Taste! Taste! Taste!
Christine
What Christine is reading & tasting now:
COOKBOOKS
Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Cookbook (1962).
What makes this book special is that not only was it an incredibly thoughtful gift purchased from
The Scribe Bookstore
in Toronto, the illustrations are all done by Andy Warhol.
