Gnaw (15/15): My Favorite Seattle Restaurant
When Brandon and I lived in Los Angeles, I decided to begin writing about my experiences at local restaurants. It took me a while to reach this decision. I wanted to make sure I was adding something important to the conversation. There are countless food writers out there. If I was going to enter their space, I wanted to do it with a unique approach and angle that would challenge me.
I also know numerous important truths about myself. I know I do not have the most sophisticated palette in the world. To more seasoned restaurant guests, you might say I am a fussy eater. I also do not collect chefs like trading cards, tracing their paths from restaurant to restaurant, with deep ambitions to eat everything they commit to a plate. I do not eat out every night. I do not keep track of the latest trends. My name is not tucked away on the wait lists of my city’s hottest new restaurants. I am a simple man who knows what he likes.
Knowing these personal truths, I timidly approached my first essay. I knew I did not want to write a restaurant review. With “City of Gold,” the documentary about the heralded food critic for The Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Gold, rolling around in my head, I wanted to convey an emotional connection with my experience. I wanted people to know what it meant to me to sit at a chef’s table. I wanted people to know that I was treating this table like the kitchen table of my friends and family.
Since that leap into the great unknown, I have written dozens of essays. With each publication, I have grown more confident and sure of myself. My “food observation” muscle has grown stronger. I do not know if I have convinced anyone to take my advice, but I have tried to approach each essay with the goal of delivering the kind of honesty I seek in the writing of others.
As I thought about the 15th anniversary of my website and how to celebrate each recurring topic, I struggled with the best way to encapsulate this culinary journey of mine. I thought about returning to the site of my first Seattle review. I gave brief thought to a ranking of all the restaurants I have rated on Yelp. I got overly excited about exploring a string of eateries saved on my enormous wish list. Then, finally, mercifully, I landed on narrowing my favorites down to a single restaurant. At first, this seemed like an impossible task, but as I began to explore the reasoning behind the restaurants I love, a clear winner emerged.
An Ode to Osteria la Spiga – My Favorite Restaurant in Seattle
Before the pandemic, when culinary-curious friends visited me from out of town, I whisked them away to my favorite restaurant in Seattle. In Ballard, I walked them through the doors of The Sexton. Together, we would devour small seasonal bites, play roulette with bartenders talented enough to build countless cocktails based on nothing more than what you love, and we talked and laughed for countless hours in the dark, homey, and Bohemian space.
The Sexton did not survive the pandemic. For me, it became another victim, another lost haunt, and another slice of Seattle I will never get back. Now, I speak of it in the past tense. I seek neighbors who remember the joy of that special place. I search city streets and neighborhoods that bring close to a similar experience. The search for another great small plate restaurant continues.
But I am not destitute. I am not without a favorite restaurant in Seattle. While Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland steal most of the west coast attention for their food scenes, Seattle is not without great restaurants that dazzle and amaze me. But I must be honest. My favorite restaurant in Seattle does not top my list because of the quality of their food, extensive wine list, or talented bartenders. Osteria la Spiga is my favorite restaurant in Seattle, because of the emotional connection I possess with this special place on a busy block deep in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
My friend, Tim, loved La Spiga. I shared countless meals with him here. He never let me pick up the check, no matter how I fought him. He took a photo of Brandon and I at La Spiga. It is one of my favorite photos. It sits on my desk. Every day I am in the office, it is the first thing to greet me and always makes me smile. Tim is gone now. A heart attack stole him from us. Gone before he met the back half of his forties, I cannot help but think of Tim when I think about La Spiga.
On the patio of La Spiga, I celebrated my graduation from Seattle University with my adopted family on a warm June evening in 2013. My parents could not make the trip to Seattle, because my youngest brother needed them more than I did. As badly as I wanted them to be there, I understood. They were deeply missed, but I still felt loved and celebrated. Graduating with a master’s degree was no easy feat, but Tim, JR, and Patrick made me feel cherished. From that busy patio, my journey deeper into the nonprofit sector has morphed, taken countless turns, and pointed itself toward a true north star.
At La Spiga, I spent hours lost in conversation with good friends. I fell deeply in love with Brandon. In the last two months alone, we have been there twice, and we have had conversations I will hold dear for the rest of my life. I swear, they are putting something in that Bolognese.
I know there are other Italian restaurants in Seattle. My neighbors might argue there are better spots than my preference. They might be right. I will never know. La Spiga is not just a restaurant to me. It is a special stage where my life has unfolded in exceptional ways.
So, if you find yourself in Seattle, visiting me from some far-off corner of the globe, I will suggest we make a trip to an Italian spot I know on The Hill. Without a doubt, I will long for the food, cocktails, and wine, but more than that, I will find myself excited to etch new memories into the stone of my life.
Be good to each other,
Nathan
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