lunch at Nettletown

One of our favorite new spots in Seattle for an exquisite little lunch turns out to be one of the most unassuming places you’ve ever been.

Nettletown is in a tiny storefront, a sliver of a restaurant in a small strip mall. It’s practically next door to a Subway. You’d never expect one of the best exemplars of eating locally and in season to be in a place like this. The space has good karma, however. The renowned Seattle restaurant Sitka and Spruce used to be here, before it moved over to Capitol Hill instead. My guess is that after executive chef Matt Dillon received rave reviews from publications all across the country, Sitka and Spruce needed more than six tables for diners.

When Dillon left, Christina Choi slid into that space and started cooking in that kitchen instead.

Danny and I know Christina through Foraged and Found Edibles, the company she founded with Jeremy Faber. The two of them (and now their employees) forage iconic ingredients from the Pacific Northwest — nettles, fiddlehead ferns, morel mushrooms — and sell them to local restaurants. They are also kind enough to sell at Seattle farmers’ markets. This is how we can eat creamy polenta with morel mushrooms sautéed in butter in April without having to go out to the woods ourselves. Christina also creates an incredible wild foods calendar every year. She has also cooked in fine kitchens across town, including the Herbfarm. With all this, our hopes for Nettletown were high.

We certainly weren’t disappointed.

This is the salad I ate. I love big salads and I love that this was called the Daily Big Salad. Yes, please. Fresh wild greens, a hard-boiled egg, bacon, and something called Japanese knotweed. Have you ever eaten it? I had not. It has a rhubarb-like texture, slightly vegetal, slightly sweet, but with a fermented flavor. I was instantly addicted.

The salty-smoky taste of the bacon (I think it might have been Skagit River Ranch bacon, one of my favorites for its meaty flavor) made the greens more zingy, the knotweed slightly less unusual in the mouth, and the eggs? Well, bacon and eggs. Come on.

I wish I had another one of these salads right now.

This I could not eat. Oh, how I wish I could! But the pork short ribs had been marinated in something intoxicating that involved a touch of soy sauce. Gluten.

But our friend Jenise could eat this. And she did. (Wasn’t she nice to let me take photographs of it before she dove in?)

Pork short ribs (tender, I was told) with marinated vegetables, a tea-soaked egg, noodles, and greens. This looks as healthy as can be.

It looks so damn delicious. I keep staring at the picture, trying to figure out how they made it. I want some, with tamari.

That’s what Nettletown is like. Everything seems simple, the ingredients unadorned, the preparations fairly humble. But the taste of this food? Fantastic. The freshness makes each bite alive. This food — and that salad with bacon — will draw us back again. And again. And again.

Nettletown

2238 Eastlake Avenue East

Seattle, WA 98102

206.588.3607