Seattle: Cremant Restaurant, is it good?

[Katie]

We're going to a play on Sunday and thinking about Cremant for dinner. Recommended? Thank you. K.

http://www.cremantseattle.com/menu.html

[Andreea]

It is nothing short of delightful. The marrow bones, the rillettes, the steak frites...oh my!

[Lauren]

I was there a couple of weeks ago and they still had some kinks in the kitchen that needed to be worked out.

The marrow bones were way underdone, to the point of being gross and they weren't cleaned. The ones at Crush are much, much better.

Of the four entrees we ordered: halibut, steak, lamb and one other thing I've forgotton, only one was prepared as ordered. The rest were either over or under done.

The service was fantastic and the wine list interesting. I have high hopes for the place.

[barleywino]

An update: they no longer offer the veal w/ rice (until autumn). Lamb chop was mostly fat (confirmed on 2 visits). Whole roast chicken for two was very good but took over 1 1/4 hour for them to prepare; would have been a nice touch for them to present and carve tableside, oh well.

[barleywino]

avoid the beef tartare (unless you really like capers). blanquette de veau is bland but satisfying.

[Katie]

Went to Cremant after a play last night (Sunday) and it was packed for dinner. No problems with the food other than the portions were huge and we've got dinner for the next couple of days. And of course that's not a problem.

It was a cool late afternoon so the gruyere glazed onion soup warmed me up (and filled me up) and hubby enjoyed the Foie Gras (I didn't try it).

We ordered the grilled asparagus and I ate that right up. My braised veal shank, mushrooms, onion and rice dish was pretty rich on top of the soup so I had a couple of bites just to try. Was good.

Hubby had the Cassoulet - duck confit, pork, toulouse sausage. Was really good.

Ok-we weren't too full for dessert. We shared a rice pudding (lots of vanilla bean in it)..was delicious.

Thank you again for your replies.

[JackNH]

I live in the neighborhood, but only last night got around to trying it out. I was curious why we had a wait a bit for our table, since so many were empty when we arrived, on time, for our reservation; but the wait was only a bit.

I started with the onion soup. Some people might have found it bland, but I loved it-- not the salty sea so many onion soups are. Then came mussels with pommes frites: good if not great. The French muscadet we downed with our food was light and fresh. We passed on desserts, but the menu looked delicious.

Alas, I will never go to Cremant again. Why? The head-splitting noise levels! Nearly needed to lip-read our waitperson to figure out what she was saying. Cremant is one of those rug-less, curtain-less poured-concrete restaurants that have inexplicably been popular for two decades now. (Do people really think that noisy equals cool?) Why Musak, hardly audible above the roar, was added to the cacophony eludes me. Cremant, get some carpeting and some sound-absorbing ceiling tiles!

[landguy]

I love Cremant for their fois gras terrine. Outside of that and maybe the onion soup (which is also very flavorful and hearty) I haven't really been blown away by their food. I am glad the restaurant exists though because their menu is pretty unique in that it's oriented to French comfort food I don't think you can really find anywhere else in town. Their by the glass selection of Cremants is also really cool and unique. My bigggest complaint is that the tables are too close together and therefore I can hear everyone else's conversations and vice versa - loud and clear. This is also my big complaint about Crush!