I'm heading to your glorious city in a few weeks and I am looking for a great Italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday at. The only prerequisite is top notch pasta. Details please!
Thanks in advance!
By JIMMYMAC079
on Jan 16, 2010 11:28 PM
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La Medusa- http://www.lamedusarestaurant.com/menu.htm
Spinasse- http://www.spinasse.com/public/pdf/ne...
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Spinasse would be my first choice:great in-house pasta and lots of attention to fresh ingredients. It's Italian in its feel for the food, inventive rather than serving up standard Italian-restaurant dishes. Also a nice cozy room and good service, which seems right for a birthday.
Volterra http://www.volterrarestaurant.com/men... in Ballard is nice.
Other places, yikes! I was gonna suggest Enotria in Laurelhurst but I see from its site that it's closed, and I had good food at Tavolata a while back but a recent post suggests it's off its game. I last ate at Spinasse about two weeks ago.
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I'll add La Spiga. They have white truffles from Alba right now (or did last week) and the truffles on their homemade tagliatelle, WOW.
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Maybe Volterra was off their game when we went. Suffice it to say it was the first and last time. Poor service, seriously undercooked prawns. Plenty of better places in my book. (For top Italian, I would add Il Terrazo Carmine in Pioneer Square (http://www.ilterrazzocarmine.com/).
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Spinasse would be my first choice too.
Tavolata is great also.
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Drive south to the Tacoma (Parkland) area and go to the restaurant Marzano. Superb food, cozy atmosphere (old house), very, very reasonable prices. Check out other reviews on the board. You won't regret it.....
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I also like Il Terrazzo Carmine, La Medusa and Spinasse (but don't know if the pasta focus at Spinasse has waned since the departure of Neidermeyer). I also reccomend Barolo, and, accepting that it's not an Italian per se, the pastas I've had at Branzino were very good.
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Oh, agreed, I've had very good pasta at Branzino too. Their antipasti is lovely as well.
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Also Cafe Lago is good when they're "on." They were on when we went, but I have heard it can also be hit or miss...http://www.cafelago.com/
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Thanks EVERYONE for responding.
Okay, I've checked out reviews online and such and haver narrowed down to Volterra, Barolo and Spinasse. For those that have an opinion, which has the better atmosphere?
Does it matter logistically that we are heading to the Key Arena for a concert afterward?
Thanks again!
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Barolo is going to be the closest to key arena ( a long walk or a short bus/car hop). I think the other two are a significant leap up in food quality and atmosphere quality. Spinasse you'll need reservations and might end up at a communal table, if that makes a difference to you. Both spinasse and Volterra are about 15 min drives from Sea Center. If I were choosing, I would go for Volterra, because of the more formal atmosphere and service, but I think it and spinasse are about the same on food quality.
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I agree that Barolo is much closer to Key Arena, but I wouldn't equate Spinasse and Voltera in terms of pasta quality. It is all very carefully hand made every day at Spinasse. Their pasta is exquisite, world class stuff in my experience.
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I would agree in terms of specifically pasta quality, but I think in terms of overall food they are roughly equal--I thought spinasse's other dishes were much less good than Volterra's.
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