Light European Cuisine Shines At Cafe Sophie

Restaurant review

XXX Cafe Sophie, 1921 First Ave. ($$) Adaptations of classic European cuisine prepared with a Northwest flair. Lunch ($5.25 to $8.95) 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Dinner ($11.95 to $18.95) 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Coffee, drinks and dessert until 11 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Beer, wine, aperitifs. Major credit cards. Nonsmoking areas. Reservations recommended. 441-6139. -------------------------------------------------------------------

A cold and rainy Northwest winter night is the perfect time to visit Cafe Sophie. The classical music. The antique mirrors. The little table lamps casting their soft, yellow glow on diners sharing wine and hushed conversation in private booths behind dark green velvet curtains.

Forget you saw bike cops slapping handcuffs on a guy pressed against the wall outside as you walked in. A few snowflakes, and this could be Vienna.

A European-style coffee house is what former owner Shane Dennis had in mind when he founded Cafe Sophie in 1989 in the historic Butterworth building, a block west of the Pike Place Market.

A first-class European-style restaurant is what new owners Sue and Scott Craig created when they reopened the Sophie in September under the same name.

Romantic ambience

From the high ceilings, ornate gilded frames and forest green

interiors to the summertime sidewalk tables, the Sophie oozes romance. There's the bistro near the front, busy and bright with people chatting cheek-to-cheek; the grand salon, the formal main dining room; and the library, a cozy, wood-paneled nook with a view of Elliott Bay and the Market.

There's no reason the reincarnated Cafe Sophie shouldn't succeed.

The one-sheet menu emphasizes healthy and light Italian-, French-, Spanish- and German-inspired dishes prepared with Northwest flair. And there is, after all, a history of people dying to come here. The building, on the National Register of Historic Places, was built as Butterworth and Sons mortuary in 1908.

"This was the area where they held the services," our waitress told us as she brought our appetizer of three finger-length herb crepes stuffed with Dungeness crab, sweet peppers and creme fraiche laced with citrus and basil ($7.95). "Upstairs was the crematorium. Downstairs (which now houses Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub) was the morgue."

The crepes were light; the crab meat was spicey and warm. Umm . . . It felt good to be alive.

Visual appeal

The Craigs, who met when Scott, 36, hired Sue, 28, at Chez Shea in the Market, work at creating dishes that please the eye as well as the palate. Delicately arranged on a cut glass platter, the grilled polenta appetizer combined three silver-dollar-size corn meal cakes, a mound of Sauce Provencal of diced tomatoes, capers, onions and garlic; slivers of Regginito, an Argentinian cheese similar to Parmesan but without the bite, and warm slices of prosciutto ($5.95).

Heavier eaters will delight at some variations on traditional European dishes. Grilled lamb chops ($18.95) are marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and rosemary, then glazed with a tomato coulis which Scott Craig makes by smoking Roma tomatoes for six hours over grapevine wood chips.

But it's the lighter dishes not usually associated with classical European cooking where the Craigs really shine.

Grilled Market vegetables with lemon pepper, penne and fennel-arugula pesto ($11.95) was a colorful medley of grilled green and red bell peppers, onions, thin slices of sweet potatoes, zucchini, and beets grilled and piled on tiny tubes of pasta. Curled strands of paper-thin raw beet and slivers of red cabbage top a salad of wild field greens - red oak leaf, spinach, baby red romaine and mustard greens - doused in champagne and fresh herb vinaigrette ($3.50).

Garden vegetable escabiche, grilled seasonal fruits and imported cheeses ($5.95) was described by our waiter as an antipasto-type dish, but it could easily be dessert. Grilled, warm slices of apple, pear, pineapple and cantaloupe burst with sweetness, which was tempered by alternate bites of warm pickled red and yellow peppers, mixed greens and thin slices of Gorgonzola.

Intimacy aside, the Sophie would do well to enlarge some of its tables (picking up a corner of the white tablecloth revealed this could easily be done by obtaining bigger pieces of plywood).

Desserts are by local pastry chefs Martha and Dominique Delices. A nice touch is the Torrefazione coffee whisked to the table in individual carafes ($1.50). Times staff reviewers make visits to restaurants anonymously and unannounced. They pay in full for all food, wines and services. When they interview members of the restaurants' management and staff, they do so only after the meals and the services have been appraised. They do not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.