Lively Market -- Brad Komen's Gourmet-To-Go Serves Sensory Overload And Multiple Personalities

Jun 16, 1996

John Hinterberger

----------------------------------------------------------------- # # $$ Komen's Live Market, 3701 N.E. 45th St. Limited table service, pizzas, salads and full-range deli takeout ($2 to $9). 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; until 9 p.m. Friday, Saturday. Beer, wine. Majore credit cards. No smoking. Information orders: 343-LIVE. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT A DOZEN YEARS ago, at a national food professionals conference in Portland, a speaker made what was at the time a startling prediction.

By the turn of the century, he said, the functions of grocery stores, restaurants and supermarkets would begin to merge. The hungry shopper of the future might walk into one of them and find all - or at least most - of the functions of the others.

At the time that seemed farfetched. But four years shy of the millennium, it is starting to happen. If you walk into Komen's Live Market, 3701 N.E. 45th St. near Laurelhurst, you might be convinced that here, indeed, was a restaurant (kind of), a wine shop (sort of), a deli (certainly) and a specialty market.

In fact, there have been times at Komen's when it might have been perplexing to determine which function was driving the place at any particular time of day.

Proprietor Brad Komen is the son of Seattle restaurant monarch Rich Komen, who over three decades has established Restaurants Unlimited Inc. as an extraordinary chain of local, regional and

nationwide restaurants, along with Cinnabon bakeries, now spreading through Europe.

Brad earned his professional spurs with RUI, and until a few months ago managed its highly successful Palomino in downtown Seattle.

When he struck out on his own with the "Live Market," some wondered what place in the sun he would find outside the wide corporate umbrella. Others wondered merely what a live market was.

"I knew that I wanted it to be really alive," he said. "I wanted it to be such a center of food preparation and activity - of so many things going on at the same time - that a person walking in would have sensory overload."

His creation is almost a living theater of food - from preparation to display to service. Hence, an open-kitchen restaurant hot line along the back of the store, wood-fired pizza oven in one corner, wine shop in another corner, benches and cafe tables scattered around the edges, and an oval prep-kitchen-deli-salad-and-dessert-bar anchoring the center.

"We have had to educate the public as to just what we are. Knowing something about my background, they come in expecting a full-service, sit-down restaurant. And we have only 24 seats. But they are beginning to see us as `carry-out cuisine,' as we call it, and what I find gratifying is that we are seeing many of the same faces coming back two and three times a week."

In a historical sense, Komen had a model. Before he moved in, a thriving neighborhood restaurant, Italianissimo, was in the space. More to the point, before that, an upscale deli-cafe - Truffle's - had prospered there.

What Komen hoped to become (and so stated) was the take-out chef to Laurelhurst. What he initially discovered, however, was that much of Laurelhurst was more interested in sitting down at his small tables than going home with $7-a-pound takeout salads.

At this point, Komen's is busily serving both groups - and adding more tables. His "carry-out cuisine" is often staying put.

The sit-down menu is stylish, imaginative and modestly priced - but very limited:

Pizzas, panini (Italian-style pressed-grilled sandwiches), soups, salads, microbrews on tap, wines by the glass or bottle, desserts and coffees.

What is odd (as of this writing) is that the scrumptious deli salads, grilled eggplant slices, cold barbecued ribs, slabs of a piquant meatloaf, etc., which are intended for takeout, can't be ordered at the tables - although you could probably order a half pound of any of it at the counter, ask for a complimentary paper plate, and sit quietly in a corner.

And they do have paper plates, which is really too bad.

Sandwiches and pizzas come on paper plates. Soups arrive in large paper cups.

The Dijon grilled chicken breasts are fine (about $1.25 for one half) and Komen's Meatloaf ($8.95 a pound), with its chunks of onion and green pepper, is killer. Pasta sauces are all house-made; try the ultra-gutsy Puttanesca ($5.95 a pound). You'd swear it was chopped together a half-hour earlier.

Grilled sandwiches are the center of the cafe menu. Highlights are the Grilled Salmon in a lemon-tarragon remoulade, and the Grilled Vegetable, with eggplant, tomatoes, red peppers and Havarti cheese. For that matter, I returned all too quickly for the Honey Maple Ham and Brie ($6.95).

The dessert case is impressive - and you don't have to take its treasures with you. Desserts, teas and coffees are table served. The coconut cream pie ($2.65 a slice) is probably on someone's controlled-substances list. After last night, probably on mine for a while.

John Hinterberger's restaurant and food columns appear in The Seattle Times in Sunday's Pacific Magazine and Thursday's Tempo. Gary Settle is Pacific's staff photographer.