Seattle's Restaurants Varied It Well In '80S

I was spending a quiet hour with Bruce Biesold a few days ago talking about canned tomatoes. It wasn't idle chatter.

Biesold runs Merlino Fine Foods, one of Seattle's leading restaurant supply houses, and if you want to know what's going on in any industry, you ask the suppliers.

They know who is ordering big, who's paying late, who's not paying at all and who has just left town. Cucina! Cucina!, Biesold said, was buying mondo cases of high quality tomatoes for its expanding local chain.

And Karl Beckley, he said, as of the first of the year, had closed down the Green Lake Grill.

The '80s are really over, I thought. The Green Lake Grill, which first opened in 1979, was almost a local microcosm of 1980s restaurant themes and trends:

Some nouvelle cuisine, a mix of regionalism tossed with fresh-fresh-fresh, a touch of California cuisine, an imaginative chef with a deep streak of maverick . . .

Very ``Now.'' Very ``Then.'' Very closed. Farewell Corn and Oyster Pancakes.

The '80s were a remarkable decade for the Seattle hospitality industry. Not only was there impressive growth in local skills and sophistication, but that rising level of excellence became nationally known.

Food & Wine would buzz in one week and The New York Times would land at Sea-Tac the next. They discovered what we already knew we had, and for the most part had taken for granted.

What were Seattle's best restaurants of the '80s?

Some them were categories as much as individual entities, like the downtown hotel dining rooms and kitchens. Fuller's, obviously, drew most of the attention (due to two splendid young chefs, Kathy Casey and Caprial Pence - and equally due to the dynamite public-relations campaigns of Louis Richmond), but the Georgian Room at the Four Seasons-Olympic, the Palm Court at the Westin and the Hunt Club at the Sorrento also set superb standards.

Then there were the smaller, owner-operated success stories.

When the 1980s began, Saleh Joudeh was running a tiny little place north of the U District called Avenue 52. It's gone, but Saleh al Lago is not. The best Central Italian food in the city took root on the east shore of Green Lake, and - many would argue - became the best ethnic restaurant in Seattle, period.

Jim and Connie Malevitsis' Adriatica expanded, remodeled, steadily improved from an already impressive start in '79.

The flamboyant Umberto Menghi came to town - and left. But some of his key people did not. And they, in turn, opened Carmine's Il Terrazzo and Al Boccalino, two genuinely outstanding Southern Italian sanctuaries.

Ray's Boathouse became truly sophisticated during the decade, burned and was rebuilt better than ever, and at times it seemed that its trainees and ex-managers were running half the class restaurants in town.

Rosellini's legendary Four-10 closed. But Robert Rosellini's adventurous Other Place merely moved to the South Market and continued its pursuits of perfection.

Cafe Sport seemed food-fashioned and flashy at first, but became an undisputed local institution and remained one after its founding chef, Tom Douglas, moved on to open the Dahlia Lounge.

French cuisine, especially classical French cooking, was hurt by low-cal food trends (and the decorative excesses of nouvelle cuisine). Yet several local places not only endured, but prospered: Dominique's Place, Gerard's Relais de Lyon, Le Tastevin and - newly arriving - Rover's.

One of the new, major restaurants of the '90s, Palomino, was foaled in '89. But its bloodlines could be traced back: to Morgan's, Scott's, Triples, and Cutter's Bay House (and the demise of several Clinkerdagger's).

Peter Cipra's Czech cuisine at Labuznik (which evolved from The Prague) started excellent, stayed excellent, and will likely still be excellent a decade from now.

Tim Firnstahl and Mick McHugh broke up. But the partnership that founded Jake O'Shaughnessey's and F.X. McRory's continued on in its separate parts and continued to expand. Watch, in particular, the new Cooper's Roost in Issaquah.

Chinook's at Fisherman's Terminal got a great beginning in the late '80s, but its success was almost entirely due to the organization and menu development of the Anthony's Home Port restaurants, which created it.

The International District got two powerhouse restaurants during the 1980s: The House of Hong and the Ocean City, both - despite the growing Northern Chinese emphasis - firmly based Cantonese. In addition, there was the establishment of high quality, elegant Chinese dining spaces in the suburbs, notably Steven Cheung's gorgeous Imperial Garden near Mill Creek and C.C. Wang's opulent Wang's Garden in Bellevue.

Small Japanese restaurants popped up all over the area, neighborhood places of real quality. One of the happiest: Toyoda's in Lake City.

Even more prevalent: a profusion of Southeast Asian and Thai restaurants (are there any chefs left in Thailand?). Among my favorites for the '80s: The Bai Tong in South Seattle; the Viet My on Prefontaine in Seattle.

Now, let's clear our plates for the '90s.