The Golden Beetle Burger — “harissa aioli, lettuce, pickled serranos & onion, gruyere swiss, baharat seasoned 1/3 pound northwest grass fed beef, and mayonnaise with Sumac dusted fries”
Li’l Woody’s owner Marcus Lalario is a connected man. A Pike/Pine entrepreneur who has survived the neighborhood’s transition to the the entertainment district big time and investor in food, drink, and retail ventures on the Hill and beyond, Lalario’s Pine burger shop is making some fun connections of its own this month with a one-of-a-kind promotion featuring special creations from some great Seattle chefs:
Throughout March 2015, Li’l Woody’s will be featuring a new burger each week. From fried chicken skin to pickled serranos, these one-of-a-kind concoctions are not to be missed. For those who try each burger, they will receive an exclusive “I Survived Burger Month” t-shirt!
A few of the participants like Sitka and Spruce’s Matt Dillon have deep Capitol Hill roots. Others like Renee Erickson are just getting started. Here’s a look at the star chefs — and their creations:
- Maria Hines is the head chef / owner of The Golden Beetle in Ballard. The winner of numerous awards, including the 2009 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Northwest, Hines has been making noise in the chef game since 2003, even emerging victorious in Iron Chef America’s “Battle of Pacific Cod”. Hines now owns 3 restaurants (including Tilth and Agrodolce) with the highly esteemed organic certification from Oregon Tilth. Her Golden Beetle Burger includes harissa aioli, lettuce, pickled serranos & onion, gruyere swiss, baharat seasoned 1/3 pound northwest grass fed beef, and mayonnaise with Sumac dusted fries.
- Matt Dillon is the owner and chef at Sitka & Spruce, Bar Sajor and more. A proponent of local and seasonal cooking, Dillon was the winner of the 2012 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Northwest as well as the 2007 Food & Wine Best New Chef award. Dillon is also the culinary mastermind behind The Corson Buildingand London Plane. His Kluck Burger boasts maple syrup, grilled raddichio, fried chicken skin, Beecher’s flagship cheese, 1/3 pound northwest grass fed beef and mayonnaise, on a bun grilled with brown butter.
- Renee Erickson is another James Beard nominee and a seafood savant. From Whale to Barnacle, her numerous acclaimed restaurants demonstrates the best of Northwest cooking. Her restaurants include The Whale Wins,The Walrus & The Carpenter, and Barnacle. Erickson’s Green Goddess Burger feature her own Green Goddess dressing (from her book A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus), 1/3 pound northwest grass fed beef and mayonnaise.
- Brendan McGill is the chef / managing partner of Hitchcock Group, which is comprised of the Hitchcock Restaurant, Hitchcock Delicatessen and Shady Acres Farm on Bainbridge Island as well as the Hitchcock Deli in Georgetown. A semi-finalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Northwest, McGill has been praised by the culinary community for his delicious creations and is notorious for bringing the freshest ingredients from the farm to the fork. His Hitchcock Pastrami Burger ingredients are Hitchcock Russian dressing, Hitchcock kraut, Hitchcock pastrami, Swiss cheese, 1/3 pound northwest grass fed beef and mayonnaise.
Li’l Woody’s opened on the Hill in the summer of 2011. Its annual Labor Day free burger giveaway draws lines around the block.
Lalario says he also hopes to make Seattle Burger Month and its all-star cast a regular thing.
“I’ve been lucky enough to work with lots of my close friends, favorite brands and tons of great musicians, so now I wanted to work with some of my favorite chefs in town,” he says in the press release for the promotion. “I hope we can turn this into an annual tradition in the month of March here in Seattle.”
Now you can start thinking about who you want to get involved in 2016.
(Image: Food at Cortona)
Capitol Hill food+drink notes
- The Food pop-up at Cortona in the Central District has come to an end: “If you heard the rumor, yes FOOD at cortona has only six more nights … three more weekends. Join us!” — Posted February 27th so you do the math. We asked organizers for more information about why the pop-up is coming to a close but never heard back.
- In 2014, CHS wrote about the Capitol Hill complex — a trend with restaurant and bar concepts being banded together to share staff and resources like kitchens and restrooms. Seattle Mag has an interesting report on the trend as it plays out across the city. “The energy of each really feeds the whole.”
- Meat & Bread — part of a Capitol Hill complex, itself — is planned to open in April.
- Did you make your bid on 4% of Quinn’s? Hold onto your cash. Maybe you can buy a chunk of whatever Scott Staples Restaurants is opening in the former Bill the Butcher space in Redmond.
- So, in addition to Renee Erickson working on her Li’l Woody’s burger (above!), she’s busy opening an ambitious new Capitol Hill project. To make it work, Erickson is closing down her Boat Street Cafe. She also provided some more details on what she’s creating at 11th and Union:
The meat on your plate at Erickson’s new place will be sold by weight, obviating the wasteful trimming of pieces to specific sizes. Erickson says she’s seen this done in England and France. “It’s a living thing, one that’s not uniform,” she says. “You kind of forget that it’s this whole creature.” - Good Citizen had a quiet opening last weekend but we haven’t heard back on when the craft cocktail bar from Liberty’s Andrew Friedman will be running at full speed on E Olive Way.
- Gnocchi Bar and chef Lisa Nakamura have moved in to the former home of D’Ambrosio Gelateria Artigianale at 12th and Pine and are readying the space for its new life featuring the pillowy little pasta. Meanwhile, they’re still serving D’Ambrosio gelato.
- Here’s the guy now in charge at Spinasse. Nope, we still haven’t been told who owns the restaurant these days.
- Your dream of reviving Broadway Market’s Mexican restaurant space once home to La Puerta is over. Gold’s Gym is expanding.
- We know of at least one place applying to open a new streatery on Capitol Hill.
- A new vendor at the Broadway Farmers Market, drinking vinegar creator The Shrubbery is building a business around the popular craft cocktail ingredient — the shrub!
- Seattle: land of ginger beer.
- Booze coming to Taste of the Caribbean.
- The Seattle Times visits Stateside: “I don’t know how they do it in Hanoi, but I spooned it right over the noodles”
- “… smaller, less traditional restaurants, the very popular places that are hard to get into and classically irritating…”
- Smash Putt is a “go” at 23rd and Union for a late March through July run of booze and mini-golf.
- Here’s an Elysian departure after the big Bud takeover. But word is Cloudburst Brewing plan pre-dated the acquisition.
- To go with your Seattle Burger Month, celebrate the return of Free Fry Fridays at Pike Street Fish Fry: “Free Fries in the Fish Fry from 3 to 6pm this Friday!”
- “When we opened, there were not that many Thai restaurants and the people at that time didn’t know about Thai food” — happy 30th birthday to E Pike’s Ayutthaya.
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[…] the final weekend for the FOOD the Restaurant pop-up at E Union’s Cortona Cafe. We noted the end of the long-running weekend pop-up last week. Here’s an update from chef Zac Reynolds […]