Burgers- the Seattle Times Tan Vinh Reports on the City's Best (Tavern Law + Spur included)

Today's Ticket section's cover story is on where to get an amped-up burger here in town, including our two spots about which Vinh writes, "Chefs Brian McCracken and Dana Tough, of Tavern Law in Capitol Hill and Spur Gastropub in Belltown, make different variations at each bar.

I think Tavern Law's burger is the better of the two. Grass-fed beef, with red-wine onion jam, thyme aioli and gobs of provolone, topped with two sous vide pork belly.

Spur's version tastes a bit saltier, but still is impressive. Similar burger and pork belly but with stone-ground mustard aioli, caramelized onions and smoked cheddar. (Add truffles for an additional $10). A mound of shoestring fries comes with the order. Tavern Law serves the burger with a salad."

Click on blog title above to read Tan's entire story. And tell us, which burger do you love best?

Thank you Seattle Times and Tan.

Seattle Times Nancy Leson Reports on Our Upcoming Dinner with Hines, Smith, Sundstrom + Traunfeld. Bought Your Tickets Yet?

In today's Seattle Times Nancy Leson writes, "Seattle chefs dish it out for Shorewood Culinary Arts kids. Six Seattle chefs are putting the "fun" in fundraiser, lending a hand to high schoolers at the Shorewood Culinary Arts program by preparing a special Harvest Dinner Friday, September 10. Taking part are some of the best in the business:
From left: Maria Hines (Tilth), Holly Smith (Cafe Juanita), John Sundstrom (Lark/Licorous), Jerry Traunfeld (Poppy), Dana Tough and Brian McCracken (Spur Gastropub/Tavern Law.

The event begins at 6 p.m. with cocktails at a private home in Shoreline's Innis Arden neighborhood, where the high-profile chefs will prepare an intimate dinner for 50. Proceeds from the a multi-course meal fund the high school's long-running culinary arts program and a major expansion of its Master Gardener's Youth Education Garden located on the Shorewood campus. At $200 per person, the price may sound steep, but considering the talent on hand and the cause that inspired them to be there, it's a ticket worth securing -- via the King County Master Gardener Foundation Web site."

Click on blog title above to purchase.

Thank you Nancy!

in the kitchen at Spur

"The Best Cocktails and Food I Never Had" by Amazon's Al Dente editor

If you were like A.J. Rathbun and couldn't join us last week for our Maker's Bourbon dinner, you can still hear about what you missed. Rathbun wrote today about the dinner featuring Seattle's top bartenders with bourbon and five courses paired by Chefs Dana Tough and Brian McCracken. Rathbun reports, in part, "See, here in Seattle, two of the top chefs in the city, Brian McCracken and Dana Tough (co-owners of both Spur and Tavern Law, a couple of Seattle’s must-visit cocktail and food spots by-the-way) combined with a number of top bartenders, all under the banner of one of my all-time nostalgia inducing favorite bourbons, Maker’s Mark, to put out an exclusive evening of unbelievable food and cocktails. On August 11th. And I had to miss it. And (to make me even sadder and my mouth water even more) I have the menu and some pics. So, I’m making you share in my sadness (unless you were there. In which case, go reminisce giddily and leave us to pout)."

Click on blog title above to read the entire story and take a look at those gorgeous photos of what you missed.

Thank you Al Dente, Maker's Mark, and our fine guest bartenders from Rob Roy and Zig Zag.

Tasting Table takes a look at Yogurt in dishes at Spur

Have you read today's Tasting Table article, "Culture Shock
Yogurt is the beefcake of the dairy world"? Like a Daily Candy of the culinary world, Tasting Table takes a look at the very latest in dining, wine, cocktails and cooking. Click on headline above to visit the website and to subscribe to the daily newsletter which talks today about our yogurt based panna cotta:

"Yogurt has long been pigeonholed as a grab-and-go breakfast or snack, and its forays into savory dishes have been limited to Middle Eastern and Central Asian cuisines...The chef duo at Seattle's Spur cold-smokes yogurt to form the base of a savory panna cotta, recently served accompanied by watercress, tomatoes, cucumbers and a nigella-seed vinaigrette."

Thank you Tasting Table.

Seattle Weekly Names Spur "Best Cutting Edge Cuisine 2010"

Thank you and what an honor. The Seattle Weekly's Jason Sheehan just recognized Spur with the following award; "Dana Tough, half of the two-chef team behind Belltown's Spur Gastropub, trained at Tilth under Maria Hines and worked with her at Earth & Ocean. Brian McCracken, the other half, met Tough at Earth & Ocean and has a resume heavy on stagier work, catering and working lines like the one at Mona's in Greenlake. Neither guy has anything in his past which screams cutting-edge cuisine, and yet the two currently run the kitchen at one of Seattle's most forward-looking restaurants, offering something a bit modern, a bit challenging—a taste of what the future of food might look like. Though trained in some of the more seriously old-school, farm-to-table kitchens in the area, these guys get their kicks making technique-heavy, avant-garde dishes that people can actually eat without first reading a materials list or an instruction manual. The menu may read like a minimalist's shopping list ("Veal sweetbreads. Corn. Bing cherry. Sorrel."), but the games being played in the back are far more complicated than that, involving everything from old-hat gimmicks like sphericalization and sous vide to the newest tricks in the molecular-gastronomy handbook. But the thing that sets Tough and McCracken apart from the pack of nouvelle modernists is that, since their training is so classics-based, everything that comes from their kitchen is looked at as a meal first. That it's delicious is most important; that it's challenging, interesting, fun, or new always comes in a distant second. —Jason Sheehan 113 Blanchard St., 728-6706"

Click blog title above to peruse the entire "Best Of" list.