Pat My Butter

anchovies and olives needed an open kitchen because its staff is so attractive.  in his fourth restaurant, ethan stowell shows us that, just as olive oil and a slice of chili can make a piece of hamachi extraordinary, so can pretty faces make a spare room come alive.  being unable to be four places at once, ethan delegates, and has wisely put chef charles walpole at the helm.

where have you worked in seattle?

my first job in seattle was at fuller’s restaurant, which used to be in the sheridan downtown and was, at the time, one of the top fine dining restaurants.  i worked there for a couple of years, then went to the east side for awhile – my wife had a bakery in bellevue.  then it was back downtown to avenue one, and…oh, yeah, to the 727 pine, the restaurant that was in the hyatt when it opened.  from there mistral, then i did catering at januik winery, then came back to seattle, went to how to cook a wolf [an ethan stowell restaurant], then here.

were you the head chef there?

no, no, ryan weed’s the head chef.  the whole time this [anchovies and olives] was in the works so it was kind of the larger plan, that i’d work at wolf for awhile, learn the program, then move to this space when it opened.

how would you define the cuisine at anchovies and olives?

seafood, obviously.  italian influenced…i mean, i wouldn’t say it’s technically italian, but it is in the mentality we have.  we’re sponaneous, we use whatever we have, and i try to change the menu as much as possible.  we get in produce everyday, so everyday we try to change as much as possible.

is it northwest influenced?

um, northwest influenced…i’d say in the ingredients, if anything.  i don’t know, when people say “northwest” if it’s so much the style of cuisine or is it…what is “northwest”?  it’s always something i’ve wondered.  people seem to define it as a fusion kind of thing, but i think every cuisine should be the ingredients.  if there is an influence of the northwest in what we do, it’s in the ingredients.  you know, we are italian, so we try to use a good amount of fish from the mediterranean, but we also have started using more local fish, halibut, sockeye salmon caught by the native americans, we use all local produce, we use a forager.

do you find customers asking where your fish comes from?

yeah, fish seems to be a hot issue to people who know about food, and lots of customers come here with the monterey aquarium guide and pull it out and look at the menu and ask what’s good.  i looked at it once and everything on the menu’s pretty good as far as being sustainable.  the one thing we did have one time was farmed shrimp…not a good program apparently.  but we don’t have those now.  the farmed fish we use is the right kind, we use farmed branzino from greece.  stuff that comes over on passenger planes that come anyway.  i know, you think greece…but the planes are coming over already.

how has the seattle dining scene changed since you’ve been here?

i’ve cooked here for over ten years now and i’ve seen it really change.  there are a lot more talented people out here, restaurants have gotten a lot more interesting.  i think the dining public has become more aware of what’s going on, more educated.  in some ways, though, it’s kind of stagnant.  people just aren’t taking chances, i think they’ve kind of settled, thinking, oh, this is all seattle wants.

do you think it has to do with diners?

i don’t think it’s their fault that no one’s offering something different.  i think maybe if they were exposed to some other things, they would embrace it.

how does being part of a restaurant group change the way things run?

a group?  hmm…

an empire?  whatever you want to call it.

before, i’d only worked for little restaurants or hotels. i don’t know [laughs], tough question!

does it affect the control you have over the menu?

it does and it doesn’t.  we’re kind of on our own up here.  my boss, ethan, pretty much leaves us alone at this point.  i don’t feel like i’m part of a restaurant empire, i feel like i work for an individual restaurant.  i don’t feel like it’s a big corporation.  i think it’s trying to become that, but it’s a struggle right now, having four restaurants.  in my day to day work, it doesn’t really affect me.  i don’t feel like part of a company – i just cook.  i don’t have many administrative jobs, really, i’m just a cook.  so in that way, it’s cool, because that’s what i like to do.  a lot of chefs aren’t cooking, theyr’e sitting in their office.

have you ever worked in the front of the house?

never.  no, it scares the hell out of me.  during cooking school we had to work in the school’s restaurant for a few days and it was just so agonizing.  i try to come out to the dining room, since it’s all open.  i’m so uncomfortable, even when i try to serve a dish, but i know people expect that now, they like to see the chef come out and they want some interaction.  i’ll never work in a closed kitchen again.  i couldn’t do it.

does the kitchen get tipped out here?

no.

what do you think about the discrepancy of pay between the front of the house and the back?

i think, no offense to front of the house people, that it’s really, really an issue.  something needs to be done, in some way, but it’s kind of late.  the people who manufacture the thing don’t reap the highest rewards – it’s the people sell it.  i want to open a restaurant someday but i want to find a way of resolving that.  cooks wages have barely changed since i’ve been in seattle.  there needs to be a better balance.

how do you feel about food writing, in general, and in seattle specifically?

i’ve never liked the food writing here.  and now, i think it’s really bad.  i recently looked at the [seattle] times for the first time in weeks, and there was nothing about food in it – it was all about happy hour.  it’s a happy hour section.  there’s nothing, no ingredient of the week, some interesting article about wine, it was just about happy hour.

do you ever read city search?

i don’t ever read city search.  i mean, we laugh at yelp here, everyone reads the yelp.  i think the concept of the food critic is a dead profession – a restaurant opens and you can go to the yelp and there’s 20 things on there.  everyone’s opinion is public.

what did you think about the recent [fairly negative] seattle magazine review of anchovies?

oh, it hurt.  took the wind out of my sails for a few days [laughs].  that article article, and what was it, the weekly one, they came here and ate, and made up a whole story.  the weekly had all this misinformation…pretty absurd.

what was the last restaurant you went to?

la carta de oaxaca.

do you go out often?

quite a bit, but i go to places like that.  not really fine dining places…we eat out out of necessity because we never cook at home.