Welcome to CascadiaWire, a weekly collection of restaurant news from up-and-down the Pacific Northwest corridor.
[Photo: Rob Ketcherside/Flickr]
SEATTLE— Iconic Central District restaurant Catfish Corner has shuttered. The soul food restaurant started serving fried catfish with homemade tartar sauce and hush puppies in the mid-80s. In much better news, word came this week that popular West Seattle burger spot Zippy's is launching a second outpost in Georgetown. [ESEA]
VANCOUVER— Scandals galore this week: first up, a Naked Sushi business has come to town — operating under a legal loophole. Then the city's coolest dining district, Gastown, seems to have suffered a mini-meltdown with two of its hottest restaurants suffering chef and bartender switcheroos. Read all about Blacktail Florist's new chef and find out where Eater Young Guns 2014 semi-finalist Buck Friend (now ex-Bambudda) is now shaking up his innovative creations. Keeping up the scandal, it's been an uncharacteristic mellow summer of glowing reviews from the Globe and Mail's notoriously sharp restaurant critic Alexandra Gill, but this evisceration write up of the Donnelly Group's Blackbird shows that the 'Knife' still has it. [EVAN]
VANCOUVER— Vancouver can boast that it really does have the world's best gelato, thanks to Maestro James' award-winning creations — and now you'll be able to enjoy them with a water view at his super-hotly anticipated Bella Gelateria Yaletown which opened this week. Authentic Neapolitan-style pizzas, gelato desserts and booze-spiked 'gelatinis' are also on the menu. Over in what will surely have to be soon re-named the Brewery District, one more craft brewery has thrown its bottle cap into the ring to become the city's latest opening. Steel Toad is set to start pouring in the next few weeks with an impressive gastro-pub-meets-French-cuisine style menu. [EVAN]
SEATTLE— The enormous Central District bier and bocce hall Rhein Haus (until recently named Von Trapp's) is planning to launch a new 6,000-square-foot location in Denver. Doors are scheduled to open this spring. [ESEA]
