Celebrated Pastry Chef Opening Bakery in Bremerton; Belltown Losing a Bunch of Restaurants

Welcome to CascadiaWire, a weekly collection of restaurant news from up-and-down the Pacific Northwest corridor.


FIRST WORD -- Pastry chef Matt Tinder is headed to Bremerton. Tinder brings some seriously impressive chops with him on his new venture, having worked at Napa Valley's The Restaurant at Meadowood and San Francisco's Coi, both of which are Michelin-starred restaurants. Tinder is now planning to open his own bakery, to be called Saboteur, near-ish the ferry terminal in Bremerton. Tinder parted ways with The Restaurant at Meadowood in January and began looking to open his own bakery with his fiance, Kate Giuggio. But plans to open in California didn't pan out. That's good news for Bremerton; the bakery should open in February.

CHEF SHUFFLES -- Jason Stratton, you keep shaking it up. A month and a half ago, Eater learned that the James Beard nominated chef formerly of Spinasse, Artusi, and the recently shuttered Vespolina, was moving from Italian to Middle Eastern cuisine as the new general manager of mamnoon. Now comes word from that Stratton will "expand his front of house role at mamnoon to include oversight of the kitchen as the restaurant's executive chef." 

CH-CH-CHANGES -- Sad news for Belltown: there are plans to tear down Shorty's, Rocco's, and Tula's Restaurant and Jazz Club on Second Ave to make room for apartments. Wood Partners, an Atlanta real estate development company with a Seattle office, wants to install a 124-apartment building on the plot, and is presently negotiating a deal with the Seattle-based Zacri Inc. who owns two of the parcels of land.