Eating Seattle: The Walrus & The Carpenter

Have you ever met a new person and knew instantly the two of you would be friends? It happened to me last summer with a restaurant. The first time I visited The Walrus and The Carpenter, an oyster bar that opened in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle last year, I knew we were going to get along.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, The Walrus and The Carpenter is the second restaurant from Renee Erickson, whose Boat Street Café is another favorite of mine. Renee creates restaurants I want to move into, to hang out and never leave. They feel like a lovely departure from normal life, beautiful and gracious with food that comforts and delights. They feel like a very personal vision brought to life. These are the sorts of places I like to support.

I fell for The Walrus and The Carpenter at first bite—first sip, actually. Even before our food came, I was sold on the cocktail menu. I’m not a big cocktail drinker, often challenged to find a mixture I want to order, but here I have a hard time choosing. My favorite is the Porch Swing (gin, Pimm’s, lemon, limonata, and cucumber), but there’s also the Pamplemousse (Aperol, white wine, grapefruit juice), and Southside Ballard (gin, Ballard honey, lemon, mint, crushed ice, beer). I’m even curious about the Mustache Ride (bourbon, Cynar, allspice liqueur, maple, lemon), and I’m not a bourbon drinker. Let’s not forget the R&R cocktail (rhubarb, reposado, sparkling rose, lemon, rhubarb bitters). This place could turn me into a real drinker.

Then there’s the food. Oh, the food.

My first visit we didn’t even order oysters, which you might think odd in an oyster bar, but the rest of the menu was just as appealing. I love that here vegetables are given respect as well.

There was this amazing grilled zucchini with harissa and soft cheese. It’s a simple combination that is far more than the sum of it’s parts. I shared it with my dining companion, but I could have happily eaten the whole platter.

And these scallops with marjoram. We leaned over and asked our friendly neighbors at the next table what their favorite dish had been—this is the sort of place you feel comfortable doing such things. They told us in no uncertain terms to order the scallops. They were right.

My favorite dish (though it is hard to choose) was smoked trout set atop a mixture of lentils with creme fraiche, pickled red onions, and walnuts. I don’t even like fish, but I crave this dish on a regular basis. I hope it never comes off the menu.

Of course there are oysters as well—raw, as well as cornmeal fried with cilantro aioli. They’re both extremely good.

Beyond the food, there is an atmosphere that I cannot get enough of. This place is classy but comfortable, rustic and convivial with a gracious and welcoming vibe. It’s true  seats are often hard to come by—possibly even harder now that Frank Bruni wrote about it in the New York Times, and GQ called it one of the best new restaurants in the country. I think it’s mostly because this is the sort of place you want to be, the sort of place you want to stay. Especially on the long summer evenings we’re having these days, I want to be at The Walrus and The Carpenter all the time.

I don’t often write about restaurants here on the site. I pick my favorites, places that are special and unique, that I’d want to share with friends. This is one of those places—where a meal leaves you feeling sparkly and special, well-fed and comforted. It reminds me of a quote by Earnest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast:

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

The Walrus and The Carpenter makes me happy. It’s as simple as that.

The Walrus and The Carpenter
Open: daily, 4pm until close
4743 Ballard Ave NW
Seattle WA 98107
206-395-9227
No reservations accepted