Restaurant Review: Carmelita

As you can imagine, living in Seattle is great for eating out. One of Seattle's restaurant jewels, Carmelita, is nestled in the Greenwood neighborhood and is a unique restaurant that specializes in savory vegetarian dishes that are inspired with foods that follow the seasons. Organic and locally grown produce are used whenever possible. I am not a vegetarian, nor is my Dad who dined with me, but together we ventured out, as the meat lovers we are, to try something entirely new.  

The waitress seated us and handed us our menus. A quaint view of a neighborhood street scene accompanied us through our window. In anticipation for our lovely meal, we wasted no time in unrolling our cloth napkins and placing them on our laps. 

So you may ask, what does a vegetarian meal made with seasonal ingredients look like for the month of March? We started our meal with glasses of Syrah. Our appetizers included a cream of swiss chard soup with parmesan and a cheese plate with chevre (goat cheese), sweet jam, and toast. The cheese plate was drizzled with honey and hazelnuts.  For the main course, I had a carrot-mascarpone gnocchi with sauteed baby spinach, lemon-herb beurre blanc, and fried shallots. My Dad enjoyed mushroom and gorgonzola ravioli in a garlic cream sauce with smoked carrots and microgreens. For dessert we had a duo of ice cream sandwiches, gingersnap cookies with caramel-apple ice cream and chocolate cookies with cherry-hazelnut ice cream, and a cinnamon raisin strudel drizzled with caramel sauce. It just goes to show eating a vegetarian meal made with local produce can be gourmet, satisfying, and delicious!