Review: 94 Stewart Restaurant, Seattle

I think 94 Stewart Restaurant was the restaraunt I was most excited about when thinking of my plans for Seattle. However, I was severely disappointed and underwhelmed.

Like Union Restaurant, 94 Stewart changes their menu daily. And unlike Union Restaurant, it is painfully obvious at 94 Stewart. The creations had little thought put into them and the flavors were dull, the food under or over seasoned. The only good part of the meal was the wine.

Let’s start there, with the wine. The wine list is huge, and their website only offers their wines by the bottle list. Since my companion m doesn’t drink alcohol, I am very unlikely to order a bottle of wine all for myself. Luckily, they do offer half bottles. Their wines by the glass list is equally as underwhelming as the food. I noticed they had Elk Cove pinot noir – one of the best I’ve had. So I had to get it. What a deliciously, velvety wine. It opens up beautifully as it breathes.

As far as the food…well, again, it was underwhelming. For a starter, I had the Fried Avocado with Dungeness Crab. The presentation was out of control and totally impractical. The chef clearly did not eat this dish in its presentation form. It was served in a margarita/wine glass on a plate with greens spread over the plate. The server was obviously challenged when carrying this plate out to the table. Half of the avocado was intact and sticking out of the glass. The other half was cut into slices and scattered over the top of the glass. The crab mixture was tossed with corn (in retrospect, I’m not sure if it was even fresh corn) and some dressing. The crab itself was very good. The avocado…not good. The breadcrumb crust was salty, but the avocado did not absorb any of the salt. I like eating a fresh avocado with a little salt on it – the avocado “sweats” a little as it absorbs the salt. For some reason, this preparation was flat and a little greasy.

M had the best dish of the night as her starter: grilled romaine with blue cheese and a balsamic-fig reduction dressing. It was delicious but unoriginal.

For entrees, I had the Monkfish poached in milk with brusselsprouts and potatoes. Unbelieveably disappointing. The fish was tender, but it had almost no flavor after being poached in the milk. The sauce was … how do I even describe it? … watery and flavorless. Apparently there was butter in it, but how you can screw up a sauce with butter, I don’t know – but 94 Stewart accomplished it. The good thing about this dish was the texture and flavor combination of the monkfish with the brusselsprouts. Who knew? The texture combo was incredible. I will have to remember this for home.

M had the scallops with risotto, the other entree I was interested in. Again, underwhelming. The risotto, although good, was much to rich to pair with scallops. She also thought the scallops were a little undercooked. It was hard to tell what the focus of either dish was. They were sloppy and flavorless.

Our service was okay. Andy was a pleasant man once we had a conversation about Kevin Bacon – he was zero degrees from him 2 months ago when he served him. Oh! I almost forgot. When he brought out our coffee, one of the cups sloshed over onto the saucer. He placed mine down then gracefully he took the saucer with the coffee on it and THREW IT behind the curtain that was behind our table to get rid of the spilled coffee. WTF? It was bizarre.

Those curtains also proved to be another hilarious aspect of our night. Guests have to walk by our table and go through those curtains (they separate another section of the dining room that wasn’t in use that night). One woman came back from the bathroom, and presented herself through the curtains and said, “Ta da!” as she walked through. Bizarre.

One more thing about the way to the bathrooms. Guests have to walk down a long hallway that is covered with comments from guests. Every single comment said, “Great food! Great service! I’ll be back!” There were hundreds of these comments, literally.

I can’t help but think we hit 94 Stewart on an off night. But how could everything we had be mediocre at best and still have all those comments? Perhaps they have a new chef.

94 Stewart Restaurant
94 Stewart
Seattle, WA 98101
206.441.5505