What do you get when you combine a talented chef and a skilled mixologist with the bounty of Pacific Northwest ingredients and a little French inspiration? A highly anticipated new restaurant about to take Seattle’s dining scene by storm.
L’Oursin (French for sea urchin) opened this week at 1315 East Jefferson Street, an area known as the Central District. The proprietors are JJ Proville and Zac Overman, 2 friends that have worked together for close to a decade at such acclaimed restaurants as the Gramercy Tavern in New York and Il Corvo in Seattle.
The focus for the restaurant is simple, local, quality ingredients prepared with a French influence. And while French cuisine may not often be the style someone would first associate with respect to Seattle’s restaurant scene, for JJ and Zac it makes nothing but sense, “We see a direct correlation between the quality of products you’ll find in any French farmer’s market worth its fleur de sel and the abundance of seafood, meat, dairy and produce available to us here in the Pacific Northwest. L’Oursin’s mission is to embrace and enhance the terroir that is unique to Washington’s land and surrounding waters and filter it through the lens of nouvelle cuisine.”
In the same way JJ is devoted to quality ingredients in the kitchen, Zac tackles beverages with the same culinary approach. The wine list features natural, biodynamic wines from France as he believes they are the truest reflection of the soil they’ve been grown in. But his real passion lies in making cocktails. Not the typical American versions you’ll find at any bar in the city; he’s motivated by creating his own interpretation of what you’ll find in Europe—a low alcohol, dry aperitif that cleanses the palate and stimulates the appetite. But don’t equate low alcohol and dry with boring; when Zac ran the bar at Seattle’s Sitka & Spruce restaurant he was known to concoct with ingredients such as chamomile, pickled seaweed, Asian pear and urfa biber (dried Turkish chili pepper).
We had the pleasure of meeting JJ Proville this past summer purely by chance. We were interviewing Matthews Winery in Woodinville, Washington for an article on the winery when the Otis family invited us to attend an exclusive dinner they were hosting the following night in their tasting room for 40 of its wine club members.
The event was a Farm to Table dinner paired with Matthews’ wines featuring Chef JJ and Chef Micah Mowrey using mainly produce from the winery’s farm. In 2015 the winery planted Creekside Farm, an ecological produce garden covering a half acre adjacent to the winery that is the first commercial garden associated with a winery property in Woodinville.
We were staying at the winery’s B&B just up the hill when we awoke to wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen. JJ and Micah were preparing for that night’s dinner and on the counter sat a stack of fresh ingredients from the winery’s Creekside Farm along with bread from the local bakery, a fridge full of free range chickens and a host of olive oils, vinegars and salts. We watched as they worked in perfect unison chopping, slicing and generally laying the groundwork for what was shaping up to be a memorable feast.
In the same vein that you need quality grapes to make great wine, you need quality ingredients to make a great meal. With access to Creekside Farm, JJ and Micah created an exceptional menu that not only highlighted the flavours of the local fare, but also paired beautifully with the outstanding wines Matthews Winery served. We ate “family style” sitting at long tables lined with candles as large platters of tomato Panzanella, roasted patty pan squash, free range chicken, river Salmon, and Tamworth pork shoulder were passed down one after the other. With bellies full of food and wine and the outstanding company of our new friends, it was a magical evening combining all the pleasures of the table that we won’t soon forget.
Having had the pleasure of sampling JJ’s culinary prowess at the dinner hosted by Matthews Winery, we have no doubt that the high expectations that awaited the opening of L’Oursin this week are more than warranted and we can’t wait to get down to Seattle as soon as possible to experience it for ourselves.
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