Raskin Calls A La Bonne Franquette 'Stingy'; Clement Recommends Coterie Room's 'Expensive' Fried Chicken

Seattle Weekly's restaurant reviewer Hanna Raskin takes on Mount Baker's A La Bonne Franquette and finds that the food does not match up to the view or the prices. For a neighborhood bistro, A La Bonne Franquette disappoints, rife with "audaciously overpriced starters, and cheap-tasting proteins that anchor entrée plates". Raskin reserves her highest praise for the "magnificent" view. She notes that the eatery continues to be very busy, though "À la Bonne Franquette has a knack for making its customers feel like chumps."

The Stranger's Bethany Jean Clement found Brian McCracken and Dana Tough's Coterie Room to be true to its name:

The word "coterie," in case you've forgotten, means "an intimate and often exclusive group of persons with a unifying common interest or purpose." And the Coterie Room feels like a private club, united by a common interest in good food, especially modernist fried chicken.

She notes that the chicken is "expensive"($32 for four pieces) and doesn't really go with the fancy decor but "damn it is good". The transformation from Scott Staples Zoe to McT's Coterie Room is complete: "you know how once a place changes, especially when it changes correctly, you can barely picture how it was before?"

· A La Bonne Franquette's Mystifying Popularity [Seattle Weekly]
· Fried Chicken Under a Crystal Chandelier [The Stranger]

A La Bonne Franquette

1421 31st Ave S, Seattle, WA