Three Stars for the Georgian; Bona Fide Postmodern Quality Athletics

In this week's restaurant reviews, The Seattle Times critic Providence Cicero has three stars for The Georgian downtown, which she says has managed to stay relevant during its long tenure. You'll slurge on dinner in a "Downton Abbey"-like setting, with uniformed staff, upholstered armchairs, and multi-course menus. It's worth it, not only for the "magic spell" the restaurant weaves, but also the "classic" cooking that only "sometimes falters."

At Seattle Met, Kathryn Robinson dishes on Quality Athletics in Pioneer Square. She calls it a contemporary sports bar, or, more accurately, "a commentary on a sports bar." Robinson says, "The place delivers the highest-quality food you’re likely to eat while watching ladies wrestle. But in essential ways, Quality Athletics is more about its kitchen than its diners." Dishes like the open-faced sandwich with braised lamb and the honey-glazed smoked salmon wings are interesting but labor intensive, messy, and sometimes "painful" to eat. She concludes that "this is the food a kitchen makes when it’s laboring on every cylinder to make a statement."

Seattle Magazine's Julien Perry and A.J. Rathburn team up for a review of Pioneer Square's Damn the Weather. Perry calls the food "exceptional" with items that have been "hits since day one": "ridiculously addictive salt and pepper chicken skins, the Caesar salad sandwich, and the beef heart tartare. The cocktails are great, too, and compliment a "bewitchingly composed" decor.