Twisted Pasty Now Open in Belltown

Taking over the space at the corner of Fourth & Vine that was most recently occupied by Henry & Oscar's Supper Club, a new mother-and-daughter spot called Twisted Pasty officially opened today.

Anyone who's ever had lunch at an English pub would be familiar with pasties, crescent-shaped pastries that originated in Cornwall, where they're filled with meat, potatoes, and "swedes" (as turnips were called in western counties). Smaller than the rounded pork pie (a slice of which is typically part of a traditional ploughman's lunch), the pasty evolved as lunch for miners, to be eaten like a hot dog, from the hand, at the bottom of a dark, dank mine.

Oddly enough, pasties haven't found great success in this country, though not for want of trying. The British Pantry in Redmond sells them at lunchtime; Smith, on Capitol Hill, sells what it calls a hand pie, and the Australian Pie Company in Burien bakes "meat pies" for retail sale. Still, pasties are not what you'd call a staple on the menus of local British pubs.

Twisted Pasty's owners are Christie Ulrich and her daughter, Cassie, a recent U of Oregon grad in PR and marketing. Christie moved here from Farmington, New Mexico, where her family ran a diner. Along the way the two discovered pasties, but thought the meat-and-potatoes filling were too limited, so they decided to "twist it up" and offer everything from mac-and-cheese fillings to seafood, duck, rabbit, priced from under $10 into the high teens.

So, pasty (rhymes with hasty) is your complexion after a hard night; but pasty (rhymes with nasty) is the pastry you might eat to help you recover. Twisted Pasty will be open for lunch and dinner, with weekend brunches on the horizon.
· Twisted Pasty [Facebook]