Clement on Barnacle; 2 Stars for Dulces

[Photo: S. Pratt]

The headline "Dulces is back, with old faves to please an older crowd" tells you just about all you need to know. For kicks: 1. This week, Seattle Times critic Providence Cicero reviews Dulces Bistro & Wine. 2. After operating locations in Madrona and downtown, Carlos Kainz and Julie Guerrero opened the restaurant four months back in Capitol Hill. 3. Kainz "holds a lady's chair when seating her, and with a magician's flourish unfurls napkins for guests to drape across their laps." 4. There's a baby grand piano inside. 5. The "blast from Dulces' past" menu includes seafood-stuffed crepes topped with white sauce that is "gently jolted" by chipotle and "tough braised pork shoulder served over risotto revealing very little trace of the promised Parmesan." Cicero tacks on two stars.

Over at The Stranger, Bethany Jean Clement heads to Renee Erickson's 14-seat Barnacle, the bar connected to the chef's The Walrus and the Carpenter. The critic arrives grumpy but brightens up after a glass of prosecco and some free Lay's potato chips, "truly, a superior pairing." A steel Fermín ham holder propping up a whole hog leg sits on the bar. Ham is shaved to order, but be warned: "If a hoof is going to make you nervous, you're in the wrong place; it's right there, just like it might be at a neighborhood bar in Italy or Spain."

The staff is pumped about the menu and all-Italian wine list and quick to give recommendations. "Almost everything at Barnacle makes you eat it fast and then wish you had more," BJC writes. The thin-sliced pig tongue was so good, "...it took restraint to ask for bread (which is complementary) rather than just lick the plate."
· Dulces Bistro & Wine [Official Site]
· Barnacle [Official Site]
· All Week in Reviews [-ESEA-]