Anchovies & Olives in Capital Hill opened early this year is yet another jewel in the crown of chef Ethan Stowell’s restaurant empire in Seattle. His restaurants Union, Tavalota and How to Cook a Wolf are among the top restaurants in Seattle and Anchovies & Olives is a nice addition to the list. It is very much like How to Cook a Wolf, except for the fact that A&O is primarily focused on seafood. In fact there is only one meat dish in the menu – a Strip Loin @ $24 is the most expensive item in the menu. I guess it is targeted to that unsuspecting diner who comes in here and gets totally put off by seafood with face. I have noticed that most people are very squeamish about whole fish preparations, somehow the eyes staring at them from the plate really intimidate people. I don’t get it though, I think whole fish preparations are so much more appealing than a fish filet without any character. Just look at this Fried Baby Hake with Lovage Aioli ($14), doesn’t that look delicious?

Hake is an Irish Salt Water fish and is very popular in Spain. We had it in Barcelona and fell in love with it, I had written about that in my Spain culinary travelogue. I had no idea that Hake is available in the US, but Wikipedia says Hake is taken in large numbers in the Pacific ocean off the coast of British Columbia. Now I am on a quest to find fresh hake and prepare it at home. The baby hake here at A&O was slightly breaded and fried crispy. The fish was so fresh and tasty it really didn’t need anything to go with it, but the lovage aioli was unbelievably delicious. We finished up the whole bowl.

I did jump ahead without really introducing the menu. It really is a simple menu with a few Crudos - raw seafood preparations , Western Sashimi if you may  – and Plates which are mostly hot food and a few nibblers like almonds, olives etc and a salad. Most of the dishes are $14-$16 and every dish is meant to be shared. They recommended about four dishes for two, but we were more than full with three dishes and an order of the very delicious Castelvertrano Olives ($5) – a delicious bright green olive from Sicily which is very mild in taste. It was marinated in salt, olive oil and some mild herbs and spices.

Our second plate was the Arctic Char with Corn, Lobster mushrooms and Treviso ($16). The char was fried crispy on the skin side and rare in the flesh, but with seafood that fresh it was perfect to have it that rare. The corn and mushrooms really complemented the fish, we loved it. I have never had radicchio other than in raw form in salads, the sauteed ones were really tasty in this. 

We were sort of full with the three dishes, but how could we leave without trying at least one of the delicious seafood pasta dishes in the menu? There were five different pastas we had our eyes on and our waitress recommended the Malloredus with Mussels, Chickpeas and Zucchini Pesto ($15). I don’t know how to describe this one other than – Wowsie!!!!!!!! I have no idea how the other pasta dishes might’ve tasted, but I’d like to believe we got the winner. The mussels were so fresh and delicious and the zucchini pesto was out of this world good!

Obviously there was no room for dessert after all this, so we didn’t even ask what the options were! Service was really good, prompt and friendly and extremely helpful. The wine list is pretty extensive with a few choices of the wine by the glass. I asked for a medium-bodied wine recommendation from the by-the-glass list and our waitress highly recommended one which was just perfect. Siv had some Peroni – an Italian beer which was very tempting, but I stuck to wine. The ambience at E&O was cool and very low key and they had some old 80’s hits playing which made us all nostalgic. Oh did I mention the open kitchen where you can see every step of the cooking process from cutting the fish to plating.

The menu changes daily so if you want to taste hake you might have to go there soon. Just like How to cook a wolf, they don’t take reservation, but it looked definitely more spacious than HTCAW. We went there after 9pm and were immediately seated, although the restaurant was pretty much full even then. Only a few tables outside on the sidewalk patio were free. If you like fresher than fresh seafood prepared in some creative ways, this is the place for you. I have no idea why it got only a 61% “Like It” rating in Urbanspoon, but it sure is one of my favorite places in Seattle now.

 www.anchoviesandolives.com

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