First things first, our monthly Belltown restaurant census: Closed, Closed, Closed, Opening.

When the big boys like Oceanaire and Todai shut down, they get all the attention. Here’s to the little neighborhood guys. Whym, now shuttered 24 hours a day. How it lasted even six weeks, we’ll never know. Saito’s, gone at last; Yukata Saito had been trying to sell for years. An Asian noodle bar will take its place, they say. Cucina De-Ra dark. One partner (Rafaele Calise) is already at Picolinos in Ballard, leaving Jim Maleviitsis to lock up.

Hope springs eternal, though. Opening soon where Rockin’ Burrito once rolled (Fourth and Wall) comes Petra Mediterranean Bistro, project of Falafel King’s Khal Beleh.
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Belltown’s French bakery, Boulangerie Nantaise, won the inaugural Fruit Tart contest organized by the French American Chamber of Commerce in connection with Bastille Day festivities. Winning pastry-maker Tony Delguidice received an emroidered jacket from Thierry Rautureau (of Rover’s, chairman of the selection panel).

Over in Magnolia, Seattle Pie Company is now serving up a baker’s dozen of fruit and cream pies. Owners are Patrick Lewis (former homebuilder) and his wife, Alyssa (longtime baker at Snohomish Pie Company). Whole pies run about $15, slices $3.50. In the same building (3111 W. McGraw), La Mondellina has opened for gourmet Italian takeout and in-store sampling. Owners are Mamma Enza Sorrentino (Sorrentino Trattoria on Queen Anne) and her son, Corino (Mondello’s, also in Magnolia Village).

On Capitol Hill, bang next to Linda Derschang’s comes the first of a new line of non-Starbucks to be called 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea. The difference: They’ll serve wine and beer. Inspired by Starbucks? Harrumph. Smells like mean spirits to me.
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There’s a Place Balard (one l) in southwest Paris, about 20 minutes from the Bastille, the one-time prison at the figurative center of the French Revolution. These days, the Place de la Bastille is a hub of music and nightlife, much like Seattle’s Ballard Avenue on these warm July nights. At the brand new Bastille Café & Bar, a bustling crew of 60 tends to the needs of swarming drinkers and diners. Owners James Weimann (Peso’s, Triangle) and Deming Maclise (Caffè Fiorè) recruited industry veterans Shannon Galusha (Veil) to run the kitchen, James Lechner (Café Campagne) to run the dining room and Armin Moloudzadeh (Black Bottle) to run the bar.

This isn’t a review so much as a first look-around and a first drink (a frosty French 75). The space is vast and handsome, shiny white-tiled walls (shower-tiles?) with dark wood accents in the front rooms, exposed brick and a grand chandelier in the back bar (just like Peso’s). There’s also a large patio, where smokers were huddling furtively in the moonlight. As Obermaier Machine Works, the building spent half a century at the heart of Old Ballard’s industrial district; it’s been beautifully reworked as a grande brasserie.

The long bar is molded zinc, just like in France; found objects from Parisian flea markets abound. The menu also takes its Frenchiness seriously, listing moules, frites, baguette sandwiches, soupe de poisson and salade niçoise.
There’s also a wacky, self-congratulatory note of locavore political correctness at Bastille, with a rooftop garden (couldn’t see it at midnight) growing herbs and salad greens for the $8 salade du toit. We’d guess, with the price of real estate and the cost of “urban farm” labor, that a more realistic price for that salad would be at least $2,500, but that’s another story.
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None of Seattle’s typical “too cool for school” stand-offishness. Tens of thousands of cheerful riders, were oohing and cooing, tweeting and twittering along Sound Transit’s light rail line. (What are we going to call it? We’ve already got the SLUT. Maybe the SLiT?)

Dozens of staffers in dayglo green shirts directed (human) traffic, and the trains (speedy, quiet) ran every ten minutes or so, tunneling under Beacon Hill and emerging high above MLK in Mt. Baker. Further south were African-American, Latino, Asian neighborhoods with exotic strip malls as well as depressingly familiar chain stores. Big crowds showed at the Stadium station, where the MLS Sounders acquitted themselves with honor against the visiting powerhouse Chelsea. Then again, maybe the Brits didn’t want to embarrass their hosts.

The first person we encountered on the train was King County Councilman Larry Philips (Sound Transit board member and candidate for county executive), who told us he’d been waiting forty years for this day. “Every other big city on the West Coast, from San Diego to Vancouver, has had light rail for years.” Cities around Old Europe, too, like Strasbourg, which (unlike Seattle) managed to integrate parking for bikes and cars into the system.

Who cares if it’s going to take longer to get to Sea-Tac by train than on the 194? (Seriously: The 194 takes 30 minutes flat from Westlake Station and costs $1.75. Light rail will take 34 minutes just to reach the Tukwila station, plus a shuttle bus to the airport, and the fare will be at least $2.50.) No matter! We’re up to date now!

Actually, one light rail train carries 350 people. One bus, a tenth of that, especially when filled with flatland touristers and their rolling stock. Also, the 194 doesn’t run late at night. Great sighs of relief on both counts.
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This month’s snarky review, please. Here you go.

In the overlapping sets of Seattle restaurant owners and people who are dicks there stands Phred Westfall, and it’s not because he spells his name funny. Call him eccentric, call him quirky, call him sui generis if you must, but he’s got a most unusual way of running his candy store, Elemental @ Gasworks.

Elemental’s kitchen, by Laurie Riedmeman, does very well indeed. Our last meal here was exceptional, in fact. After a refreshing aperitif, a cascade of delights: Gnocchetti, beef tartar topped with a quail egg, asparagus-spinach salad with shaved parmesan, quail over green beans, a pulled pork tamale with corn, a generous cheese board. Wines to match each course were selected and poured by Phred (on his best behavior), and the tab (which includes tax & tip) was about $80.

Stories about Phred’s capricious manner (alternately annoying and standoff-ish, occasionally solicitous) have been circulating for years (see UrbanSpoon, Yelp, CitySearch, etc.), but Bethany Jean Clement’s review, earlier this month, of the adjacent space known as Elemental Next Door (END) suggested things were getting better. She reported that “END’s menu, on a pulled-down roll of butcher paper, bears the inked message SAME FOOD, LESS ATTITUDE.”
And yet, just when we thought it might be safe to get back into the water: Not. We hear that Westfall lost his composure again this weekend after a guest took issue with the restaurant’s cavalier response to a question about available seating (“I’m not psychic!”). Impolite words were spoken by both parties, whereupon Westfall allegedly physically assaulted the hapless guest. Now, we know that people get into the restaurant business for all sorts of passive-aggressive reasons (“I just want to feed people” is the most common), but sadism shouldn’t be one of them. That’s just dickish.

Ronald’s blog: cornichon.org