There’s a good chance you don’t know anything about one of the best restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. The place inhabits an old monastery, tucked into the woods a ways outside of the nearest metropolis in Seattle. Here, at Cedar+Elm, a NOMA-trained chef is making some incredible food.
Housed in The Lodge at St Edward Park, the restaurant is deceptively good. There’s very little fanfare, and upon this writer’s visit, the building was eerily quiet. It was as though people forgot that highly capable chefs do and often stray from big cities to different domaines. Regardless, the meal I had was one of the best of the year, and Cedar + Elm deserves some praise.
Chef Luke Kolpin runs the kitchen at the restaurant. The Seattle native worked at outstanding local restaurants like Canlis before a stint at NOMA, perhaps the world’s most famous eatery. He thinks there’s something special about cooking in the Pacific Northwest, especially from season to season.
“We have great growing weather for our ingredients, and specific times those ingredients can grow and be very tasty, so trying to cook in those seasons and capture those ingredients at there right times can be fun, challenging and very rewording,” he says, adding that the seafood scene is pretty remarkable too.
The restaurant embarks on an ongoing journey to be more and more local. “From our beef, seafood and vegetables, we work with our purveyors to source the local ingredients they have and farms they work with, as well as going directly to the source and even helping out with local seaweed harvesting that we then use year round,” he says.
A local-first approach yields freshness and, in a place with so much abundance, some special dishes. “The dish I am most proud of is probably our sablefish,” Kolpin says. “Not only is this an amazing dish, but it has also gone through the most changes. The sablefish set gets better and better, and it just shows how far we have come and our team’s growth.”
How to have the ultimate experience
At just a half-hour outside of Seattle, Cedar+Elm and the encompassing lodge is easier to access that you might think. While you feel like you’re somewhere else entirely, you’re not far from the I5 corridor. But how best to enjoy the place once you’re there?
“First, get the dirty dip with our flat bread, and then if you see something on the menu that looks different or something you might not normally try, go for it,” says Kolpin. “You might be surprised, and even change your view on how food should taste and be enjoyed. It’s sometimes about putting trust in someone else’s hands and just being there for the ride.”
And if being passenger feels strange, it shouldn’t, especially when your driver has chops earned from the likes of NOMA. Chef Kolpin learned tons while at the storied Scandinavia restaurant, but a major takeaway involves the details, something Cedar+Elm excels at.
“One thing I learned as far as the food — and I learned this very early on at NOMA — was to ask myself ‘does this garnish make sense?’” he says. “I presented a dish to Rene [Redzepi], and before he even tried it, he asked me this – he already knew I did the garnish for looks and not for taste or functionality. I thought back to every garnish I ever put on a plate, and from that moment going forward, everything needed to make sense and be a part of the taste and seasoning of the dish, even the garnish.”
Other standouts include the handmade ricotta gnudi, filet mignon tartare, and mushroom agnolotti. If there’s pork belly on the menu, order it. And stick around and make a weekend of the affair as the breakfast and lunch menus are delctable too.
The future
“I would love to have more items from the team on our menu,” the chef says. “This is a big place with bar menus, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and not too often do the cooks in any place get opportunities to put dishes on the menu and to grow in that way as a person and a chef.”
That kind of inclusiveness could yield some tasty new perspectives. “As we grow as a team, I would love to feature more items and techniques from our cooks, not only giving them a chance they might not otherwise have until they have their own place or a sous chef role, but to have more excitement as a team with lots of little victories, and all helping each other become stronger,” Kolpin adds.
If you’re headed up, be sure to check out our Seattle travel guide as well as our Washington state wine feature, should you be in the mood for some exceptional Cabernet Sauvignon or Viognier. Don’t forget to check in with our best rooftop bars piece, as summer is in the air and we deserve a good drink with a view, preferably outside.
