The minute the first green shoot pokes its tender head through the ground in late March after a soggy, kale-centric winter, the creative juices of local chefs begins to percolate with enthusiasm. It’s a time of new beginnings, verdant possibility, and fresh flavor. Here are five ways Seattle chefs are tapping into the delicious bounty of season spring treats with fleeting availability:
Fiddlehead ferns and fava beans – Naka
Wunderkind Shota Nakajima is pairing fiddlehead ferns in a savory chawan mushi or egg custard, accompanied by spring greens tempura featuring asparagus, spruce tips, fava beans.
Rhubarb and lamb – Mamnoon
Top Chef alum Jason Stratton has shifted his culinary vision from Italy to the Middle East at Capitol Hill’s Mamnoon, where a dish of rhubarb, roasted lamb loin and braised lamb shoulder with poached and shaved raw rhubarb, mint, dried lemon, watercress and Persian spice blend, advieh, which pairs cloves, cinnamon and other spices with fragrant dried rose petals.
Stuart Lane has incorporated the best of spring ingredients—nettles, lamb, and fiddlehead fern—into the menus at Spinasse and Artusi for a bountiful, flavorful and memorable meal.
