Autumn Seattle — Restaurant in Seattle

This spot came highly recommended and I can understand why, but ultimately we found faults with too much of the menu for a full-throated recommendation.

I'll enumerate each dish and the small to major issues we had, but overall we showed up for a later reservation (8:30pm) and felt unattended and pushed out at the evening close ~10:10pm, which was not an overstay in my opinion. The food being not-noteworthy was the biggest hangup though.

Starters: Polenta fries (WAY too salty, oversalting being a common review comment), roasted carrots (so-so), burrata (not at all a standard burrata and very unmemorable), brussel sprouts (very good, but ultimately most places do this dish well).

Main protein courses: There are limited options (3) and they were out of one. For a party of 4 deciding to share courses this immediately cut our options substantially. Ribeye (served decidedly RARE and while fine was nothing special, simple potato/red wine/onion pairing that any home cook could approximate). Rabbit (this dish was borderline bad, it was upscale chicken-pot-pie; we didn't finish it it was so underwhelming).

Main pasta courses: Good selection and well-cooked. We had the Squid Ink Spaghetti (the menu did NOT call out the substantial amount of olives in this dish. While this is a rare ingredient I shy away from it didn't totally ruin the dish, but I would strongly recommend the menu writers include ingredients that feature this prominently in a dish so guests can make informed choices; would've picked an alternative had we known) and the Ragu (did not try).

Last, a lot of the reviews call out the confusing service charge / tip - we agree. It was stated as "16-20% goes to front of house staff" of the 22% service charge. This isn't outrageous, but unnecessarily confusing and like other diners we would prefer something more transparent.

We were interested in dessert but it was clear that the staff was closing up and did not care to present a dessert menu and listed off a pair of options that sounded underwhelming to match the main courses. We opted to just leave.

I enjoyed the cocktail menu, but have had similar enough drinks elsewhere.

Really very torn on my ultimate experience. It was 'good' but dozens of other places outshine this on nearly...

Do yourself a favor, eat at Autumn Seattle. The restaurant just opened but is already a top contender for best restaurant in Phinney/Greenwood and is certainly one of the few restaurants in the neighborhood that qualify as destination dining. There’s outdoor seating, if the weather is nice, with views overlooking Greenlake and the Cascades. It’s an open kitchen inside and watching the action is almost as entertaining as eating the food that comes from it. All of the staff we interacted with seemed genuinely invested in our happiness and ultimately in the success of the restaurant. It worked. The hostess was great, not only seating us but circling back to check on us and make conversation. Our server was knowledgeable with the entire menu and made a wine recommendation that was spot on and added to the enjoyment of our meal. The expediter running the show checked in on us and the chef did as well. For the meal we shared oysters, perfect, fresh, mildly briny served with a red wine mignonette. For pasta we had the farfalle with peas and mushrooms. It was light for a pasta dish but the sauce was still complex and delicious. I’m glad we had some bread because I used it to clean up all of the sauce in the serving dish. We also had the cavitelli with rabbit which was more hearty than the farfalle but equally delicious and with a spicy kick. The bread was handy here also. For proteins we had the Cod and the Taro. The cod was cooked perfect, the greens and grains elevated each bite. The Taro steak, also amazing and elevated about the sum of its parts. My wife described the Taro as beef flavored butter, it was impossibly tender. The pasta shines here but all of the food was amazing in appearance and taste. I wish I could tell you about the desserts but we were too full order any. Maybe next time, we literally booked our next reservation while we were eating our meal. It’s a small menu and I plan to try all of...

We highly recommend Autumn. The prix fixe at Autumn rivals Art of the Table and Altura in quality at an astonishing price point.

Brian Clevenger's newest addition to Seattle's fine dining options begins its chef's choice service with four appetizers - for us a surprisingly balanced gem salad with heat and salt from anchovies, then burrata with fried brussel sprout leaves, then shrimp and steak skewers, then grilled artichoke hearts with a magnificent Calabrian Chile aioli. The pasta course was house-made canneroni with rabbit, root vegetables, and a light sauce. The kitchen sent two proteins - moist black cod with crispy skin and an herb puree and king oyster mushroom as well as ribeye medallions with knockout potatoes. Dessert was exceptionally creative: meringue with the body of buttercream topped with pistachios and cranberry; we've never encountered a chef using meringue for the core of a dessert and this dish worked perfectly.

Service was outstanding - prompt, attentive, informative. The restaurant's open-kitchen layout is a fun touch. And we recommend diving in for the bread service - it was exceptional.

We rarely visit a restaurant twice, opting instead to try as best as we can to visit a new place every Friday. Autumn will be on our very short list of restaurants to frequent more than once, and we certainly won't hesitate to bring company with every confidence they'll...