Black Bottle Gastrotavern — Restaurant in Seattle

My wife and I were refused service as a result of being age profiled on two occasions. It took awhile to figure this out as at first we thought they were just busy. First we were told there were no tables available and that we should come back in 20 minutes ( we noticed a couple of open tables but just said oh well) . I asked the female who told us to come back in twenty minutes if we should leave our name, she said no we don’t have a hostess so just come back in twenty minutes. She inferred that she was just a waitress on staff. (Info: my wife and I are a very young looking 65 yrs old and don’t dress nerdy).So we came back in twenty minutes and were greeted by the same lady and were told there were no tables and that we should come back in twenty minutes. We noted several open tables and three seats at the bar. I asked if I could order a drink at the bar until a table was available. She said no you can’t sit at the bar and just drink, if you sit at the bar then you have to stay there and eat also. I must have looked confused but then she said “out of respect to our employees (not customers?) we don’t want to cheat them out of a bigger tip. So we went for a drink down the street and came back in 45 minutes and were again greeted by the same female (hmmm, thought she said earlier that they do not have a hostess?). By now the place at cleared out a bit and were told we could get a table but it would be just a few minutes until they cleared one off (which is understandable), however we decided to go elsewhere and gave this female that greeted us three times that I felt we had been age profiled earlier, she then replied “why sir I am the manager here and I would never do that!”. Hmmm, why hadn’t she mentioned that she was the manager when she said there was no hostess on staff! She certainly was acting in that capacity all evening. And now here is the clincher when I mentioned that she would not let us get a drink at the bar “sir my staff comes first and I want to make certain they are taken care of and they get more tips from meals than drinks!” Gee lady I thought customers come first! I do not recommend this establishment based on poor management and zero...

Wow, I love Black Bottle. I like the one in Bellevue better because it has this insanely good cocktail that's some sort of pink lemondrop infused goodness (I forget what it's called but it's not available in the Seattle location). Service was fine, the food came out surprisingly fast. It's got that dark and more hipster atmosphere. I would agree that it's a small plates restaurants so grab a friend or two or more and order multiple dishes so you can try a little of everything.

House-smoked wild boar ribs - wasn't a huge fan, thought they were kind of dry, flavor was fine Pork belly and kimchi - delicious and flavorful, but my friend thought that they gave us too much fat and not enough meat Spicy coconut lemon-ginger ceviche and taro crisps - tasty, the taro crisps are quite an interesting idea, not the best ceviche but by no means the worst Bacon lemon scallops with kale - wow, I usually hate kale but that was delicious, the scallops were kind of chewy so the kale was surprisingly the better part of the dish Kolkata pepper glaze cauliflower fritters - I didn't like this, couldn't really figure out the flavor and the texture just seemed off to me Blasted broccoli - EASILY the best thing on the menu, it's like broccoli covered in some seasoning and olive oil and then quickly broiled or baked, it's amazing Fried tofu nuggets with house made peanut sauce - I enjoyed this one, nothing incredibly innovative but I love a good tofu dish Coffee liqueur brandied cherries panna cotta hidden chocolate - kind of a mouthful but it was good, it's funny because the chocolate is actually hiding under the panna cotta, and it's a small portion of chocolate so don't be expecting a heavy dosage here I can't remember which flatbread we had but I remember it being...

Replacing my original (unhelpful) review.

I've visited Black Bottle many times before the pandemic, frequently ordering a big chunk of the menu. It has consistently been one of my favorites.

Last visit, we stopped by for a snack and dessert.

Cauliflower fritters. Just fried cauliflower with an uninteresting red sauce. Presentation and flavor seemed dated. Lacked the originality I expect from Black Bottle. Didn't finish it.

Smoked chicken and cherry flatbread. A classic, but this time the bread was tough, the chicken was dry, and the cheese overwhelming. Using the same garnish as the fritters seemed a bit lazy. Not bad, maybe just an off night.

Bread pudding with bourbon caramel. The texture was extremely slippery and off-putting. My first impulse was to spit it out. The caramel was salty and runny, like they had just mixed straight bourbon into caramel sauce. The flavors here weren't good. The whole thing seemed amateurish. We barely took a bite and left the rest.

Flan with chocolate cake. The flan was hard and mealy, and the sad little brownie it sat on was so dry it was curling up from the plate. Again, amateurish. Weak flavors, awful texture, unattractive presentation. We barely took a bite and left the rest. Makes me sad thinking back on the simple excellence of the blueberry kettle tart.

Service. Perfunctory. They noticed the barely eaten food and said nothing when we declined a box. Which is... sure. The onus was on us to send the food back. Just didn't have the energy, didn't plan on being back, and, frankly, no longer seemed like the kind of place that would care.

Glad Black Bottle is still committed to their vision, but let's agree to disagree that it's my tastes that...