Layers Green Lake — Restaurant in Seattle

Disclaimer: I’m writing this as an early review, as the restaurant is in its soft opening. Thus it seems more useful to write critically while they are still making tweaks than to be uncritical and fawning!

That out of the way: I was very excited when I heard Layers was coming to Green Lake. I moved to this neighborhood a year ago and let’s say the dining options are a little limited, and I’m always excited to try a new spot. Even better, I’ve had sandwiches from their truck outside Stoup and was always a big fan!! Their potatoes are like none other.

I learned from google maps they were amid a soft opening and high tailed it over there for a Friday lunch! Little did I know everyone else did too. The line was rather long, which I suppose is to be expected.

I finally got to the menu and experienced my first disappointment of the day. Two of the flagship sandwiches were not available… likely sold out! And disappointment #2. The prices. Yikes. I know it’s Seattle and I know they have to make their brick and mortar restaurant pencil. I’m no stranger to $15+ sandwiches, that seems to be the growing norm here. But $4.50 for a cup of drip coffee? Who are we kidding? and $6 for cold brew. I don’t know if you’ve ever made cold brew but it’s about the easiest thing to make. IDK, it’s not for me. Perhaps that cost will work for other people.

I ordered what essentially appeared to be a hot dog banh mi with pate and some pickled veggies on a roll, and a side of spuds. My total came out to be $27 after tip and tax.

The wait was somewhat long but I totally understand that, it was very busy and it was a new restaurant!

I was able to snag a small table inside by some luck. The interior of the restaurant is clean and nice. I appreciated the free cucumber/mint essenced water and the silverware/napkins drawers were a fun classy touch.

My sandwich came and it was about as small as I expected from seeing others go by. That’s the world we live in now I guess. The Spuds were a pretty healthy portion, but I’d hope so for a $7 order of fries. I think in the future I would strongly recommend splitting the spuds with someone else!

The banh mi hotdog was fine. There was too much bread for how much filling was there. I couldn’t taste the pate and the carrots were a tad large and crunchy, it was more like eating a bite of carrot, then a bite of bread and a bite of hot dog. It was filling but only because there was so much bread. I’ll stick with traditional banh mis from nearby vietnamese restaurants I think.

I already mentioned the spuds. They are super tasty. I don’t know of any other restaurants in the city that do smashed fingerlings like this! They are one of my favorites. If you have ever been to Taqueria Orinoco in CDMX, they are very similar to their potatoes. I added ketchup for 75c because I missed that they come with some sort of green goddess sauce, but I would forgo it in the future knowing what I know now.

In conclusion, I am a little underwhelmed by my experience here, and a majority of that is in light of my sticker shock. I wanted to do my best to review it in the right context: they are a new restaurant working out the kinks, but I would have hoped for sandwiches that were on par with their food truck fare for the elevated cost they are asking (am I just misremembering their sandwiches being bigger?). I don’t think this spot will be making my regulars just yet, and while I may give them another shot once they’ve settled in, I don’t know if I can make a strong recommendation to others...

I got the Notorious PIG sandwich and the Buttermilk Biscuit while I was here

Starting with the sandwich, there were a ton of things to love about this The very first thing I noticed was how all-time crispy the pork belly was. Interestingly, the meat came in two separate pieces, arranges somewhat like an X or a cross in the middle of the sandwich. This certainly wasn't the eating experience of a typical sandwich with a circular meat patty, and I appreciate the creativity here. The meat was insanely crunchy, oily, and quite plentiful. Each bite felt a bit like you were biting into a crunchy churro, but without the sweetness. I did think the outside of the pork did overpower the inside, though, as I didn't taste the meat or the fat inside much, and due to the amount of breading the pieces ended up being a bit chewy The bun was quite good as well - it was pretty soft, fluffy, and served as a really good bookend to all the ingredients inside. I thought the lettuce and onions also were good. I don't know if I'm a fan of the jelly on the sandwich - but again, I do like the creativity. What did shine here was the aioli, however. In a lot of places, you don't really taste the aioli on a burger - but that flavor was ever-present on this sandwich, and it was really fantastic.

The absolute best part of the meal, by far, though, was the biscuit I have to start with how huge this is. This is certainly not the size of a typical Southern-style buttermilk biscuit - rather this biscuit makes no apologies in its effort to stand out from the crowd. Absolutely nobody would mistake this for a traditional biscuit - on the contrary, I think on first glance most people would assume this isn't a biscuit at all. It's shaped more like a massive pastry. I hesitate to say that looks are deceiving, because it does look great, but its taste manages to elevate past that. This was SO good. The edges are baked perfectly - they're oily, crispy, crunchy, and perfectly flaky. All four sides provide an amazing base - like the walls of a fortress that surround the soft, tender interior of the biscuit. You can see the different layers from the outside as well. When it comes to the inside, there was so much to get through but every bite was heavenly. So much credit here goes to the honey butter - which when spread onto the biscuit, raises the taste level of the entire thing. I put so much honey butter on mine that I nearly finished the whole thing. When it came to the jam, it was good, but since it didn't combine great with the honey butter I mostly ended up just using the latter

This place was expensive - around 16 dollars for the sandwich and 8 for the biscuit - however, I was quite full at the end

Overall, this was about an 8.75/10 sandwich, combined with a 10/10 biscuit, leaves me with a total of 9.5/10....

Our first dining in experience here was great! We've gone many times when Layer's was a food truck and were excited to finally dine in. We went this last Saturday around 12:30pm. There was a line but it moved pretty quickly- we waited less than 20 minutes to place our order even with the line out the door. There were a couple of menu items sold out (but we were used to the food truck days where you had to show up before opening to avoid sell out so we were pleasantly surprised most things were still in stock even within a couple hours of them closing for the day). I got the Captain Rick (delicious as ever), my husband got Notorious P.I.G. (the pepper jelly is what dreams are made of), tomato soup (delightful) an order of spuds (our kids' favorite), and a couple of cowboy cookies. We were with a couple of friends and as it was a busy Saturday, the tables were in high demand inside. We didn't expect to have much luck finding a table. One opened up and someone from line that hadn't ordered food yet snagged it. Ashley intercepted and helped with the flow of tables by ensuring people that had already placed an order got the table first. Since there were 4 of us adults, 2 kids, and 1 baby in a car seat, we figured the kids would sit on our laps. Ashley went out of her way to get us extra chairs from the back so the kids had their own seats and as soon as a table next to ours opened up she combined the tables for us so we could all sit together comfortably. It was that extra touch of thoughtfulness that really made it not just a great food experience but a great dining experience. Our friends also really enjoyed their meals (spuds, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and a Captain Rick). The lower reviews here complain about price but I was pleasantly surprised to get a generous portion of soup, 2 large sandwiches, a full order of spuds, and 2 large cookies for $71 which included tax and a 20% tip. We left full and even saved the cookies for later. We will definitely be back- it is worth the trip from...