Relish Bistro — Restaurant in Seattle

We drove to Seattle to meet an old friend last night for a nice dinner on Lake Union. At the last minute, our friend, who was staying at the Westin downtown and had an early morning flight today, decided he would rather just eat at the hotel.

We've stayed at the Westin many times, but with so many dining options within a block or two, have never eaten at the restaurant. Much to my surprise, the Relish Burger Bistro is excellent and provides downtown diners with an unsurpassed gourmet burger option.

Our friend from Silicon Valley and I opted for the signature "Relish Burger," a high-grade, organic beef from Niman Ranch on a freshly baked bun served with Seattle's own Bleecher cheese, thick slices of locally-sourced bacon, topped with onion rings in lieu of fresh onions and all the usual trimmings. My companion ordered the Black Bean vegetarian option similarly dressed (sans bacon). Unlike the signature dish, the veggie option did not include fries, but my plate included more than enough to share.

Although it wasn't cheap, Relish Burger Bistro serves a great gourmet burger which I was able to pair with an excellent (and not inconsequentially), equally-priced glass of King Estates Pinot Noir. Although the glass of one of Oregon's best premium red wines doubled the price of my already pricey burger meal, the pairing was worth every penny.

Like any meal, good food shared with friends in a friendly atmosphere and accompanied by thoughtful, professional service made the 90 mile (180 round trip) drive from Bellingham worth the effort even if it didn't include the stunning view of Lake Union (or menu choices) we had...

TLDR; Bland & uninspired food. Rude cashier. Would not recommend unless you are desperate or don't want to leave the hotel.

I had the Chicken Vindaloo Curry burger. The description said "mild" so I didn't expect anything spicy... but I didn't expect that to mean "once looked at Vindaloo curry through a telescope then took a bath in mango chutney".

Seriously, this burger, although it was quite large in size, tasted nothing remotely at all like Vindaloo curry. It just tasted like chicken breast coated in mango sauce. Very bland, no curry taste and too much cheese. Not a good flavor overall. Also the tater tots that came with it tasted low quality and greasy - like they were fried in heavily used oils. The other members of my party didn't really enjoy their choice of food either and most of it got thrown away.

The cashier (a young man in his 20's) had an irritable attitude with our whole party, and passively aggressively conveyed his frustration with our few polite questions about the menu and drinks. I guess he thought we wouldn't notice...

I don't necessarily expect anyone in retail to actually be friendly and give a dang about us as customers - since it's a rough industry to be in unless you really love people - but it would have been nice to have a little friendlier service with less snobby attitude.. especially considering the food.

I won't be...

Decent food, but possibly the worst service I've ever seen in the Seattle area. My group of 6 waited almost 20 minutes to be seated in a nearly empty restaurant, then another 10 to get our menus. After this we waited another 15 minutes or so to order, and all in all, didn't have all our food until an hour after being seated. Once we finished it took almost 30 minutes to get the checks (in fairness, we did request separate checks, but we did this ahead of time, and 30 minutes is extravagant even with a full house). I advise anyone that makes the unfortunate decision to eat here to double check your tab, as my friend (who is 19) got charged for two draft beers despite obviously not ordering them. Nobody at the table, or at the only other table that was in use, ordered beers. We got charged on multiple checks for the shared appetizer, and frankly if I could leave a negative tip I would have. We seriously considered leaving without paying as it took almost 20 minutes for the waitress to take the cards two feet to the register. I hope a manager reads this and figures out why, on a convention weekend, service was so awful (I understand now why the dining room was...