Best of Seattle Restaurants – 2008 – Best Northern Italian – Café Juanita

Restaurant Name: Cafe Juanita
Location: Seattle Wa

Holly Smith, James Beard Best Chef in the NW for 2008, is an amazing chef. Café Juanita is a transporting experience in Northern Italian fine dining. When I got to choose where to hold my retirement dinner celebration Café Juanita was my first choice. Their treatment of Rabbit is the best I have ever had. Rabbit is a meat that really requires different cooking techniques for different parts of the animal – and Café Juanita does this perfectly – a 3 way treatment that brings out the best of each part. The pasta’s and risotto are wonderful – in fact having eaten here 6 times I can’t think of anything on the menu that isn’t awesome. The place and crowd are both kind of quiet so not as festive as I would prefer. One kind of odd thing – I think based on the restaurant name and outside looks - is that many times we have been there when it is obvious some party at another table is uncomfortably figuring out when they get the menu that this isn’t a mid priced neighborhood Café – it is a high end and high priced gourmet restaurant.