Almost a block south of East Madison Street, on a long, blank section of 12th Avenue, a square yellow sign above the sidewalk shows a red feather above the word Presse. The sign marks Café Presse, a new restaurant in the French style backed up against Seattle University at 1117 12th Avenue.
The new restaurant - the café opened on June 20 - is owned by Jim Drohman and Joanne Herron, the pair of owners and creators of the highly regarded Le Pichet, on First Avenue near the Pike Place Market. Café Presse has the feel of a genuine French bistro and a menu to match.
"We want to provide a place for the neighborhood, the students, professors and people who live here," said Esther Harding, manager of the bistro. "The owners especially wanted to build a niche with wine and affordable food for everyone."
With Café Presse, Drohman and Herron hope to build a Parisian style bar/café that will be the sort of place Parisians use as a kind of alternative living room. It will be a place to enjoy coffee and croissants in the morning, meet friends for lunch, dinner or drinks throughout the day or to have a late night bite or a night cap.
The café is split into two seating areas. The front part is the bar, with a marble-topped full bar on the left, also providing full coffee service with coffee from Café Vita, and seating on the right. It has floor-to-ceiling windows opening to 12th Avenue and Parisian-style pendant lights.
The dining room, in the back, somewhat larger, has exposed brick walls and steel beams under high ceilings, a generous offering of banquet seating along the walls and windows that let in lots of sunlight and offer views of the Seattle University campus. Both rooms are bright and cheery.
And there's a newsstand. The newsstand at Café Presse offers eight domestic and foreign newspapers and more than 70 magazines. In the near future, the café will offer current daily papers, printed to order, from 52 countries around the world.
My teenaged daughter was delighted to find the menu in French (luckily, with English explanations underneath each item) and she resolved to use her newly acquired command of the language to order. In fact she insisted in conversing only in French as we took a table in the rear of the restaurant. That put a pretty good strain on my own, vaguely remembered schoolboy French.
Nonetheless, we managed to order and converse in somewhat fractured French until the food arrived; then it was strictly English, starting with "yummm."
The "sandwich en baguette" comes with a choice of jambon cru (raw smoked ham), regular ham, cheese, liver terrine, rillette or grilled sardines. It is half a very thin loaf of French bread (baguette) sliced lengthwise and filled with the diner's choice. The jambon cru was delightful, as was the glass of La Chaussynette Cotes du Rhone I ordered to accompany it.
My daughter's "croque monsieur," a sandwich with baked ham, gruyere and bechamel sauce, was equally delightful. Americans are frequently told that a croque monsieur is a toasted cheese sandwich. "Yes, and a souffle is just eggs," as an irate cook says in a recent commercial. My francophile companion ordered an Orangina, and we shared an order of pommes-frites.
"They have fried apples?" asked the young'un. No. Pommes-frites is short for fried pommes de terre (potatoes, literally, apples of the earth). They come in a bowl with the right amount for two to share and are cooked with the skins on. They are, like everything else we tried, delicious.
Dessert, of course, was de rigeur, and we shared a perfectly prepared lemon mousse with freshly whipped cream and marinated cherries. Heavenly!
The food is surprisingly affordable or, as a friend said after perusing the menu, "Wow, this really is affordable." Light dishes, from half a baguette and butter to eggs and ham run from $2.50 to $7. A selection of cheeses with country bread may be had in two sizes, $11 or $3.50. Salads are $4 and meat dishes range from $6 to $9.
Les Plats, more substantial fare, runs from $7 for tomato soup with goat cheese croutons to steak and fries for $16, to a roasted chicken dish for two for $26. Of course, good food takes time, and when ordering the chicken dish for two plan to spend a full hour over your wine.
Drohman is a serious soccer fan and a screen in the bar will offer soccer (and only soccer) for "football" fans weekends. Game schedules are posted.
There is also a take away menu with items from the main menu, but there is a caution.
"It is inevitable that the quality of the food we prepare at Café Presse will deteriorate if it is not eaten immediately," warns the menu. It goes on to say that you should come in to order take away items. Orders will be taken by phone, but customers on the premises will receive priority.
If you have guessed that both myself and my daughter are francophiles, you have guessed correctly. But judging from the crowds I am not the only one who is delighted to have this addition to the many choices that are already on Capitol Hill. The atmosphere, the menu and the prices make this one of the most attractive eateries on the Hill. I know where I will be spending at least part of my Bastille Day celebration this year.
OEUFS PLATS, JAMBON, FROMAGE
A traditional French dish as served at Café Presse:
Line a small, oval dish with thinly sliced ham, crack two eggs on top of the ham, then overlay with gruyere cheese slices.
Place in a hot oven for exactly seven minutes.
Café Presse, 1117 12th Avenue, opens at 7 a.m. for coffee and pastries. The lunch/dinner menu is served from 9 a.m. until "late." The café is open daily from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Telephone 709-7674 or turn your browser to www.cafepresse seattle.com.
Freelance writer Korte Brueckmann lives on Capitol Hill and can be reached at editor @capitolhilltimes.com.
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