It was a warm summer evening as we descended downtown to the Metropolitan Grill — one of Seattle’s premier fine-dining establishments. This is a big year for the Met Grill as it is commonly referred to by Seattelites, as they are now celebrating 40 years in service.
I was really excited to peruse their famed wine list as the Met Grill has earned Wine Spectator’s Grand Award for six consecutive years. Steaks are the focus at Met Grill as they come from the Double R Ranch and are prime graded. Mine was particularly melt in your mouth delicious.
As we sat down we were greeted by our server who has been at Met Grill for more than 15 years. He was awesome — just incredibly engaging and attentive throughout the dining experience.
I instantly grabbed the wine list and began my read. Wine director Chris Lara is incredibly talented and I have known him for his time as wine director at John Howie. I took my time enjoying the many thoughtful selections from the Pacific Northwest as they have a really excellent selection of reds and whites by the glass.
We had a lot to celebrate with our night on the town sans baby and I ordered the incredible 2006 Billecart-Salmon ‘Nicolas Francois Billecart’ Champagne which comes from a warm, somewhat challenging vintage. This 2006 edition of the ‘Nicolas Francois Billecart’ was the finest of many that I had tasted from my personal collection. Wine service was excellent and we immediately had our glasses of champagne in our white wine stems.
Ah, the wine was such a pleasure to enjoy. I savored each sip as I chose my dining selections which had to include steak! My wife and I rarely share a main course but we had to in this case and opted for the incredible Chateaubriand for two.
I am such a sucker for steak tartare and was so excited to taste this dish that was absolutely incredible. The texture and range of flavor in the dish was insanely good. As I write this I can’t wait to go back and try this for a second time. Toast that accompanied was also perfectly cooked fresh bread.
Similarly, one of my ATF dishes is Dungeness crab cakes. This cake that they served was wonderfully moist on the inside and also was filled with flavor and succulent crab meat. I can assure you that this crab cake tasted every bit as good as it looks. So many times that you order this dish at local restaurants, the crab cakes are filled with filler. Such is not the case at Met Grill.
We ordered the bone marrow which was also delicious. With so many healthy choices available in dining it was really fun to order something so hedonistic and delicious. I love the tart onion that matched the creaminess in the dish.
I had brought a very special wine from Cayuse Vineyards. The winery makes some world-class Syrah and this bottling from 2019 was absolutely vibrant and youthful, with insanely good flavor range. It was a joy to drink with the bone marrow and also the steak.
We shared the French onion soup which was a knockout dish. The broth was so rich and dense and the topped Greyere was just fantastic to complement. I think this was easily the best French onion soup I have tasted in the past year.
Now to the show-stopper the steak dish. I am a stickler for things being cooked correctly in a fine dining setting. This steak was cooked absolutely perfectly. It melted in your mouth and was paired with Bernaise which also was cooked marvelously with lovely egg and cream flavors. We were extremely happy with our Chateaubriand selection.
We finished with dessert and I have to make my plug on the cake selections that they had. The chocolate cake was incredibly moist and delicious but we were absolutely blown away with their white cake selection the White Chocolate Coconut cake. This is a must try for anyone who is crazy for a top dessert.
In short, if you want some outstanding service, mouth-watering steaks, incredible apps and world-class service, a visit to the Metropolitan Grill Seattle is an absolute must. I will definitely be back soon.