Chez Shea

Wife and I went here for Dine Around Seattle. Thought the lamb belly appetizer was frickin’ delicious, liked my Alaskan halibut entree, and loved the warm apple tart for dessert. Wife liked her oysters, loved her New York strip steak (“5.5 stars”) and liked her pear sorbet. We also had the $10 wine pairing with our meals.

We came here on a Tuesday, late dinner, for Dine Around Seattle this year.

The ambiance of this little tucked-away restaurant is very intimate and lovely. It’s romantic, lots of candles, and just a little edge. It’s quite out of the way, hidden in Pike Place Market on the third floor of a building, after many twists and turns and doorways and stairs (but it’s easy to find, lots of signage). And it was the only Dine Around Seattle restaurant we went to (out of 5) this year that actually had a tablecloth on our table! Which made me happy.

The food was very nice. For the appetizer, I had lamb belly with poached egg on a toasted baguette. The lamb was flavorful, the bread maybe just a little too hard to figure out how to eat—it wouldn’t really cut with knife and fork, but it was sitting in sauce so you couldn’t just pick it up either.

For the entree, I wanted the halibut, but they were out and so they were serving sturgeon instead, which I wasn’t in the mood for, so I ordered the risotto. The risotto was fantastic. Probably my favorite—a lot of times, I feel like risotto is prepared just sort of like mushy wet rice. Risotto I’ve had at other Dine Around Seattle restaurants previous years had often been also a very tiny serving of uniformly-textured glob. The risotto here had definition, it had interest and variation. The rice was moist, but there was still some liquid separate from it, which I prefer. There were nice big pieces of different mushroom varieties in there that really gave some textural contrast to the dish. And the portion is quite large compared to most entrees I’ve had during Dine Around Seattle.

For dessert, I had a warm apple tart, which was quite tasty, and the portion was actually pretty big. I think that’s sort of the theme of my meal at this restaurant—most of the Dine Around Seattle restaurants I went to served, I felt, perfectly-sized portions, but you don’t feel full afterwards the way you would feel after a hearty home-cooked meal. But at Chez Shea, I was quite full and all the portions were larger than they would normally be at these restaurants (though about the same size or smaller at, say, a family casual dining place). Even the lamb appetizer could have been a small meal on its own.

As for the service, it was okay, but could have been better. It seems like all the servers serve at all the tables, so we had two different servers come up to us and tell us, on separate occasions, “oh, by the way, there’s a menu change, no halibut tonight…” I think having random different servers come up to serve us kind of detracted from the experience a little; it’s nice to see the same face and feel like you have a bond with your server, and know who is responsible for you.

All in all, we had a wonderful dining experience at Chez Shea, and we’d definitely go back again.

I really like their “chef’s menu”, its much better than the regular menu.

A very charming atmosphere and great seasonal Northwest-French fusion menu make Chez Shea a top-notch eatery. The food is definitely not cheap but if you’re looking for a special occasion or just want to splurge on great food, this is the place.The fixed price menu is great to get a taste of everything and portions are tweaked perfectly for each dish. I never got tired of any particular dish and felt very full at the end of the meal.

Foodies that love a good French restaurant with that Northwest flair should definitely check this place out.

This restaurant is good for special ocassions.