The real Pike Place - Pike Place Market

Sunset, August, 1997 by Steven R. Lorton

To get the most out of Seattle's legendary market, rise at dawn and leave before noon - but not before lunch

Seattle has a love-hate relationship with the Pike Place Market, or at least I do. The reasons to love this national historic site - a 9-acre jumble of late-19th- and early-20th-century buildings laid out like a jigsaw puzzle - are everywhere. Its iron-columned arcades, where the voices of vegetable vendors and fishmongers echo, are as cherished as the storefronts of Montmartre. Its smells are unduplicated. And its cracked walkways and stone-paved alleys are almost holy.

But between 11 A.M. and 6 P.M., June through mid-September, when the market is ablaze with light and crowds jam the aisles, most Seattleites don't go near the place. That's not the Pike Place Market we grew up with and love. Our market is cozy, intimate, and unshaven - still in its bathrobe. Which is why, when friends from out of town ask me to show them the market, I say, "I'll pick you up at 6:30 tomorrow morning."

I park the car (no trouble at that hour), and we head to the Athenian Inn. Here we settle into a booth by the window to watch the morning traffic on Elliott Bay. With a cup of potent coffee in hand (no double-half-caf goat's-milk lattes here - just joe), we outline the day and eyeball the menu. Hmm ... Chicken-liver omelet? Hangtown fry? Maybe one of the Farmer's Specials (there are six), more than you think you can eat for $3.95. I usually order one of those. And some pancakes, too. At that hour the place is quiet enough to eavesdrop without even half trying ("... Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, or Paul Allen..."), and you find your attention divided between the arrival of the morning commuter ferries and the high-powered dish floating around this workingman's cafe.

An hour later, we head out of the Athenian and walk north. A few of the high stall vendors (year-round retailers) are setting up their fruit and produce displays. I herd my friends to the north end of the market and a little patch of grassy area, Victor Steinbrueck Park. It's still early, plenty of time to admire the two totem poles and the view of the Olympic Mountains.

From here we meander back south, dodging the delivery trucks as we walk cobblestoned Pike Place, drawn by whatever looks interesting. In the arcade, the low stalls are filling up with artisans, all of whom must make what they sell to qualify for the $9 to $25 daily rental fee. Plastic buckets sit filled with freshly cut flowers, and fruits and vegetables picked that morning are being put out for display You often read the words "regional," "seasonal," and "fresh" on menus. Here it's for real.

Across Pike Place, the Seattle Garden Center calls out to the gardener in me, and selfishly I drag my group over to look at plants and pots, seeds and fertilizer, and assorted garden ornaments. I could live here, but I usually lose a friend or two to Sur La Table in the same building. Started by Shirley Collins in 1972, this is probably the most complete culinary store ever conceived. Now Sur La Table has expanded with a store in Kirkland, one in San Francisco, and another (Seattle grits its collective teeth) in Berkeley.

Anchoring the south end of the Market is Read All About It Newsstand, which carries more than 1,500 magazines and 150 newspapers. Across the way is DeLaurenti, with its bins of colored farfalle and fusilli sold by the pound, and shelves of canned olives, tomatoes, pastes, and extracts. I always stop to look at the dozens of bottles of olive oil. Then we head over to MarketSpice, where Seattleites have been shopping for spices, spice blends, and teas since 1911.

By now the Farmer's Special is starting to wear off. No big deal. Excellent restaurants, most rich with atmosphere and full of good food, are the rule in the market. The tonier ones - Campagne, Chez Shea, Il Bistro, the Pink Door - are perfect for a long evening of merrymaking. But for a late-morning lunch in summer, I steer my charges to one of two places. The Copacabana is a noisy Bolivian eatery on the second floor of a triangular brick building at about the market's midpoint. Typical dishes include picante de pollo (breast of chicken in a sauce of paprika, onions, and tomatoes) served with rice and a simple salad. Heaven. Arroz con leche (rice pudding) is a worthy and unpretentious finish.

Back at the south end of the market is Maximilien-in-the-Market. The menu is extensive, but I usually end up ordering sausage and new potatoes, and feel exceptionally lucky if owner Francois Kissel is in the kitchen.

If my friends are in a picnic mood (assuming the weather permits), we might stop at Piroshky Piroshky, which usually has more than a dozen kinds of the Russian staple in the window case, or at Cucina Fresca for torta di Melanzane, to go. And at Le Partier you can buy a sandwich, pain aux noix, pain de campagne, or baguette for the road, though I usually get a pain au chocolat and eat it there.

By 11 the musicians are playing away and the tourists are starting to swarm in like ants to spilled sugar. Up at Pike Place Fish, the hoarse voice of a clerk shouts, "8-pound king!" Then every workman and -woman shouts back, "8-pound king!" And like clockwork, an 8-pound king salmon flies over the heads of the crowd and is caught by a worker behind the counter, who wraps it up for the flight home to Kansas.