Spain may have captured the World Cup, but Bastille Day rolls around again every July 14. The French simply call it their Fete Nationale and celebrate with stately parades and speeches. Americans, no strangers to displays of nationalistic ceremony, clearly side with the revolutionaries and their cry of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
There's a corner of France along First Avenue, above the Pike Place Market, with two francophile restaurants offering Bastille Day festivities today.
Le Pichet will throw its biggest party of the year. Run by French-trained chef Jim Drohman, creator of Seattle's best chicken liver dish, the iconic gâteau au foie de volaille, Le Pichet will serve Parisian street food and feature two bands. Information: www.LePichetSeattle.com.
A block away, at Campagne, they're offering a royalist dinner ($50 for five courses, starting with a coddled duck egg) in the cool and starched upstairs restaurant, and a populist fare in the Cafe Campagne alley down below (street food like garlic sausage and pommes frites for $5 or so). Details on the Campagne blog: www.campagnerestaurant.com/blog.
No class divisions in Ballard at the holiday's eponymous restaurant, Bastille. It starts with an outdoor charcuterie and oyster station. There's $5 beer and wine, music on the terrace, chanteuses in the back bar, and that most revolutionary experience of all, an ooh-la-la burlesque troupe at midnight. Information: www.bastilleseattle.com.
