Hello there, I hope you enjoy throwing on a sweater as much as I!

As we transition into our fall Season, I get nothing but excited and wanted to share some of that excitement, and a very exciting last minute event.

Our dear friend, and cheese maker Christian Burchard (Who is also a very talented artist) will be joining us this coming Friday September 25, from 4 to 5, for a cheese tasting and conversation. He’ll be bringing up some of his fresh cheeses, which we rarely get to have at the restaurant, and talking about the various styles and his practices. Space is very limited, so we’re taking limited reservations at 4 and 4:30, so send us a message if you’d like to join us. Tickets are 40$ a person, which include a glass of wine and all of the cheese and snacks provided. We’ll be opening at 5 pm for dinner, so snag a 5pm reservation and sit down after the tasting for an early dinner! Message us to book for the Cheese Tasting, while we sent a first access link to our newsletter.

If you’re not familiar with Christian Burchard’s cheese, likely is, you’ve never asked us or ordered our “Illegal Cheese”, which comes with a story I’m happy to share.

Years ago, while dining at Le Pigeon, I ended up sitting beside Christian, and we struck up a conversation. Many courses later (most of which I can’t remember because of my conversation with Christian was so enthralling) we parted ways and shared contacts.

As it turns out, Christian was a pretty famous artist, and shared some photos of his art with me, and I him. Eventually, I started getting some pretty beautiful photos of cheese, and I asked him what’s up? He said he had goats on his farm, and waste not want not, learned how to make cheese. As a photo of food.. Well is a photo of food and a good photo doesn’t make good food, I had an idea.

I offered him an exchange, I send him my house made charcuterie, and he sends me cheese, as a little friendly snack-pen pal situation. When the cheese samples did finally show up, I was so impressed with the quality of the cheese making, the flavors of the milk, and the various styles, I knew immediately I wanted to share this incredible product with our guests as Off Alley. I asked Christian if he’d be willing to sell me larger quantities of cheese when he had them available, and lucky for us he said he’d be happy to!

For the last few years, we’ve only sold Christian’s incredible goat cheese as our stand alone cheese plate, unless we run out before he ships us more. We feel very fortunate to be able to show case his incredible, and very special cheeses, and every time we open a new style up the whole staff is a twitter to try the new cheese. We're one of only a few restaurants in the world who get to work with these incredible hand made cheeses, and we can't wait to have him here in person, and to share a selection of his cheeses.

So, not an event to miss, as we don’t know the next time Christian will be in town! Even now, we’re stealing him away for a short period of time as he’s installing an art piece here in Seattle. 

Are you excited yet? Can I use the word excited more times? You'll have to read on and find out.

Moving into our colder seasons, we can’t wait to pull on a sweater, and start cooking some of our favorite warming and comforting dishes. Our Dungeness crab bisque and grilled pepper cornbread returned to the menu last week, and we’ll start building out Rabbit and Offal pot pie filling today for this week.

For us, the fall is when we can really embrace the Pacific Northwest, with incredible wild mushrooms in abundance from our friends at Foraged and Found, to Radicchio’s from Local Roots, to the best live Shellfish, Oysters, and Crustaceans the PNW has to offer with the colder waters. We lean light with grilled oysters, poached crabs, drunken dock shrimp and grilled spot prawns from the sea, alongside our hearty dishes like pot pies, hasselback potatoes and braised oxtails and snouts. Regardless if you choose to lean one way or the other, it’s truly our favorite time to cook.

With the change of seasons, we’ve learned here at Off Alley is that our restaurant tends to change a bit as well, and I’d love to offer some insight to what we’ve noticed over the years.

Many of you reading this, know we’re a small restaurant! During the warmer months, our Patio helps meet our increasing demands of space and reservations, so we often have last minute reservations available due to doubling our restaurant capacity. However, during the colder months we see our patio reservations dwindle, and the demand for indoors increase significantly. Because of this shift, we see more guests enjoying our standing rail, with it’s 10% discount when you eat, our wait list grows a little longer at times, and for those willing to bundle up, there’s almost always space on the patio. So as we often say, we always have space, it’s just a matter of where, and where your flexibilities lie. Snag a lucky indoor spot from a last minute cancellation or quiet night? Live in the neighborhood? Try jumping on the wait list for a later seating and enjoy a drink at one of our awesome neighboring bars. Enjoy the standing rail, or bundle up with a scarf and a hat and enjoy our Patio with it’s propane heater and provided blankets.

Regardless of your choices of how to dine with us, we’re excited to see you and welcome you in.

As we approach the holidays, we see more larger groups, and people celebrating together. We love throwing parties, and love welcoming larger groups into our space. Whilst in the summer we can host large parties that spill out into the patio and streets, we love our indoor + intimate celebrations in the colder seasons. From larger groups (thirteen plus) where we pull out all the chairs and make Off Alley feel more like a Spanish Pinxto/Tapas bar, or filling or twelve seats for coursed out personalized menu, it’s a great way to celebrate with a group of friends. As always, feel free to send me an e-mail for details on how we can accommodate your celebration.

Sante!

Evan Leichtling