The Wall Street Journal – Foragers for Voyagers
LE BERNARDIN CHEF ERIC RIPERT recently arrived in Bhutan for a two-week-long gig at the Amankora Thimphu hotel. Though he's been hard at work mastering ema datse, the national dish of chilies and cheese, travelers may find themselves wondering why the guest chef has...
International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association – Chef Blaine Wetzel of the Willows Inn has gone fishing
The kitchen team of six move with coordinated grace. There’s no discernible food preparation activity, except for the oven baking dark round loaves of rustic rye sourdough. Strategically placed in this compact, sleekly modern space in Washington State’s acclaimed...
Gourmet – Top Chefs Share Their “Bucket List” Restaurants
In order to create the ultimate "bucket list" of restaurants—the top places to eat before you kick the proverbial bucket (or, to put it more cheerfully, before you retire to your secluded tropical island)—we put the question to the chefs behind restaurants that are...
ChuckEats – Willows Inn (Lummi Island, WA) – Island as Plate
To get away – seclusion, slow time, and the freedom to explore. To live with the land, honor its history, and work within its bounty. To be inspired by the physical connection to food and walk amongst it – on the farm, into the brush. Down to the beach: berries on the...
Culinary Concierge – Willows Inn – Meal of a Lifetime
Food memories are very important to me. I can remember great tasting dishes, where I was eating, who I was with, what I was celebrating. Yes, my culinary journey has been filled with many fabulous food memories & tastes. Recently I had the best meal of my life. It...
Misadventures with Andi – A meal at The Willows Inn Lummi Island (Part 2)
Ballet. Discipline. Harmony. Home. These were the words that kept popping into my head as I spent an evening in the presence of epicurean mastery at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island in the San Juan Islands. I wrote about the first part of our meal,the procession of...
Misadventures with Andi – A meal at The Willows Inn Lummi Island (Part 1) The Snacks
After traveling by plane, car and ferry to get to the Willows Inn on Lummi Island, I was anxious to begin the meal I had been thinking about eating for four months (see the background post here). I will be posting about my weekend on the island and my stay at the...
The Wall Street Journal Europe – Life Beyond Noma
By J. S. MARCUS A few years ago, when the attention of the food world was about to shift north to Scandinavia, a presiding wunderkind at Copenhagen's Noma restaurant was kitchen sous chef Christian Puglisi. In 2009, Mr. Puglisi, now 29 years old, decided to leave...
Ooh, my Favorite! – The Willows Inn Restaurant – Lummi Island
We had the meal of a lifetime at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island. One year earlier, venturing into Stumptown Coffee’s Seattle roastery, frazzled, trying to get coffee set for the restaurant that was days away from opening, I met the guy that would tell me about this...
The Wall Street Journal – What’s the Next Big Restaurant?
Which of today's lesser-known eateries will be tomorrow's impossibly booked dining meccas? We analyze the patterns, interview the influencers, gauge the buzz and pick out the ascendant stars By KATY MCLAUGHLIN It's easy to identify the world's hottest restaurants:...
The Chicago Tribune – Island gives Chef the Tools he Needs
July 27, 2011 | By Kevin Pang, Tribune Newspapers LUMMI ISLAND, Wash. — The cooks are assigned homework. Once a week, sometimes more, The Willows Inn chef Blaine Wetzel sends his five cooks to forage in the wild. One might be tasked with elderflowers and crab apple...
The New York Times – Seattle, A Tasting Menu
By FRANK BRUN OUR waitress was in a panic, and no wonder. She couldn’t pinpoint the cradle of our clams. We had asked where they were from in an off-handed fashion, my companion and I. We weren’t especially concerned. But in provenance-conscious, environment-attuned...
The Seattle Weekly – Willows Inn: Blaine Wetzel’s Local Ingredients and Danish Roots
The Noma-reared chef makes a trip to Lummi Island worthwhile. By Hanna Raskin You'll want to go to Willows Inn on Lummi Island, which appears alongside restaurants by Ferran Adrià, Thomas Keller, and Grant Achatz on gourmands' global checklists, to mark your birthday,...
The Globe and Mail – Lummi Island: Home to the Pacific Northwest’s Great Foodie Secret
LUMMI ISLAND, WASH.— The chef places a cedar bentwood box at the centre of the table for the first of six amuse-bouches. Leaning over, I lift the lid and am smacked in the nose with a heady swirl of briny smoke. “Woo hoo,” I cry, slamming the lid back down. I feel...
The Stranger – Is the Willows Inn All That?
A Trip to Lummi Island to Find Out What All the Fuss Is About by BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT BLAINE WETZEL IS ONLY 25 And anyone who’s any kind of gourmand wants a seat at one of his tables. To get to the burning-hottest restaurant on the West Coast—if not in the entire...
The New York Times – (One of) 10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride
By GISELA WILLIAMS From new offerings by marquee chefs to more modest openings in out-of-the-way spots, here are 10 restaurants around the globe to keep an eye on in 2011, in alphabetical order. APONIENTE EL PUERTO DE SANTA MARíA, Spain In the exclusive world of...