Salumi in Seattle
Photo by Melissa Schneider.
The 10:00 am flight from Oakland arrives in Seattle at 11:30. You get out of the airport at about noon. You have two hours to check in for the 3:15 ferry to Victoria, but the bus to Seattle takes one hour. That's an hour of dining opportunity in downtown Seattle.
We alit from the bus on James Street and started to walk towards pier 69, where the blue and white Victoria Clipper boats berth. I looked around at the buildings we had seen on our previous trip to Seattle—Melissa later told a friend that I put up my nose and sniffed the air—and said, "I think we're near Salumi."
My cell phone's web browser confirmed the hunch, and we took a detour. The tiny, white-walled sandwich shop is a claustrophobe's nightmare: The narrow walkway in front of the counter forces every exiting diner to bump you as they pass, and a pack of tables cluster in the back, far from any window or ventilation. But you can soothe your jangled nerves with longing looks at the canopy of traditional Italian cured meats made by owner Armandino Batali and his staff and kept in a temperature-controlled room next to the service area. Pictures of the Batali family—including Armandino's famous son Mario—line the walls, if you can tear your eyes away from the meat locker.
Photo by Melissa Schneider.
Melissa waited outside with our luggage while I decided what to order. The lunchtime crowd had already cleaned out most of the menu (no lamb prosciutto?!), but I opted for a prosciutto sandwich with fig jam and goat cheese, and a salumi platter with olives and cheese, to go. The $10 salumi platter ($3.50 for cheeses and olives) features generous portions of half a dozen different cured meats. They weren't labeled, but one had the orange tint and high heat of soppressatta and another had the black peppercorn studs I associate with cotto.
Photo by Melissa Schneider.
Salumi's cured meats have a robust but well-balanced flavor, suggesting a thoughtful hand with the spices and curing salt. The thin, fatty slices almost melt in your mouth, and every movement of the paper bag under my nose caused me to swoon in the waves of porcine aromas. I hear the hot dishes are even better, but I assumed meatballs and brisket would suffer from the two-hour delay before we unfurled our wrappers on the boat.
The meat was well worth the short detour. Support your local salumi maker, I always say, even if he's only local for one hour.
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