Our favorite of Ethan Stowell’s restaurants is also the most Italian, with a focus on careful, delicious homemade pastas, with the occasional Northwest flourish: showstopping spaghetti with anchovies and chili; sweet and sublime agnolotti with ricotta, brown butter, and sage; or campanelle (pasta shaped like bells) with mussels, preserved lemon, squash, and pesto. Protein mains are sometimes less memorable, but still well thought out—a pork chop with Medjool dates and hazelnuts, roasted leg of lamb with a mint salsa verde.

A long series of tables is flanked by wooden banquettes on one side and booths on the other. It’s not our favorite layout—lots of people are always facing the wall. The design is spare—a collection of mirrors mounted on exposed concrete over the bar is one of few embellishments—and the place feels like an industrial-chic dining hall, loud and social. Getting a seat at the bar isn’t a consolation prize: the mixology is particularly good here, and the bar itself feels like a natural extension of the übercool dinner party happening around it. The wine list is more of a bright spot—even if prices start to stray a bit high.

We have an obscure but closely observed Fearless Critic policy that a half-point in feel rating shall be deducted from any establishment whose name includes a made-up accent just to make the word seem more foreign. (See e.g. Crú in Austin; Amazón Grill in Houston; Vicenté’s Pizza in Portland; Maté in Washington, DC.) So Tavolata=9; Tavolàta=8.5. Sorry guys.