Urbane

By Catherine Giudici

The CSA menu in downtown’s Urbane is fresh to death.

Urbane serves up deliberate and elegant combinations with honest ingredients. Swank. Let’s just say Fifty Shades of Grey ain’t got nothing on this sexy review.

Urbane first introduced this concept in May of this year, partnering with Chinook Farms of Snohomish, WA and their CSA program to create a new weekly menu only served on Mondays based on the produce they receive. Like a Top Chef challenge, the kitchen staff must take those ingredients and create a masterpiece. There are only 6-8 servings each week so don’t dilly-dally.
Get to the restaurant early on Monday so you can be sure to get a taste.

Click to read the article at www.seattleite.com

By Tiffany Ran

Urbane Executive Chef Greg Lopez has worked weddings, large parties, hotel room service, and regular restaurant services, and often, he does it all in one day. Along with being the executive chef at Urbane, Lopez also oversees the food portion of the food and beverage department for neighboring Hyatt Hotel and Olive 8.

At 11-years-old, Lopez got paid under the table washing dishes and worked his way up to making pizzas. Today, even with many kitchens under his watch, he remains focused on getting the word out about Urbane. That is, when he's not cooking with a Sounder and trying to put the "Seattle pizza" on the map.

Click to read the article at seattleweekly.com

By Jay Friedman

Urbane, the restaurant at downtown's Hyatt at Olive 8, is part of Hyatt's national initiative called "Food. Thoughtfully Sourced. Carefully Served." The initiative is "focused on sourcing and providing healthy food and beverage options for Hyatt guests and associates that are good for the local communities in which they reside and good for the planet."

This translates to things like smaller portion sizes, healthier dining options, chef's gardens on hotel properties, hosting of farmers markets, and sponsorship of local culinary schools events.

Click to read the article at seattleweekly.com

By Jessica Tupper

When you walk into Urbane, it’s easy to get caught up in how sleek it is. With glass panels on two sides, it’s airy and open, even with niches carved out for the bar, formal seating, and the half-enclosed leather booths. With restaurant ambiance like that, and a Silver LEED certification to add to the appeal, it can be easy to let quality go to the wayside. This is not so with Urbane.

I went in around 2pm, that oh-so-exciting time of the afternoon in between lunch and happy hour when they have a small plates menu available. (It’s discounted for happy hour, but I didn’t want to wait until 4.)

Click to read the article at cravelocal.com

Stemming from writer Andrea Kasprzak’s visit to Urbane a couple weeks ago, she posted on Seattleite’s The Radar weekly column, highlighting Urbane as the “Best Spot for Chic Comfort Food.” Highlights include:

• We’re insane for Urbane, a supersustainable restaurant updating all our fall faves with farm fresh ingredients
• Ginger junkies will appreciate the Kurtatini ($14) with Maker’s Mark, Lemoncello, and fresh ginger.
• Hit up Urbane’s side dish menu for selections so delicious you’ll forget they’re actually (kinda) good for you. We loved the grilled eggplant flavored with truffle honey ($7) and spiced beets ($7).
• Cue Urbane’s sinfully perfect s’more. This version, kicked up with coconut, is nirvana on a spoon.

Click to read the article at www.seattleite.com

By: Allison Scheff, Lorna Yee, Sara Dickerman, Cynthia Nims , seattlemag.com

At downtown’s swank, stylish URBANE RESTAURANT & BAR , happy hour draws a crowd of put-together professionals who recover from a hard day at the office by noshing spears of grilled eggplant in aromatic truffle honey ($4), and chunky rabbit pâté with mustard dipping sauce ($4). 4–6 p.m. and 10 p.m.–midnight daily.

March 1, 2011 - By Leslie Kelly, The Seattle Weekly

Urbane's chef de cuisine Dan Gilmore isn't your typical hotel cook. He worked at the Herbfarm.

He helped open Crush. Before Urbane launched at Olive 8, he pleaded with the higher-ups at Hyatt that for a hotel restaurant to cut it in savvy Seattle, it couldn't take a middle-of-the-road approach.

Read the entire article.

March 2, 2011 - By Leslie Kelly, The Seattle Weekly

Urbane's chef de cuisine Dan Gilmore's married to a pastry chef--they met in culinary school. And yet he's willing to go out on a limb and cop to not being a huge fan of the dark-brown stuff most of the rest of the world is addicted to. A real maverick! Read the entire article.

March 3, 2011 - By Leslie Kelly, The Seattle Weekly

Chef Dan Gilmore's in the Urbane kitchen most days at Olive 8 hotel, cooking upscale dishes using great ingredients. Read part one and part two of this week's Grillaxin Q&A for more details. But when he's at home, he likes to go deep into the comfort zone. "I've been really into my crock pot lately," he said. Dude! Bring it! Read the entire article.

February 15, 2011 - Posted by By Tan Vinh The Seattle Times

Questions. We field a lot of questions. One constant request is a suggestion for a swanky bar for happy hour before a girls-night out. Another is for a nice downtown lounge to catch up with your former sorority sisters.

Plenty of options around downtown. I'll throw out a less obvious suggestion: Urbane, on the ground floor of Hyatt at Olive 8, on the edge of downtown. Read the entire review.

December 13, 2010 - Posted by edibleSEATTLE

First, the tastiest new cocktail I've tried in ages. Ryan's a talented bartender at Urbane, and he called his Rockafeller "a Christmas-y Manhattan." It's spicy-sweet, a little smoky, and smells exactly like the Market Spice shop at Pike Place--all cinnamon and orange.

It was lovely at dinner, and at the risk of sounding like a total lush, I'll also note that it's just as lovely with a pancake brunch. Urbane uses Maker's Mark bourbon; my choice at home is Bulleit. Read the entire review.

Going green isn't supposed to look or taste this good.

Read the June 2010 D-List Magazine article by clicking here.

Northwest Palate

Located in the heart of downtown Seattle at the Hyatt Olive 8, Urbane is in the vanguard of sustainability minded hotel restaurants.

Behind its modern exterior, with steely blue lighting and glass sculptures, lies a farm-to-table restaurant that sources the majority of its ingredients from within a 200-mile radius.
Continue reading this review.

By Jay Friedman
Gastronaut

Peter Gabriel’s “Blood of Eden” inspires complicated, but delicious, relationships.

“I did a rather straightforward, literal interpretation of the song,” T explains, playing on “blood” and “Eden.” He really wanted to prepare snake for the Eden theme, but instead chose rabbit because of their prevalence in gardens, and their free-spirit nature. A delightful rabbit crépinette sits on a salad of apple and quince—both believed by different camps to be the forbidden fruit of Eden.
Continue reading this review.

By Mary Jo Manzanares
PlanetEye Traveler

The dictionary defines “urbane” as “notably polished or polite in manner,” and it’s clear that’s just what Urbane, the restaurant, is trying to achieve.

With a location on the first floor of LEED certified Hyatt at Olive 8, I had high expectation for what Urbane had to deliver, both it terms of decor, food, and attitude.  In some respects, they delivered in spades.  In others, however, I think they may be living a little bit too much on their own hype.
Continue reading this review.

By Providence Cicero
Special to The Seattle Times

Urbane is a noble effort by Hyatt Corporation to break out of the ho-hum hotel-dining rut.

It's not its first attempt here. Remember 727 Pine? The Grand Hyatt's glamorous dining room opened at the start of this decade with a rising-star chef at the helm (Danielle Custer, now overseeing Taste at Seattle Art Museum).
Four years and a few chefs later, it was superseded by Ruth's Chris.
Click to continue reading this review.

By Ideal Bite - May 2009

Friend of a friend scare you away from trying new recipes (pop rocks + Coke = exploding dinner guests)?

Well, this tasty farro dish from polished downtown eatery Urbane is no myth. Click here to view the entire article and farro recipe

www.hotelchatter.com

One of our must-see hotels in Seattle was the brand-new, LEED-certified Hyatt at Olive 8. While we didn't spend the night, we did hit up the happy hour (from 4 to 6pm) at the Urbane restaurant just off the lobby.

The Urbane restaurant, in keeping with the hotel's eco commitment, uses local, organic ingredients from all over the Northwest. But taste is not sacrificed here. We sampled the mac n' cheese which is made with Beecher's cheese curds (a local homemade cheese company), the fish and chips (served with halibut), and the wagyu beef sliders. Click here to view the entire www.hotelchatter.com article.

By Brie Rydberg EXAMIINER.COM

Urbane (adj.): having suavity and polished refinement characteristic of sophisticated social life in major cities; reflecting elegance, sophistication

As far as hotel lobby bars go,Urbane restaurant is just as its name suggests- hip, suave, polished, elegant. Located in the lobby of the newly opened Hyatt Hotel at Olive and 8th (and the only LEED-certified“green” Seattle hotel), this cosmopolitan hotspot is serving wonderfully deconstructed comfort food using local ingredients.

Their take on an open-faced sandwich features thinly sliced Wagyu beef with caramelized onions and blue cheese. They have crab mac’n cheese using Dungeness crab and local Beecher’s cheese curds, or a Ploughman’s lunch with local artisan salami from Salumi. Try the classic fish n’chips- fresh fish lightly breaded to perfection with the chips (fries) served true English-style in a paper cone. This dish pairs nicely with their organic Fishtail I.P.A. (a favorite of mine, as any reader of my articles would know). And relax- even the kiddies’ menu has guilt-free options with turkey dogs and free-range chicken nuggets. And for dessert, their chocolate cream pie uses real cream and local Theo chocolate, which is organic and fair-trade.

By Gourmet Magazine - May 2009

Urbane's CRAB MAC N’ CHEESE - dungeness crab | beecher’s cheese curds | tillamook sharp cheddar

No dish gets fiddled with more than lowly macaroni and cheese. And, contrary to legend, your mother did not invent it....click here to view the entire Gourmet Magazine article.

By SEATTLEPI.COM

Urbane, the restaurant for the eco-friendly new Hyatt at Olive 8 in downtown Seattle, is slated to open Monday. The seasonal menu emphasizes Northwest cuisine from regional producers. This drink recipe is Urbane's spin on the Manhattan, a cocktail classic.

URBANE PERFECT RYE MANHATTAN

Serves: 1

2 1/2 ounces rye whiskey

1/8 ounce sweet and dry vermouth (equal parts)

2 dashes of bitters

Ground fennel (two full twists of the wrist

Grind fennel into a chilled martini glass, spread fennel along bottom of glass.

In mixing glass combine ice, whiskey, vermouths and bitters. Stir mixture with a bar spoon to chill, strain and pour into glass. Garnish with a cherry syrup cherry.