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Sue McCown, the pastry chef whose tantalizing creations led to her being nicknamed "Seattle's diva of desserts," is leaving her job at Earth & Ocean in the W Hotel to open her own restaurant.
McCown is planning a "wonderful, sexy dessert lounge" in the historic Loveless Building on Capitol Hill (806 E. Roy St.), in the space about to be vacated by Scott Simpson's Fork restaurant, which is closing tonight. It will be called Coco la ti da, after one of McCown's favorite inventions, a devil's food cake with coconut in a crackling chocolate glaze.
"I'm so ready, and have been ready for a long time," she said.
Dessert lounges are hot in New York, but largely a new concept for Seattle.
"I think Seattle needs a place where it's like, 'Oh, my gosh, I have to go in there! Look how cool that room is! Look at this menu!' " McCown said.
McCown, who created 52 signature desserts in her seven years at the W, is spilling over with ideas and plans. She'll serve savory food as well as sweets, though it may be hard to tell the difference from the view outdoors.
She's picturing, for instance, crisp "cones" filled with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes and dill creme fraiche, or maybe apples and mascarpone with dried figs. "Eclairs" could be made of caramelized onion and goat cheese, "lollipops" might be guava paste and manchego cheese, or balsamic-lacquered watermelon.
With her identity as a dessert chef so firmly established, she said, customers may be more comfortable carrying that theme through the savory fare.
She has made her mark with whimsical artistry, and the restaurant plans to continue in that vein. She is thinking of serving flights of cordials paired with desserts, maybe a triad of tiny martinis with different flavors. There may be cakes served on Popsicle sticks, perhaps a "Tom Boy" of dark stout beer with molasses, ginger and nutmeg, or a specialty dessert to tie into the nearby Harvard Exit Theatre moviehouse.
"Fun things, different things for me, and hopefully for the people who have been kind enough to have my desserts at Earth & Ocean," she said.
McCown, a San Francisco native, began her Seattle career at Campagne. Her résumé includes stops at the former Painted Table and the former Obachine before she joined Earth & Ocean at the W. She is the hotel's executive pastry chef, overseeing desserts at not just the restaurant but the hotel's substantial catering and banquet facilities.
"If someone had said, 'You're going to be at the W seven years,' I would have laughed," she said. "Nobody stays that long. They gave me that stage, a great opportunity."
McCown wants to be out on the floor at Coco la ti da, interacting with customers and delivering desserts, as well as working in the kitchen. But her plans go far beyond the single nightspot.
For starters, she plans to run a wholesale dessert business, providing custom-designed dessert menus for high-end restaurants and hotels.
Then, she wants to spread out. She'd like to see Coco la ti da branches in downtown condo buildings, for instance, so when city dwellers come home "and are having their best girlfriends over for a dinner party, they can stop in and pick up a six-pack of desserts, or maybe a cake they ordered. Maybe they're going home to watch a video and want chocolate chip cookies."
First, though, she can't wait to get into the kitchen on Capitol Hill. She has been honing her business skills and trying to land a space for the restaurant for months, a draining process.
"I thought the hard part would be baking," she said. "I just want to get in there and bake."
She knows she can't achieve what she wants without help. And she worries about the squeeze her plans will put on the rest of her life, such as the volunteer work she does with senior citizens.
But she's ready to try it all. The wholesale business could open as soon as mid-August, she said, the restaurant a few weeks later.
"I want to dream big. I do my best work when I'm scared to death, when I worry and when I'm under pressure," she said. "When I opened the W I was terrified. I thought, 'Can I do it?' And it worked."
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