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Sea Breeze - CLOSED
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
8 reviews for Sea Breeze
This is a good italian family restaurant that is very rarely crowded. That's something they need to improve upon.
They make a great carbonara and while the menu often has inconsistencies, keep in mind it's a family restaurant.
This is one of those places that looks like its going to be really good. The operative word here is "looks". The decor is nice, with a center fire spewing volcano with small fountains at its base. Obviously the layout there was inspired by Matador down the street. The place is very clean, and obviously this is a family place and they were all very nice. Problem is I dont think they can cook. I tried several dishes so let me break it down:
Appetizer one: Italian meat dish. some sliced cappicola, some bland salami, 2 pimento olives from a jar, some tapenade also from a jar and 2 pieces of cheese, one was a brie and the other unknown but tasty. Also a few slices of roma tomatoe oiled with a small amount of basil. For starters, if you are from italy why are you serving pitted stuffed olives from a jar? I think they came from the bar and usually go in martinis. Also where is the prosciutto? Being from Spain, this is considered really cheap and bad quality. Also, they served no bread with this. Huh? Do I eat the tapenade off a fork? For $9.00 this was a pretty awful appetizer.
Appetizer 2: Bruschetta. Well I dont know where they got their inspiration, but they served a piece of french bread toasted and topped with the tomato\basil mixture. I did not taste any salt, pepper or garlic and honestly this was the worst bruschetta I ever had. It should be served on thinly sliced bread, and the tomatoes should have been diced much smaller and actually spiced. I think this was $6 and it also was a very poor effort.
Dinner: Chicken Panini with a small side salad. This was truly awful. The chicken was precooked by the manufacturer I think. It was really thin and rubbery and showed no signs of having been in a pan. It was covered in green goo which I think was pesto and cheese. It was nearly inedible. The side salad was cut romaine with oil. Maybe a hint of vinegar but totally bland and tasteless.
Considering how empty the place was I am disappointed with everything from the prepwork down to the presentation. They need to hire someone to plan the menu and run the kitchen or this place is doomed. Apparently just because you are Italian does not mean you can cook. They were very nice but I have to be honest when I say that this place was bad. Peter
UPDATE: SEA BREEZE IS NOW CLOSED AND IS SOON TO BE "HAMBURGER HARRY'S." ANY PLACE THAT SERVES BURGERS AND HARD ALCOHOL IS ON MY RADAR! I'LL RECONNOITER AND GET BACK TO YA.
The name and the decor are completely incongruous with the food. They serve some mighty tasty Italian, you would never know it when you drive by. The cocktails are uninspired, and the menu is small. I predict they will not last for long, and that has nothing to do with location; now that Ocho and La Isla are at the edge of 24th NW, and the entire 24th area has grown up, Sea Breeze should be prime real estate.
I'd passed this restaurant a few times, walking along NW Market Street, usually when coming out of Archie McPhee, having stocked up on bacon-shaped band-aids and surplus Soviet machine parts. A simple, rather undersized neon sign in a huge picture window (which I could see nothing of the interior through) beckoned to me...."SEA BREEZE." It intrigued me...a squat, non-chalant building on the canal side of Market Street, a crosswalk north of the more fashionably hip part of Ballard. I had visions of a 60's dive bar -- part Rat Pack part packrat -- something akin to Vito's on First Hill, but with a Scandinavian fisherman's flair.
I told my friends about it, said that I really wanted to try it out, but most were wary. They told me to look it up, to make sure it wasn't some front for the Ballard branch of the Norwegian Mafia. Alas, it is not listed in the phonebook; Google has no idea what to make of it. I can't find a phone number for it, nor an address...the one I listed was an educated guess. So I gave up on it for a while, knowing that fate would bring me to its door like the breeze on the sea.
That breeze blew in last weekend, about 9 pm on a rainy Second Saturday art walk. I was famished -- I'd bought a painting, filled up on free PBR and Rainier, and needed a snack and a real drink. ALL of the restaurants and bars on Ballard Ave were packed -- of course -- so on a whim, my gal pal and I ducked into the Sea Breeze and were very pleasantly surprised.
The first thing we noticed was the lack of shady Vikings, but soon we saw the pedestal fireplace in the center of the bar, warm lighting, elegant decor, a wall covered in Italian wines, and -- most importantly -- several open tables. The menu is authentic Italian -- as was our hostess. She was a delightful woman in her 50's with platinum hair, an infectious laugh, and a fantastic accent. We liked her immediately. Reasonable prices and a full bar kept us happy, but the bartender is a little green. She didn't know what a 'Beautiful' was when my friend ordered one, but maybe a few more months on the job and a Mr. Boston's manual will help that.
The food was good, though we went the snack route. I had the cheese plate, with prosciutto and salami and olives. Unfortunately, there was a chunk of something that both resembled and smelled like bleu cheese on top of my ham. That, to me, is personally offensive. So when the delightful Italian lady (possibly the owner) came by to check on us, I casually asked if she might have something less fungus infested and more appetizing as a cheese option. She sighed in relief and said she completely agreed that bleu cheese had no business on that plate and quickly brought me a nice, creamy brie.
My friend was in love with her tiramisu...no complaints there, and it seemed like the ladyfingers were made from scratch.
This place has major potential...it's luckily new enough to not be packed on the busiest night of the month in Ballard, has a good start on the menu, and no apparent connections to fair-headed, bearded members of an organized crime syndicate. The only complaint I had was more with the party of obnoxious ex-UW Greek system airheads screeching with laughter and inane jokes at the table behind us. The See Breeze is a cozy, dare-I-say swanky place...if you want to act like you're 22 in Ballard, take a hike down to King's Hardware on Ballard Ave...the music's loud enough there that you won't kill the atmosphere.
I'm sorry that this is the first negative review I've written. I usually try to find something positive in every dining experience, because nothing ruins an evening like a bad meal... but I can't excuse Sea Breeze.
I had intended to check out Sea Breeze for months, partly lured by the open fireplace visible from the street, and tonight, being without reservations elsewhere, my party gave Sea Breeze a shot.
Ok, so first, the restaurant smelled like my dog after it rains, but the smell could also be attributed to the fact that it was an old building. Second, I ordered the Mista Salad, which was supposed to have a vinaigrette dressing per the menu. The salad FREAKING LACKED VINEGAR. It was a pile of lettuce with salty olive oil on top and some italian seasoning. When I asked for some balsamic vinegar, the platinum-haired owner lady everyone wrote such fond comments about acted exasperated. Third, our waitress spent much of the evening playing Resident Evil-y game on her computer at the adjacent table. Fourth, the menus were confusing, with a lot of items scribbled out and written back in with ball point pen.
While the bread was excellent (as mentioned by previous reviewers) and the lamb dish I ordered was tender and flavorful, I found the presentation lacking and the pairing with zucchini and asparagus spears uninspired. Granted, I haven't been to Italy and can't vouch for the authenticity of the dishes, but why should I have to spend $25 a plate for a boring, inconsistent meal at Sea Breeze when there are much better similarly priced restaurants in downtown Ballard?
This place is CLOSED and it's now "Hamburger Harry's" - which I hear is to be a "gourmet burger" type place (and is a chain).The sign is HUGE. Needless to say, I'm not anticipating the opening of Hamburger Harry's and feel much the same about it as I did for Sea Breeze. Nonplussed.
We liked the fact that it wasn't crowded. We passed Ocho, and it was bordering on scary. The interior here is nice. We sat at the curved bar near the fire so we could watch the basketball games. Service was good, food was good (I had the mediterranean salad and Chris had the Hawaiian sandwich). My only complaint was that there's nothing on the menu that I couldn't make at home, which makes the outing a little less than spectacular. We don't go out that often so when we do it has to have the extra OOMPH!
The ambiance inside is pretty cool. Not crazy fancy, but nice enough to feel like you are going out for the night. There's a cool fireplace near the bar which gives the place a relaxing laid back feel. I briefly spoke with the couple who runs the place. They were very friendly and inviting. They are from Italy and are very nice to talk with.
I have not eaten here, so I cannot comment on the food. But I have had drinks here a couple times and highly recommend! Good, strong drinks. There's so many places nowadays that skimp on the alcohol in their mixed drinks. It's refreshing to find a place where it isn't the case.
Overall I give a hearty thumbs up. Although I cannot yet vouch for the food, everything else meets my standards. One of the best selling points in my book is the fact that it is a very nice, classy restaurant without the pretense of many of the trendier places in Ballard. Give it a try.
