How to Cook a Wolf inspires hungry panting

There isn't a canine of any sort on the menu at How to Cook a Wolf, leading us to wonder whether Ethan Stowell has ever indeed cooked one. You could suppose, however, that if anybody could make an appetizing meal out of such a scraggly creature, he would be the man to do it.

The chef/owner behind Tavolata and Union, two of the most "it" restaurants in the city, creates memorable food that demands attention, from the menu descriptions and immaculate presentations to the flavors left lingering on your tongue as you sadly send the last bite to its final resting place.

The fare at his new third venture, which opened late last month, is no different. Many a daytime passerby has been spied lingering at the window of the Queen Anne hilltop restaurant, gazing up at the menu of Italian delicacies that tease them from behind a locked door, lost in visions of veal carpaccio, quince paste and pappardelle. If only it were dinner time.

What is different here is the focus on small plates, with appetizers outnumbering pasta dishes nearly five to one. Two or three shared by a couple are all you need to reach culinary nirvana -- and in this, M.F.K. Fisher, author of the restaurant's namesake cookbook, would be proud.

Fisher's recipe collection, published in 1942, instructs us in how to achieve joy through cooking and eating during times of shortage (war rationing weighed heavily upon the nation at the time of its writing), and rustic menu items like roasted fingerling potatoes with fried duck egg; barley soup with ham hock and black kale; or quail stuffed with butternut squash and chestnut honey are just the types of dishes to inspire a romanticized image of salt-of-the-earth peasant food.

Compared to Stowell's previous restaurants, with their high ceilings and fancy downtown addresses, How to Cook a Wolf is a more accessible place as well. Despite its big name chef and hoity hype, the tiny, 20-seat spot has already taken on a quaint feel. The cozy atmosphere seems to have been tailor-made for the refined tastes of the upscale Queen Anne community.

Unlike Fisher, Stowell isn't making his living selling palatable recipes for pigeon meat. These are relative times of plenty, and the young chef (whose father is the founding artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet) has not spent his culinary career foraging for scraps with the wolf at his door. He knows his patrons have come to expect the best -- and whatever animal he's cooking up in there, the sounds of panting coming from outside are purely human.

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