Tilth Right-Hand Man Larkin Young Has a Restaurant in the Works

In mid-November, Tilth chef de cuisine Larkin Young left Maria Hines’ kitchen to pursue his own restaurant. While he doesn’t yet have a space, Young does have investors, a business plan, the full support of his former boss, and a notebook full of ideas for dishes at his new spot. He also has a name and a hope of opening his doors “some time in early spring.”

Young, 36, studied water treatment and hydrology in school, but trained his way up the culinary ladder in restaurants around the state before landing at Tilth nearly three years ago. He has earned a formidable reputation among the city's chef community for his talents and genuine excitement about both his ingredients and what he's doing with them.

He plans to call his restaurant Spoon, since he considers this particular piece of flatware one of the coolest out there. Of course as a chef, Young obviously has a working relationship with a sharper category of flatware: “I love knives even more, but I’m not going to call it ‘Knife’.”

While Young’s menu will emphasize the local and seasonal, he says he’s hesitant to use those words to describe his restaurant. “In Seattle those things are sort of expected.” The Minnesota native says his menu will have some Scandinavian influences (think cured salmon with wild rice), and diners will definitely see his love for potatoes and their resulting gnocchis and gnudis on the menu. He’s also planning to round out entrees with a roster of smaller plates, since that’s how he likes to eat (from a business standpoint, it also doesn’t hurt that diners who drop in for a few plates usually end up spending just as much as they would on a full-on dinner).

He’s hoping to strike a balance between food that is thoughtful (even a little philosophical), and plates that don’t make your taste buds work too hard to decipher his flavors.

Spoon will likely be located in Fremont or Ballard, but definitely not in Wallingford, since Young wants to put some geographical and figurative distance between himself and the kitchen where he worked for the past few years. However he can’t say enough positive things about his mentor and erstwhile boss, Maria Hines.

“I didn’t want to go, but there’s a time when you realize you’re ready for it,” he says. Young says he and Hines meet weekly to help him develop his restaurant plans. He’s also helping the James Beard Award-winning chef open her second restaurant, Golden Beetle.

Stay tuned for future updates on Young’s project.