The new Zagat is out, at least the one "devoted to Seattle" restaurants. And with "all due respect" to "local editor" Alicia Comstock Arter (who also contributes to Northwest Palate), it's "a freakin mess." The trouble, "brewing for years," is that the "capsule reviews" take isolated "nouns and adjectives" from "reader comments" and string them together to make "nonsensical" and "often inaccurate" profiles. It's a Fox News approach to dining, all pseudo-oracular, disjointed headlines with......

There's no sign outside, no street number, just a Vespa on the sidewalk below a fluttering Italian flag. Welcome to Tavolata, the long-awaited Belltown outpost of Union's Ethan Stowell and business partner Patric Gabre-Kidan. Neither has clogs-at-the-forno experience in Italy, but that didn't stop them from creating an upscale, "modern Italian" restaurant in Belltown. Now, before you start reading accolades from folks who can't get a seat at 8 o'clock, consider this: at midnight, bracketed......

Garlic Gulch, that's what Belltown's Fourth Avenue has turned into, between downtown and Denny Way. At the north end, the venerable Zeek's appears to take intergalactic orders for traditional, predictable, topping-heavy slices. Bambino, a block away on Cedar, styles itself as "East Coast Pizza," whatever that means (thin crust, light toppings, one assumes). Given the flap over Domino's so-called Brooklyn-Style Pizza, probably not a great idea. Ordered a Tropicale (east-coast-speak for Hawaiian); despite 575-degree, wood-fired......