REVIEW: Cafe Parco

Recently I paid a visit to Cafe Parco located in Madison Park. This location was previously known as the Madison Park Cafe, until Chef and Owner Celinda Norton, formerly of 94 Stewart, purchased the Cafe and re-opened it as Cafe Parco. Her idea was to serve Modern Italian, versus the French cuisine that was prepared at her former restaurant.

If you've never been to Parco or its predecessor, Madison Park Cafe, it might be a little hard to find. It is located in Madison Park on 42nd Avenue East, a block off of East Madison Street. It's located in a charming little house. The main seating is in the living room and dining room of the house. It's quite cozy with a fireplace. The decor is nice with white tablecloths and lamps on most of the tables.

The service is great. The servers are very knowledgeable of the menu and of the specials. I ordered the Lemon Chicken. It's described on the menu as morsels of chicken breast, mushrooms, sun dried tomato with bold essence of lemon, overly creamy Alfredo and Tagliatelle with a bonus layer of ricotta and spinach. The dinner was delicious. The chicken was tender and juicy, with just the right amount of lemon. I would highly recommend this dish if you make it over to Cafe Parco. The menu has a number of dishes that sound very tasty. I will definitely make another visit to try one of the other dishes.

Cafe Parco serves dinner after 5:00pm every night, and Brunch on the weekends from 10:00am to 3:00pm.

Voila

Tonight my friends and I went to Voila for dinner. This was our second visit to this restaurant. The food during our first visit was so good we decided to pay another visit. Voila is one of my favorite Bistros in Seattle. Voila is just the right size for a Bistro. It's not too large that it gets noisy, and it's not too small so that you feel cramped. Voila has a nice sized bar area. The decor is what you would come to expect for a typical Bistro. Voila feels very comfortable.


Most of the Entrees on the menu sounded very good. I decided to go with the Grilled Pork Chop in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lemon, Garlic & Herbs (Cote de Porc Grillee). The pork chop was pretty tender. The olive oil, lemon, garlic and herbs gave it a lot of flavor.

For the sides, we went with the Green Beans (Haricots Vert) and the Frites (French Fries). The green beans were nice and crispy. The frites were pretty good, but they could have had more flavor to them.

I was actually surprised to see that Voila serves Caffee Umbria coffee. Like I have stated in earliers blog posts, it seems as if Cafe Vita has a strong-hold on most restaurants in Seattle. The coffee was good. For dessert we had the Creme Brulee and the Lemon Tart (Tarte au Citron). Both were very tasty and I recommend them both!

I give Voila 4 out of 5 Steak Frites.