Gig Harbor Restaurants

[Kimo]

Thanks, Tighe, for your interest in Gig Harbor restaurants (post from last night). So...I'm taking the plunge and posting my very first topic. I asked Jason Perlow if it was okay to talk about a client...he was fine with it as long as I state my affiliation. I am the marketing consultant for a waterfront restaurant in Gig Harbor, the Beach House at Purdy (TBHP). It is my favorite place to eat in the entire state of WA (I ate there 10+ times before finally meeting the chef and I'm meeting someone there for drinks/tapas at 3:30 p.m. today)...kind of reminds me of Cape Cod/Maine where my husband grew up. TBHP is a secret we "south of Seattle" residents have kept to ourselves...until now (I haven't seen a write-up about this place outside of Tacoma and Gig Harbor)...

One of the most humble chefs I have ever worked with, Gordon Naccarato, 49 and co-owner/chef of TBHP, was born and reared in Tacoma. As a child he peeled potatoes to make french fries at the Little Ritz, his paternal grandparents' restaurant in Spanaway (near Tacoma). His maternal grandparents were from Sweden; he remembers the smells of butter cookies and freshly brewed coffee in their kitchen. At UW, Gordon cooked at his fraternity house, Sigma Phi Epsilon (which becomes very important 24 years later). After graduating cum laude (smart guy!) from UW, he moved to LA for law school at Loyola Marymount University. After two years, Gordon realized that his true passions were outside of the legal world.

In the late 1970s, Gordon walked into Michael’s, the day before it opened. He started waiting tables and then moved back to the kitchen to learn. When someone left, Gordon would move into the next rung on the ladder. He worked with Jonathan Waxman, Nancy Silverton, Mark Peel, Ken Frank, Kazuto Matsusaka, Roy Yamaguichi, Billy Pflug and Jimmy Brinkley. After a couple of years, Michael McCarthy christened Gordon as its executive chef.

After his stint at Michael’s, Gordon moved to Aspen in 1984 and opened Gordon’s with the late Bruce Paltrow and his actress-wife, Blythe Danner, as his partners. Gordon’s became an overnight success with reservations booked months in advance. For many years, Gordon’s was considered the “best place to eat between the Coasts” (The New York Times). The restaurant’s annual New Year’s Eve party was the hottest ticket in town with the restaurant’s windows covered to prevent the paparazzi from taking photographs of the stars attending. His regular customers included Jack Nicholson, Yoko Ono, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn, Cher, Elizabeth Taylor, Ethel Kennedy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 1988, Gordon was honored as one of the “10 Best New Chefs” by Food & Wine Magazine.

In 1992, Gordon returned to Los Angeles as the chef of the Monkey Bar, owned by Jack Nicholson and Don Henley. Food critics and diners alike went wild for everything on the menu. “Gordon’s lobster tacos and 3-alarm risotto are as famous as the celebrities that pack the place” (The Los Angeles Times). The “global menu is the star of this remarkable hangout” (The New York Times).

Gordon also served as the chef of Campanile in Los Angeles, the Raleigh Hotel in Miami, Le Colonial in Beverly Hills and Rix in Santa Monica. During the late 1990s, his father, Tacoma businessman Stan Naccarato, encouraged him to move back to the area to open up a restaurant of his own again. With Tacoma in the midst of a cultural and economic Renaissance, Gordon believed the timing was right to move home and open a neighborhood waterfront bistro.

In 2001, Gordon returned to Washington and searched for the perfect location to open his restaurant. With the support of his family and friends, Naccarato opened The Beach House at Purdy at the location of “Pearls by the Sea,” a Gig Harbor landmark and owned by the family of one of his fraternity brothers from UW.

According to thrice-weekly patrons, there are several “must see, must eat” items on the dinner menu. The Beach House oysters ($12.50) are a work-of-art…Hood Canal oysters roasted on the half-shell, creamed spinach, apple-smoked bacon, walnuts, parmesan and garlic breadcrumbs. The crabcake ($12/$23) is not your typical Seattle crabcake. Gordon’s crabcake is made with Dungeness crab, halibut and shrimp, Thai tartar sauce and Asian slaw. Other options include the goat cheese relleno ($9.50) with goat cheese, stuffed Anaheim chile, blue cornmeal, and avocado salsa as well as the steak frites ($23.50) with seared petite prime New York minute steak, button mushrooms, herb fries, tomato & Walla Walla onion salad (he will serve it only rare to medium rare only, don't ask for it well-done).

If anyone would like to try this place as a group of eGulleters, please let me know. Gordon is finally taking Sundays and Wednesdays off (after working two years on his restaurant).

The Beach House at Purdy

13802 Purdy Drive NW

Gig Harbor, Washington 98332

Open Daily 3-11 p.m

Beach Party (drinks and tapas/small plates) from 3-5 p.m.

Dinner from 5-11 p.m.

253-858-9900

No website...yet (I'm working on it!)...Best, Kimo

[tighe]

Kimo, thanks for the post, this sounds very intriguing. My only question is why hasn't girl chow, our south-end dining oracle told us about this place before?? Slacker!

I will make an effort to get there sometime this fall.

[Kimo]

During my tapas session yesterday, the salmon were jumping in front of the restaurant...and the fishermen were having a good time. I saw a number of families in attendance...the kids were enjoying the view of teenagers jumping off the nearby bridge. This is a good sign since we're finally taking our son for his first experience with friends next week.

[girl chow]

Kimo, thanks for the post, this sounds very intriguing.  My only question is why hasn't girl chow, our south-end dining oracle told us about this place before?? Slacker! 

I will make an effort to get there sometime this fall.

I can't believe this, but I don't think I've ever eaten in Gig Harbor. This will explain it: I avoid Hwy 16/Tacoma Narrows Bridge like the plague. It's a traffic nightmare. I prefer to just stay in Tacoma and avoid the nightmare that is westbound to GH.

Oh, lately, I've been eating my way up and down "Koreatown" on South Tacoma Way. That area rocks.

[MGLloyd]

Kimo, thanks for the post, this sounds very intriguing.  My only question is why hasn't girl chow, our south-end dining oracle told us about this place before?? Slacker! 

I will make an effort to get there sometime this fall.

I can't believe this, but I don't think I've ever eaten in Gig Harbor. This will explain it: I avoid Hwy 16/Tacoma Narrows Bridge like the plague. It's a traffic nightmare. I prefer to just stay in Tacoma and avoid the nightmare that is westbound to GH.

Oh, lately, I've been eating my way up and down "Koreatown" on South Tacoma Way. That area rocks.

I can't blame you for avoiding Highway 16. Back when my fiance (now my wife) and I were dating, I would drive from my house in Mill Creek, to her house in Port Orchard. I became very familiar with the backup on Highway 16.

But this restaurant sounds interesting. And it would be nice for Purdy as a place name to known for more than the location of the state women's prison (right off Highway 16, as it happens).

Regards,

Michael Lloyd

Mill Creek, Washington USA

[Kimo]

Wow, talk about love for MGLloyd. BTW, the traffic is a lot better now with a couple of new cross bridges on the Gig Harbor side of the bridge as well as the slowdown re: tourists going to the Hood Canal and the Olympic Peninsula. I cross the bridge 10-20 times/week. IMO the best time to go west is prior to 4 p.m. or after 7 p.m. weekdays or anytime on the weekends. It'll be pretty manageable until Memorial Day 2004 when the visitors return to the Peninsula. Kimo