Brave Horse Tavern – Seattle, Washington

I was back in Seattle on a business trip, and met up with a friend for dinner. We initially tried to go to a couple different pizza places, but they both were packed so we ended up at Brave Horse Tavern. I have never heard of it before, but it is owned by Tom Douglas, who owns a ton of great restaurants all over Seattle, in every style of food. Sounded like a good sign.

Their food menu is pretty simple. They have homemade pretzels with some interesting dipping sauces – peanut butter and bacon being my favorite. They also have an apple mustard, which I hadn’t heard of before. When I asked about that, the waitress said, “Why, do you think it’s strange? Well your face is strange.” It was odd, and I was wondering if they had a thing where they talk like that to customers, but they don’t. It was just strange, more so than my face.

Anyway, their burger menu is basic; you can pick from beef, veggie or chicken.

Beef is $6, cheese is $1 more, and bacon, a fried egg, or avocado are an additional $2 each. I went with cheddar and bacon

for a total of $9. The burger is not that big, and was interestingly served only with lettuce and pickles (the pickles were quickly removed).

First bite in and I knew it was a winner. The buns are nice and buttery, with the perfect amount of crisp skin to them. But the real star here was cheese treatment. As you can see, they really melt the cheese down over the meat, but what you cant see is the crunchy cheese that melted off the burger and was scraped off the grill along with the meat, just hanging off the side. This definitely was a high quality gourmet burger made like a true fast food burger. The bacon broke apart easily, but the only real difficulties with this burger was the lettuce. The giant leaves of lettuce went awry on my first bite and never fully recovered for the rest of the burger.

The only issue I really had was it seemed a bit small. I also ate a pretzel and the fries (which were separate and $3) and was pretty full, but putting away two of these burgers would be doable, save for the $18 that would cost.

Brave Horse Tavern is a pretty cool place, and if you drink beer it’s probably even cooler as they had a ton of beers to choose from. I got a root beer that was on tap and it was decent, but nothing all that special. They also have a shuffleboard table, so there’s another plus. But it was very nice looking inside, albeit dark, if I have led you to believe otherwise. Definitely the best burger I have had in Seattle so far, and would consider eating there again next time I’m in town.

Rating:

More info at bravehorsetavern.com