Asian fusion restaurants were big in the 1980’s.  Chefs rolled pancakes with kimchi and put fried egg and soy sauce on top of spaghetti marinara.  Oftentimes, the combinations resulted in strange, fluorescently lit, neon-on-black restaurants with white tablecloths, their elegance overstating the tastiness of the cuisine.  Sometimes the combinations were successful, but still, the reputation of this type of restaurant lingers, making it that much harder for them to find success.  Revel in Seattle defies expectations, with a waiting list for its sleek and easy Korean-influenced menu.

Revel is located in Fremont and stands as perhaps the most modern-styled restaurant in the neighborhood amidst bright-painted Thai restaurants and unusual sculptures. Before you walk the door of Revel, you are greeted with a small, white-painted bed frame planted with grass. It leads well into the restaurant itself, which, too, is outfitted with a few quirks like a huge, pink-hued painting of Hulk Hogan.  The centerpiece of the dining room is a long, wooden table.  The chefs cook directly behind it and diners can sit on the opposite end, watching the clatter of the kitchen. The restaurant looks a bit like a garage, with a garage door opening up onto the outdoor patio. 

The menu and the food at Revel are refreshingly simple—there aren’t any obscure ingredients or fancy preparations just for show.  The menu itself only has six headings—salads, pancakes, dumplings, rice, noodle and sweet sandwich. We tried the dumplings, which were a play on gyros, with lamb, goat yogurt and cucumber, served deep-fried and with soy sauce and a spicy red dipping sauce.  These dumplings were surprisingly successful in recreating both Greek and Korean flavors with a perfectly spiced meat dumpling surrounded by crispy pastry.  The noodles, too, were a combination of Italian and Korean flavors, melding coriander noodles, cilantro and white gulf shrimp. Less successful than the other components of the meal was the pork belly, kimchi and bean sprout pancake, which seemed to want to recreate a very Indian dish—a fried pancake—but lost much of the impact of the Korean flavors underneath a thick layer of fried cheese.

One of the most pleasant parts of the evening was the bar at Revel, called Quoin.  Housed in the same space as the restaurant, the bar uses many of the same décor components as the restaurant, but is more darkly painted, with little nooks with wooden benches for patrons to sip their cocktails.  The bartenders are very friendly and make a hell of a cocktail—I tried the Adirondack, which mixes gin, something called Anticas, Lavender bitters and lime juice.  You can also order at the bar and then move your food into the dining room when a table becomes available, making the thirty to forty-five minute wait more palatable.

Revel/Quoin is reasonably priced for the food that you get—it feels like if it were moved to Capitol Hill, the proprietors would add a few bucks to each of the entrée.  The staff is friendly and doesn’t make you feel like an idiot for not knowing what a “pistou” is. Overall, Revel is modern, but not so hip that you feel intimidated to go inside unless you’re outfitted in high heels and a mini dress and/or a fedora. Go there with $30 bucks and a nice shirt and I’m sure they’ll show you a good time.