Food as Experience
Russell’s shines light on authenticity, homegrown talent
By Ellen Hiatt
Authentic. You know it when you see it. And for Russell Lowell, the food he serves, the sense of ease his staff delivers, and the very place in which it’s all experienced, is just that. The historic 1927 dairy barn provides the backdrop every bit as authentic as the backcountry elk camp you may also find him in.
“I don’t just view food as food; it’s the whole experience of it. It’s fishing and hunting outdoors. It’s the flat tire in the high mountains. The smell of the sugar pine. That’s really what food is.”
– Russell Lowell
Decorating the walls are artifacts of his hunting and fly fishing trips, western art, and stories to tell.
The doors of the historic barn were just about to open this Friday evening, and Lowell appeared comfortable in his own skin. Not exactly relaxed. His eyes were always finding something to examine, his mind darting to the next story… the fish he caught, the hook that caught him. Elton John sang “Candle in the Wind” to Lowell while he sat behind the stage curtain once. This, he said, is what he calls duende, a kind of a charmed existence, full of surprises and intrigues.
He’s happiest on the river, or the sea, fly fishing. But charming stories fly off his tongue as easily. He has served presidents and kings, Hollywood’s A-listers and the Pacific Northwest’s movers and shakers.
Lowell remembers his early years as the son of a naval officer in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay as the place where the world became alive to him, with mangroves, puffer fish, and eel grass with crabs and sea horses and unimaginable abundance. It’s a connection to the earth that he carries with him when he hunts for bear.
“For me, there is a distinct connection between being a chef, that is, preparing animal proteins for my guests, and hunting,” he wrote in his book, In Search of Duende.
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The stories he tells and writes of are a kind of dichotomy of life–grand adventures and famous meetings, contrasted with the simplest moments in food and friends that define him. To the local winemakers and ranchers, he’s known as a helluva guy who will do anything for a friend. His day-long elk camp experiences, fully staffed with his kitchen crew and fine dining with white linens high in the Cascade Mountain range, is something he gifts to local charity auctions every year.
Lowell has owned his namesake restaurant here for 17 years. And he’s had staff that have been with him for a decade more than that through other iterations of his culinary journey. It’s not luck. He gives them the space to be their best self.
Daisy Morris began working for him when she was 15 years old. Now, at 21, she is his lead chef.
“She is leading the show and that girl is on fire! She’s one in 5,000. Easy,” he said.
But then, Lowell has a way of holding up others to shine their brightest. He lets her act on her own creativity and ideas, Morris said.
He has that way. He’s known as a friend to the local winemakers–130 of them next door in Woodinville, for whom he holds winemaker dinners. He lets them shine, too.
MONTE VILLA FARM
If a dairy farm could have duende, it might just be Monte Villa. Protected from redevelopment by the City of Bothell, it now provides the rustic space for fine meals. In the loft, the structure is somehow grander than its humble dairy farm beginnings. The strings of lights draped low keep it intimate, and the arch of the ceiling offers a warm hug for the many weddings and celebrations held within its cathedral ribs.
Lowell is among the hearty entrepreneurs who envision old spaces like Monte Villa with new ideas, taking their innate creativity and making something of our past into something special for our future.
“I get to look back at yesteryear, that window on history,” Lowell said of his locale and his honor to be there. “This is borrowed. It’s not mine. Someone will come along one day and I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.”
There could be nothing more enjoyable than stepping back in time to Monte Villa Farm, where the weeping willow shades the milk barn’s cedar shakes and dairy cow wind vane, and the climbing hydrangeas line the path to the barn door.
In this setting, Lowell epitomizes the spirit of our region’s entrepreneurs, who focus on supporting their neighboring businesses, remaining true to time and place, and sustaining our future while honoring the past.
Inside revamped dairy barns, old hardware stores and warehouses, retired schoolhouses and mid-century modern grocery stores throughout Snohomish County, our best Creatives are realizing their dreams.
