Canlis To-Go
When Mr. Mustang and I celebrated our first year dating anniversary, we went to Canlis where the staff kept referring to us as “Mr. & Mrs. Mustang” and we never corrected them. We joked that if we ever got married, we will return since the title of Mrs. will be a fact. We had to celebrate our first year wedding anniversary during the quarantine days, but that didn’t stop us from eating food from Canlis.
The Cost
Canlis is one of the most expensive restaurants in the state, and one of only two that still enforce a dress code, so it was a surprise to hear that during the quarantine they converted to take-out orders. Every Wednesday Canlis creates a new menu for the week and you can book a timeslot to have it delivered/picked up. The prices vary depending on the day and dinner choice, so it can range from $44/person to $100/person. We picked up our dinner on a Monday, choosing the vegetarian option and a bottle of wine. In total, it cost about $150 - that includes gratuity and taxes.
The Setup
If you wish to have the dinner delivered, Canlis only operates within the Seattle city limits, EXCEPT West Seattle. Canlis may expand their reach depending on how long the shelter-in-place order will last, but at the moment they can have dinners delivered to:
Any neighborhood in Seattle besides West Seattle
Shoreline
Mercer Island
West Bellevue
If you are outside of those limits (like me), pickup is available. You just put down Canlis’s address when checking out and arrive at the restaurant between a certain window of time. When you arrive at the restaurant, just drive up to the front and a staff member will come up to your window and ask for the name of your order. A few minutes later, your dinner will be in a medium-sized box, taped up, and you can have the staff member put it in your trunk or back seat. If you ordered a bottle of wine with the meal, don’t worry, it is in the box as well.
Unboxing is the fun part - everything is neatly packaged with a few goodies mixed in. When booking the meal online, there is an additional comments section where you can mention if you are celebrating something like an anniversary. In our box, we got a nice card wishing us a happy anniversary, a magnet advertising their piano live stream, a couple of bingo boards, and a single tulip. Food-wise, everything was smartly packed with the warm food in tins that were still warm to the touch, a salad in a plastic container, and a bottle of wine that was still cold to the touch.
For our dinner, our menu included:
Wild Mushroom and Tomato Lasagna
Roasted Asparagus
Canlis Salad (with both the dressing and bacon bits in separate containers)
Rosemary Dinner Rolls and Sea Salt Butter
Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
A bottle of Rose from the Yakima Valley
The Food
The lasagna was pure perfection and probably the best we’ve ever had. Every bite was absolutely delicious, and there was not a single thing wrong with this dish. We were originally planning to only eat half of the lasagna portion, but as we finished our first few bites, we knew that the rest of the lasagna would not last the night. The side dish was roasted asparagus and it was unbelievably tender and seasoned perfectly. The only slightly disappointing thing was the salad. The dressing and croutons didn’t have much flavor, so it made the salad just taste like an average salad. I’m not a fan of rosemary, so I wasn’t a big fan of the dinner rolls, but Mr. Mustang loved them and the butter was soft so it was easily spreadable.
The dessert was a chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookie that had some kind of rice crispy cereal in it, giving it a nice crunch after each bite. The peanut butter was a tad dry, and that caused it to stick to the roof of our mouths, but it still tasted great. The real gem from the dinner was the wine - Canlis includes a bottle of wine with each meal, and you get to choose 1 out of 4 that have been selected by their sommelier. We chose a Yakima Valley Rose that won our hearts. The Rose was perfect, slightly fruity, but remarkably fresh and complimented the dinner beautifully. We originally wanted to only drink one glass to keep within our new diet restrictions, however, we rationalized that it was our anniversary and finished the bottle...and then another bottle.
The Entertainment
The dining room in Canlis may be closed to customers, but they still have a pianist come onsite every weekday to play for a live stream on YouTube. The live stream starts at 6pm and lasts until 9pm, during that time you can tune in and request songs for the pianist to play. We were originally planning on watching for only 30 minutes or so, but we ended up watching the entire 3-hour stream because it was so calming. The atmosphere of having the pianist play throughout our place was a great change of pace, and we plan to tune in more throughout the week.
Canlis also offers bingo that is live-streamed every Friday and anyone who orders from Canlis throughout the week can participate. Each meal you get includes 4 bingo boards and an instruction board on how to play so you can play more than once. We ordered our dinner for Monday, so we haven’t gotten the opportunity to play yet - I will update this section of the review once we get to participate in the game.
Overall, dinner was fantastic and Canlis shows that they can create a great dining experience even from the comfort of your own home. Each day has a different menu, so make sure to look in advance every Wednesday to see which meal looks best for you. The method to pick up or get your meal delivered is flawless and extremely efficient (not to mention affordable, considering it is from Canlis). Naturally, this isn’t a restaurant most people are able to frequent, but with the new take-out option, I could only hope that they might continue this service even after the quarantine is over.
Rating: 4.5/5