After nearly two decades in the hospitality industry, Lauren Blumenthal knows the way a restaurant makes guests feel is as crucial as how good the food is.
So for Sorella, her newly opened restaurant in Kendall Yards, Blumenthal created a space that's chic and moody, but also relaxed and modern. It's a setting that elegantly complements the traditional Italian fare served there.
Among Blumenthal's many personal touches is an expansive gallery wall overlooking Sorella's entrance and dining room. Stretching upward to the vaulted ceiling are hundreds of thrifted frames in varying sizes, all painted gold and each displaying a mix of art: pages from vintage cookbooks, retro alcohol advertisements, album and magazine covers, photos of Italian landmarks and more.
Plush velvet upholstery in a deep teal fabric — the exact hue was color-matched to extend to the walls and ceiling throughout the space — evokes the swanky vibe of a Manhattan hotel lounge, complete with contemporary crystal chandeliers and a backlit, mirror-covered bar.
"In Kendall Yards, we have so many great restaurants, but we really don't have a big bar," Blumenthal says. "And we had to have one. Especially because there are so many people walking around here, all different times of the day and night, who want to come in for a cocktail."
Naturally, Sorella — which in Italian means sister, and is the name Blumenthal's brother pitched for the eatery — serves a variety of Italian aperitifs and digestifs like amaro and vermouth. Bottles of red-orange Aperol and Campari liqueur line the bar's topmost shelf, glowing in the light like liquid rubies and amber.
While the opulent color palette and fixtures, including a slab of Italian marble for the bar, give Sorella a high-end feel, Blumenthal also added homier, vintage touches with silverware, glassware and many of the plates used for service.
Blumenthal learned the nuances of running a successful restaurant from one of Italian cuisine's Pacific Northwest greats, Mauro Golmarvi. Before opening Sorella, she worked the front of house at Golmarvi's storied downtown Seattle eatery, Assaggio Ristorante, a fixture since 1993.
"He taught me pretty much everything I know about service," she says. "He was my boss, and then he ended up falling in love with my dad's sister, and so now he's my uncle.
"Trust me," she adds, laughing, "He was not easy on me, but thank God, because he taught me a ton. He was the one who really provided me with an actual passion for it versus it being just a job."
Even though running restaurants is now in the family, Blumenthal's quick to say that she always wanted Sorella to be her own.
That vision started taking form in May 2018, when she met with Kendall Yards developers Jim and Joe Frank. The father-son team was immediately interested in bringing Sorella on as a tenant of the neighborhood's east-end commercial area with a targeted opening of July 2020. Of course, that timeline didn't pan out, and delays in construction further pushed Sorella's opening out to early this May.
In the interim, and with renewed focus during the height of COVID, Blumenthal became a culinary student in her own kitchen, dreaming up and testing dishes she wanted to one day serve at Sorella, even cooking for family and friends as a side project.
"I cooked for the full three years of COVID, up until now," she says. "I've always been a pretty good cook, I would say, but never in a restaurant or for large groups of people. My uncle told me when I said I was going to open my own place, 'You need to cook for at least six to nine months!'"
More recent research involved trips to New York City, where she sampled more than 40 different Italian restaurants across the metropolis.
"Not only for visual research, but food research," Blumenthal says. "Just seeing all the different kinds of Italian restaurants, there are so many different kinds. And we are not regional by any means, we serve cuisine from all over Italy. But in New York, there are restaurants that only do Roman fare and only Mediterranean and [only] Sicilian fare. It definitely inspired some of the items that we have on the menu."
Crafting Sorella's menu became a collaboration between Blumenthal and Justin Klauba, whom she brought on board as executive chef, and whose resume includes leading the kitchen at Honey Eatery & Social Club in Coeur d'Alene. Klauba's fine-tuning resulted in a concise but varied collection of traditional antipasto courses — appetizers like whipped ricotta ($14), a salumi selection ($22) and bone marrow ($16) with black garlic — followed by salads, handmade pasta and protein-centric entrees.
Most of Sorella's pasta sauces are made to order, the exception being those requiring a long, slow simmer like marinara and bolognese. Among the eight different pastas ($14-$26) is an inky black nero, zesty limone and a spicy-as-you-like vodka sauce. There's also crab-stuffed ravioli, unctuous carbonara and lasagna.
Heartier entrees include osso buco ($42), veal or chicken parmigiana ($28/$32), and a porterhouse steak that serves two ($112). Shareable veggie sides ($10) for the table include mushrooms with leek fonduta, pistachio green beans, and broccolini with lemon and flake salt. One of Blumenthal's favorites is the eggplant melanzane ($22), which is a vegetarian version of classic Italian parmigiana. It's a dish she recommends to even those who don't normally like eggplant. Each entree is heartily portioned, and family-style eating is encouraged at Sorella.
Leading Sorella's bar is Josh Fejeran, who brings about two decades of experience.
"He has an elevated style of bartending," Blumenthal says, adding that it took a fair amount of convincing to recruit Fejeran, who'd been working across the river at Wooden City.
"I was like, 'OK, here it is, I have glassware, but you can choose whatever liquor you want back here. You can write all the cocktails yourself,'" she says.
While the drink menu is currently about half the length Blumenthal envisions, more cocktails ($12 each) and happy hour are on the way, as is patio seating.
The extensive Italian wine list, meanwhile, is Blumenthal's purview.
"It was one of the things I did [working] in Seattle, and I relinquished a lot of control to the kitchen with the food, and all of the cocktails to Josh, but I really wanted to have my hands on the wine list. It's really important to me," she says.
Sorella's wine list includes more than 65 bottles, with the majority imported from Italy.
"Obviously there are amazing Washington and Oregon producers, but I wanted to stick to wines that I really like on a personal level, and I wanted to use it as an opportunity to introduce people around here to Italian wine."
With that in mind, Blumenthal added a QR code on the bottom of the wine list that diners can scan for personal recommendations. If you like merlot, she suggests barbera. If you're familiar with sauvignon blanc, try Soave.
Even though "a varietal may sound foreign to you, it's just like these other things that you may enjoy," she says. "Knowledge is power, and I just want people to learn, whether they're an employee or a guest." ♦
Sorella • 1122 W. Summit Pkwy. • Open Tue-Sat 5-10 pm • sorellaspokane.com • 509-443-4023 • Reservations via OpenTable
