Searching For Chicago Beef Sandwich Satisfaction In Seattle

Binge watching The Bear — the hit FX series now streaming on Hulu — is sure to cause a craving for a big juicy Italian beef sandwich. There’s a sweet spot in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood that can help scratch that nagging itch.

Chicago’s a long way from the Pacific NW

It’s roughly 2,000 miles from Seattle to Chicago, but that’s the distance I was tempted to drive after devouring Season 1 of the heart-wrenching, funny, thoroughly entertaining series about life in the kitchen of a dysfunctional family restaurant in the Windy City. After the final credits of episode 8 started rolling, I wanted, no… I needed one of those hot mess sandwiches known as Italian Beef.

The seemingly simple creation is synonymous with the classics from that city and it played a starring role in The Bear, though it was more of a series of teasing cameo appearances. No slow-motion food porn here. Key ingredients are skillfully assembled, cooked with care, finished in a mad dash that might include a half dozen special requests. There’s a lot of yelling, both in the front of the house and in the back. But the customers eating those sandwiches? They’re quiet, almost reverential.

When The Bear opens, viewers might wonder why a celebrity chef is cooking at a place that looks slightly seedy, a spot where bills haven’t been paid and the owner committed suicide. That’s the chef’s big brother who left the restaurant to his younger brother, Carmy. It’s intense and sad and ultimately hopeful.

The food is what brings all these disparate characters together, and what pulls them apart, over and over again. Anyone who’s worked in a similar situation will likely recognize some truths. Some cooks I know are taking a hard pass on watching because they’re afraid it’ll trigger their PTSD. I get that, but I couldn’t stop. And once I was done, I had to have an Italian Beef Sandwich.

Welcome to Georgetown

The once gritty neighborhood south of Seattle’s downtown has transformed over the past decade, or so. It’s now home to dozens of places to eat and drink and hang out. Fran’s Chocolate moved its HQ to the old Rainier Brewery in 2014 and Charles Smith opened the largest urban winery on the West Coast in 2015.

Smarty Pants is coming up on two decades in that part of town. The owners — Tim Ptak and his partner, Michelle Braasch, — are Chicago transplants, who were looking to bring some Midwest flavor to their new stomping grounds. The scratch-made menu is sandwich-centric, though there’s an extensive brunch lineup on weekends.

The Italian Beef is described as “thinly sliced, perfectly seasoned house-roasted beef served on a french roll and topped with sweet peppers, giardiniera, and juice.”

Ptak said the recipe was developed through a series of trial-and-error tastings: “In Chicago, there are about a million versions, but we wanted something that tasted like what we grew up eating. I think it’s pretty darned close.”

Granted, I have no previous experience eating an Italian Beef, so I can easily declare this version to be the best I’ve ever tried. What made it so compelling was that combination of the savory, slow-cooked beef and sweet peppers. The pickled Italian relish reminded me of the olive salad on a muffuletta. And that juicy juice was seeping into the roll was reminiscent of the French dip at Philippe’s in Los Angeles.

It hit the spot, but also left me hungry for more. A friend who lives in Chicago promised to take me on a tasty Italian beef sandwich tour the next time I visited. Deal!

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to Season 2 of The Bear. And if you haven’t seen it yet… well, what are you waiting for?

Here’s the official trailer:

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