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Ponti Seafood Grill
At 15, this Seattle landmark has an interesting story to
tell
There are a lot
of intangibles in the restaurant industry. All the right pieces can be in place,
put there by knowledgeable industry insiders, but the spot never takes off. Is
it the location? Management? The “it” factor? And what about places just doomed
to fail that work like magic? Hard to say. But when a restaurant is successful
for 15 straight years, you know someone has the answer.
 In the case of Ponti, that someone is
Richard Malia (pictured), a guy who has spent the last 30-some years in Seattle’s
restaurant industry. As a young man, he worked at the Spaghetti Factory (a case
in point: why is this place still booming?). In 1972, he and wife Sharon
decided to open The Snug. They found a spot in downtown Seattle where they could
cater to the business crowd and devised an innovative menu that had people
lining up to get in, even in the rain. That menu now looks boringly
familiar—homemade bakery items, soups, great sandwiches and desserts. But at the
time, they were the first to offer something reasonably priced that tasted good
and wasn’t some sort of pre-packaged food. Sharon was the first to combine cream
cheese frosting and carrot cake. How can you not love her? People did. “The Snug
served from 300 to 500 lunches per day with an average check of $3 per person,”
states Malia. “It was amazing. We didn’t take a day off for seven years.”
Being the first to try something, make
it work and then be imitated is a Malia hallmark. In 1978, The Snug was the
first restaurant in Seattle to serve Starbucks coffee. In the late 70s, a larger
downtown location called Malia’s Northwest (aka Mrs. Malia’s) was opened. Four
remarkable firsts happened here that now seem commonplace: they served fresh
Northwest fare using local ingredients, their wine list exclusively offered
Washington and Oregon wines and they produced winemaker dinners where the
winemaker actually interacted with the guests at dinner. The first dinner
featured David Lake of Columbia Winery. Malia’s was also the first to pour
Redhook Ale.
In 1990, Richard and Sharon partnered
with Jim Malevitsis, of Adriatica fame, to bring Ponti Seafood Grill into being.
(They also started Axis together, but eventually the Malias took full ownership
of Ponti and Malevitsis took Axis.) Fusion cooking took shape at Ponti, placing
it on the cutting edge. With opening chef Alvin Binuya, a menu was created that
combined Northwest bounty; the flavors, scents and spices of Asia; and classical
European culinary techniques. In the 1991-92 winter issue of Wine & Food
Companion, David Rosengarten wrote “…Ponti is one of the most exciting new
restaurants we’ve visited all year, anywhere in the world.”
 A combination of exciting food, a
Mediterranean villa on the ship canal with windows overlooking the Fremont and
Aurora bridges, flowers and pedestrian paths and a well-thought-out wine list
that has garnered the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence each and every year
goes a long way to making this a continually popular restaurant. In summer, the
patios offer a wonderful place to relax and enjoy the too-brief outdoor dining
season in Seattle. There’s also the Richard factor.
He has brought approachability and
affordability to the fine dining experience and is a true believer in the use of
fresh ingredients and sustainable harvesting methods (see the Seattle DINING!
article on sustainability, Fall 2004). In the 1980s, he worked with John
Spellman on a “Save the Farmlands” project in south King county and maintains
close ties to local farmers and fishermen. He’s intimately involved with the
fishing industry and has actually worked on boats in Alaska. Ponti serves only
the highest quality wild fish and does not traffic in endangered species.
Sharon’s family (the Sorianos) has been very involved over the years in Alaska
fisheries.
Richard is also an old-style
restaurateur. As he says, “I’m the one greeting and talking to our customers.
They feel comfortable coming up and telling me about their meal and what the
experience meant to them. I want to be shaking hands and helping make it a
memorable event for them.” He also encourages the chef to do the same and
you’ll find Executive Chef Josh Green in the dining room chatting about fish and
preparation methods.
 Ponti has also become home to many
regulars. Listening to conversations in the lounge (you know you do it, too),
it’s clear that the many long-time staff are friends with the customers. And the
customers know each other, too. They trade advice and talk about mutual friends
and joke about which table belongs to which customer. People may come for a
meal, but they’re here for the camaraderie as well. “Ponti is as much a
neighborhood hangout spot as it is a special occasion, destination restaurant,”
says Richard. “People come here to relax and enjoy themselves.”
In addition, Richard and his staff come
up with ways to have fun with their food. In 2004 when the Seattle Art Museum
showcased impressionism, they jumped on the bandwagon with “Van Gogh’s Table,” a
summer-long menu addition that highlighted the foods and wines of French inns.
The kick-off event paired eight food tastings and eight French regional wines.
And, needless to say, winemaker dinners continue with local wineries like
DeLille Cellars, Matthews Cellars and Woodward Canyon.
Richard is also very involved in the
restaurant community as well as the larger community. He was the driving force
behind the “25 for $25” idea when the industry went into a slump after 9/11. The
program is so successful that it is still going strong after four years.
Restaurants involved in the program find March and November to be busy months
when they might otherwise be a bit slow. Malia was a vice president for two
years of the Seattle chapter of the Washington Restaurant Association; he has
also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes
Association (one of his children is diabetic).
Despite the intangibility of restaurant
success, it’s clear that Richard and Sharon Malia understand what people are
looking for, sometimes before we know it ourselves.
Summer 2005
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