Interview That Didn't Make It Into Print: Corson Building's Matt Dillon
My trip to the much-gossiped about Corson Building, this week's review, presented one of the most interesting restaurant experiences I've had in months: a restaurant that didn't quite want to be a restaurant, high-end dining with a populist mission. When I called the restaurant's chef, Matt Dillon, to check a few facts, I also got a chance to ask him more about the idealistic, aesthetic, and practical factors that made his place so compelling. There wasn't enough space to run our interview in the paper, so here it is, online:
How did you find the Corson Building and decide you wanted to open a restaurant there? It wasn’t long after you started Sitka & Spruce, was it?
We obtained the space in April 2007. It was pretty gross — it was a residence, but the upstairs was sort of a 1970s ski lodge, with really bad wood coverings over all the walls. The fireplace looked like nothing — it was boxed in by drywall. Then the back part of the original space didn’t have the larder area. It was more of a kitchen and this really gross laundry room. The kitchen was just a fridge, a sink, and a hot plate. Upstairs there were three rooms and two little closets. We pretty much gutted the whole place, so it was just dirt, four walls, and the roof. Then in the garden there were blackberries and car parts, and boxwood and laurel.
A friend of mine had lived here. I had come to a couple of parties in the space. It was a really cool place. Years before, I thought, God, I would love to open a restaurant there. My core group of friends are all Georgetown locals, and I knew I wanted to be down here — I liked the creative energy and the social energy. It’s not about what you look like while you’re doing something, it’s that you’re being creative.
I got the Corson Building space a year after Sitka & Spruce opened. . . . I didn’t have the expectations that it would become what it turned out to be. I wanted to serve some OK food, and I needed to pay myself, and I didn’t want to work for anyone any more. When I got Sitka, I just built it out and let it evolve organically.
With the Corson Building, we broke ground ourselves in April, and then started getting ready, knowing we wanted to be open a year ago. We didn’t know what the process regarding permitting would be. We held a couple of private dinners here early on, one being the Marco Pierre White thing [for One Pot] in May and another friend’s birthday in June. Then we dealt with our architects. Wylie and I aren’t builders — we both own small businesses — so the learning curve was steep. The time-consuming part of the buildout started in September and got rolling around December, and then by the middle of January we were full-time builders. I was working three nights a week at Sitka, and then the rest of the week I’d be down here building walls and demo-ing.
So tell me a little bit about the broader vision you have for the Corson Building.
Growing up with friends who started the Vera Project and being a punk-rock skater kid, I grew up being sort of — for lack of a better word — socially and politically involved. I initially wanted to open a nonprofit restaurant, basically the Vera Project for food, but nonprofits are kind of a pain in the ass and you don’t make any money. So I kept working, but knew that I wanted to do more. When I opened Sitka, it became apparent to me that I had gotten to know a lot of great men and women in the food community, and I knew there was a drive to solidify that community.
The restaurant part of the building is the initial financial thrust to give way to the other aspects of it. We held our first benefit dinner with Anthony Bourdain, and then at the end of July we worked with Seattle Youth Garden Works to do a fundraiser picnic, partly to launch our desire to be part of each other’s communities. For an upcoming benefit for the South Seattle Food Program, we’re pickling things for people and having a food donation bin, so people who come can bring cans and other food. We have a bunch of other ideas, and not only just social benefits but cooking classes and having visiting chefs come here and do their own dinners.
So it’s a community center that does a number of things. We’re on our own piece of ground. We can do whatever we want. However, we can’t get over the fact that we spent a ridiculous amount of money on this — not millions, but we did most of the work ourselves, and every little dollar means a lot to both Wylie and me.
I could work for FareStart, or teach the homeless to cook — I know I could be doing more — but I always want to be artistically creative and to give people an experience like this. I enjoy cooking that way. I enjoy the positive aspects of people being in the room. It nurtures me and makes me feel really creative, and I want to continue that.
I’m hoping the big dinners will get people to look at the website, so they’ll think, hey, the Corson is doing a rosé and crab dinner for $30. We’re going. That’s another way we want to cook. On Sundays in October, we’re going to start doing $50 diners that are more thematic, in that, say, I’ve been inspired by this Angelo Pellegrini recipe, so I’ll do a dandelion salad and pork kidneys.
How are these $140 dinners integrated into the rest of your vision for the Building? It’s a pricey meal.
Yeah, it’s a $140 meal, but at the same time, it’s not $500, which is the Herbfarm. I feel like we give a good amount of food and pour some good wines. I feel like it’s fair, but not an everyday experience for people. A lot of my friends can’t afford to come here more than once a year.
First and foremost, we have to make money, and that’s just how much it costs, but by doing [the $140 meals] we can establish it ourselves in a way that people will look and see more accessible evenings for them. I don’t want to be unaccessible, so we’re not doing [the pricier dinners] five nights a week.
We want to be accessible and yet put ourselves in a financial position in which we can give back to the community. So that we’re not just supporting only the local-sustainable movement, not just buying from farmers, but also supporting the youth around here and all these other programs that need it.
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