Woven, the Puyallup Tribe’s restaurant with Roy Yamaguchi, reveals menu and opening date
The Puyallup Tribe’s highly anticipated restaurant with chef Roy Yamaguchi, Woven Seafood and Chophouse, will open July 9, and reservations are now available online through OpenTable.
An alumnus of the celebrity chef’s other restaurants, Dexter Mina, has been tapped to lead the kitchen, the Tribe announced Friday afternoon. Columbia Hospitality, based in Seattle with dozens of properties around the Northwest, is managing the restaurant with the Tribe.
“Woven is designed to weave together the culinary and cultural threads of Puyallup with Hawaii and Japanese traditions,” Yamaguchi said in a press release. “Our menu will offer a modern and blended twist on steak and seafood, emphasizing local ingredients and traditional techniques.”
As promised, the sea shines in shareable plates and mains. Raw selections include shrimp ceviche, a tuna-salmon-hamachi poke bowl with truffle chips, Puget Sound oysters and a shellfish platter. From the sushi bar, explore hand rolls, a fried crab roll dotted with herbs and lemony masago (smelt roe), and the house special spicy tuna.
The “seafood pillows” combine pork, crab and shrimp in a chili-soy vinaigrette, while a crab and corn croqueta promises a chowder-inspired velouté. Also among the starters is a smoked salmon dip prepared with Tribal-caught fish, accented by preserved lemon and smoked onion jam, all served with fry bread.
In keeping with Yamaguchi’s longstanding commitment to local and sustainable agriculture and ingredients, many of the greens — Swiss chard, gem lettuce, kale — stem from Wobbly Cart Farm in Rochester and other vegetables from Tribal sources.
For the main event, dishes range from a Puyallup River salmon on a cedar plank with a ponzu-maple butter glaze and confit potatoes, to paella packed with clams, mussels, shrimp and salmon.
The star, though, might just be the build-your-own fish dish, in which guests choose their creature, preparation style (fire-roasted, tempura-fried, simply seared or cedar plank), and accompaniments, which include banchan-style veggies, garlic furikake rice and succotash.
On the meaty end, options include adobo-glazed pork belly ssam (lettuce wraps), “pho-inspired” baby-back ribs in a five-spice hoisin glaze, a rack of lamb with mint yogurt and salsa verde, as well as a ribeye steak, short ribs and a pork chop.
WOVEN JOINS ROY YAMAGUCHI & PUYALLUP TRIBE
A wood-fired grill anchors the expansive 15,000-square-foot waterfront restaurant that for more than 35 years was home to C.I. Shenanigans. Tacoma’s own Ferguson Architecture and Korsmo Construction have spent months renovating it in a “top-to-bottom renovation.” During a May visit, The News Tribune saw the almost-finished kitchen, outfitted with all-new equipment, and the beginnings of the bar, where floor-to-ceiling doors now open to an elevated portion of the deck overlooking Commencement Bay.
Including the vast dining room, where “unparalleled views of Commencement Bay” abound, the restaurant seats around 250 people. The deck adds to that total, while the second floor boasts a private dining room and spacious setting for large private events.
The Puyallup Tribe purchased the property, which included the lot on which RAM Restaurant and Brewery sits, in 2021. An integral part of the Tribe’s “long-term re-establishment of its presence on the original Puyallup homeland,” as outlined in Friday’s press release, the area is now also a seaplane terminal in partnership with Kenmore Air, with seasonal flights to the San Juan Islands.
Tribal leaders first shared the partnership with Yamaguchi, a James Beard award winner and pioneer of Hawaiian Regional Cuisine, in 2022. As Kyle Eley, chief operating officer of Puyallup Tribal Enterprises, told The News Tribune this spring, “The values aligned with Roy and our Tribe to create the restaurant.”
Their goal was to create “a confident world-class restaurant without the ego,” said Eley.
Woven will serve lunch and dinner daily, plus happy hour and weekend brunch, where hand pies, short rib loco moco and a seafood omelet await. (The restaurant will take a break on Saturday and Sunday between brunch and dinner service.)
During the day, a shorter menu overlaps slightly with evening fare but adds a Buddha bowl featuring wild rice, a staple of indigenous cuisine; beer-battered fish with yuzu tartar and sweet potato fries; and polenta fries fashioned into poutine with shredded beef and wild mushroom gravy.
The cocktail menu is not yet available to peruse, but dessert drops include panna cotta imbued with wojapi, a Native American berry blend; a yam brûlée with brownie crumble; and tres leches cake forged from cornbread with coffee cream and horchata leche.
WOVEN SEAFOOD & CHOPHOUSE
▪ 3017 Ruston Way, 253-650-9500, eatwoven.com
▪ Opening July 9, reservations recommended via OpenTable
▪ Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m.
