Only if you’re a foodie person would you likely make a trip to The Willows Inn for dinner. Some people who live in/around the Seattle area do – it’s a day trip, or rather an evening trip. The restaurant operates Wed-Sun nights, or off season from Thurs-Sun nights. We chose to stay on the island for 2 nights and had the feast one of the 2 nights.
If you go during most months of the year there is a car ferry, but as I explained in my post about Lummi Island a couple of days ago, we just happened to go there during the 3 weeks the car ferry was in dry dock for its annual maintenance. So we had to use the small passenger ferry that plies the half-mile distance between the mainland near Bellingham (about 15 miles west of the 5 fwy on the Lummi Nation Reservation) and the island itself. It was kind of special. Fun. Different. Certainly makes for good story telling, and my DH has been making the most of it (he’s good at that).
The meal is expensive. I mean ferociously expensive. $150 per person. We’d not usually pay that much for any dinner, but this was vacation, and it just got lumped into our trip expenses, I suppose. Dave and I talked about it before we went – were we willing to spend that much? We decided for an island destination, maybe it was, and hoped we’d be happy about it.
And, indeed, we were. It was a spectacular dinner (dining room is through the right hand side of the windows above – lobby was on the left side). Took 3+ hours with so many courses I could hardly keep track. I took photos of them all and you can see them below. The servers were kept hopping all night long, setting up for each course and then bringing some treasure that was lying on a rock, or hot rocks, or a plank, or rustic plates. Take a look at the photos, and then down below them I’ll tell you what my favorites were.
Most unusual: raw goat tartare (not my favorite, but I think it was just because it was raw – the meat came from goats on Lopez Island nearby); the baked kale chip with black truffle and buttered rye bread crumbs; the halibut skin – crispy and good – stuffed with some halibut mousse, I think; and definitely the woodruff ice cream. I wasn’t even sure what woodruff was – if you look closely at the plate bottom left you can barely see some greenery – that’s woodruff. It’s a low growing ground cover in that neck of the woods. The ice cream had a very refreshing flavor to it, and I was kind of enchanted with the malted barley crumbles alongside. Certainly never had those before! Probably the plum skins (which had some plum flesh on them) were delicious, but very unusual! They’re at right on the bottom. I tried to get that photo to rotate, but every time I did the one on the left turned sideways. Gave up. Oh, and then the hearth bread was so good, but what made it unusual was the little bowl of hot chicken drippings. We were to butter our bread, then dip a bit of it into the drippings. Who would ever have thought we’d be eating chicken drippings.
Most tasty: the raw albacore tuna was sensational. It was scraped with a scallop shell into large, but thin pieces, then sitting in a delicious vinaigrette of some kind. The seaweeds were really wonderful – I think my favorite of the evening. Underneath the seaweed were chunks of the local and ever-so tasty Dungeness crab with a brown butter drizzled over it. Wow is about all I can say. And the charred Romano beans. Oh my. I could have eaten a plate full of them. They’d been cooked (steamed?) then grilled outdoors wrapped up in little bundles over oregano stems, then it was served with an oregano vinaigrette drizzled on top. It was fantastic.
My least favorites: the goat, as I mentioned, but most people just loved it – it actually didn’t have much flavor. I also didn’t like the smoked sockeye salmon. Normally I love smoked salmon, but for me it was too smoky. My DH ate his and 99% of mine. The duck was good, but not exceptional. I tried everything – even the goat, and the salmon and I ate all of the duck.
My DH ordered the wine pairing (an additional $70 per person). They were all Washington wines, from various places. Five wines were poured: 2012 Ross Andrew Meadow Rose (Walla Walla); 2012 Long Shadows Poet’s Leap Riesling (Columbia Valley); 2009 a Maurice Chardonnay (Walla Walla); 2011 Waitsburg Cellars Three Merlot, Malbec, Mouvedre (Columbia Valley); and 2012 Brian Carter Cellars Opulento Dessert Wine (Yakima Valley). They offered (for a fee, I’m sure) a juice pairing with the dinner too which included a sparkling blueberry, a cucumber, tomato, sorrel and elderflower. At the beginning of the meal they served to everyone as part of the dinner, a glass of hard cider (also Washington origin) which was delicious. I nursed that glass through several of the courses and had sparkling water as well.
The next morning we went to the actual Inn (where we’d been to the dinner the night before) and checked out. We had some fresh coffee and a fabulous pound cake they had beside the coffee carafes – I had to try it. Oh my, it was SO good. I want that recipe! I snapped a photo of the kitchen – they were already working and it was just about 9:00 AM. 
I found the article which got me intrigued about this hotel and restaurant. It was in April’s Bon Appetit, and it was titled the Best Food Lover’s Hotels in America. I think Sooke Harbour House was one of the nominees, but not one of the top 10.
Toffeeapple
said on October 7th, 2013:
What an interesting meal, though I am not sure it would warrant the cost, nor an additional $70 for wines. My eyes watered at the costs! I think I would have enjoyed the meal, regardless.
We chalked it all up to an “experience,” and tried not to think that we’d paid so darned much for one dinner, albeit a 13-course one, all small plates. I’m sure we’ll never do it again, and I’d have never paid $70 for a wine pairing. My hubby wasn’t all that thrilled with the wines and wished he hadn’t done it, but he also chalked that up to the “experience.” We might go back to the island, though, but only if we had a car, and had a cabin or some place where we could cook our own meals. . . carolyn t