De La Soil is an improbable dining hotspot, a counter-serve restaurant located inside the Copperworks distillery in sleepy Kenmore. But since it opened last year, critics have been singing its praises, with Seattle Met saying its food “rivals that of the top spots in the city.” De La focuses on seasonal ingredients — it gets most of its produce from a single farm down the road — and boasts a killer smashburger with Beecher’s smoked cheddar alongside dishes like an heirloom tomato tartine and pork collar grilled with za’atar.
That creativity extends to the kids’ menu. Instead of opting for the hot dog/chicken nugget approach taken by so many restaurants, De La serves kids a salad of greens and peaches with a dill vinaigrette, or grilled huli-huli chicken with pineapple relish. Cody Westerfield, who owns De La with his wife, Andrea, says that this focus on what kids eat is an extension of their family-friendly philosophy — the restaurant also has an outdoor space with lots of toys, games, and a pretend lemonade stand. “Once the kids enjoy themselves, the adults get to finally join in the fun,” Cody says.
At home, the Westerfields try to get their kids to try a wide variety of foods, but they also know that children in a picky phase might not go for dill vinaigrette. A pasta and tomato sauce dish currently on the menu is the “easy out” for those kids, Cody says — though even there, they use heirloom tomatoes, so kids have a slightly “elevated experience.”
At this point, Cody is used to guests stopping by the counter to thank him for a great meal. But some parents stay at the counter, he says, and “tell me that this is the only place their kids like to go out, or their kids are eating stuff they normally wouldn't have. Those are the comments that I really really enjoy hearing.”
The Westerfields are opening a barbecue restaurant next door this summer, called Ember, that will continue the family-friendly vibes with a play structure that has a tower and a slide.
