(Image: Crumble & Flake)

Have a flaky, buttery treat to share with us? [email protected]. Tips, please!

• Here’s the deal. Neil Robertson needs your help. And you need Robertson’s expertly crafted croissants and macarons. All you need to do is help Robertson find a space on Capitol Hill for his new Crumble & Flake Patisserie — and make sure that space is within walking distance of your front door.

“Maybe somebody has a space that’s not listed,” Robertson said in a phone chat with CHS last week. “I want to involve people in the process. It needs to be really, really small. And has to be on Capitol Hill. I have no car.”

Beyond that, Robertson’s parameters are wide open. He would like character but he doesn’t need a restaurant class hood. Fewer than 1,000 square feet is preferred. “I’m willing to be someplace more quiet,” Robertson said, if necessary. “Some kind of deal like the area down on Summit around Top Pot.”

Your new neighbor Crumble & Flake would bring a pastry expert of some renown to your street. In his most recent Seattle stints, Robertson has produced buttery sheets of flaky goodness at Canlis and Mistral Kitchen. Seattle Magazine just called him “Seattle’s biggest name in pastry.” 

Not bad for a man who started his second career after a decade as a graphic designer. Robertson tells CHS he left Seattle after that first career to make his name in pastry in “some amazing kitchens” in Las Vegas. He returned to Seattle and now has plans to show his city what a real patisserie is all about.

There will be no sit-down area and “maybe a counter,” Robertson said. The space will mostly be dedicated to the bakery and the display case full of pastry goodness.

“It’s a pastry shop, not bread,” Robertson says. “It will be mostly breakfast style, with some dessert-y [treats] and some cookies. We’ll start small and be seasonal.”

That “we,” by the way, is a mostly royal we. Robertson admits that one of the big drivers in starting his own shop and bakery is his personality. “I was kind of an odd duck where I worked,” Robertson said. “A square. I’m a morning person and working late nights didn’t work for me.”

Rising early to bake Seattle’s best pastries, then, seems like a logical and brilliant next step. Especially if the new bakery is on your Capitol Hill street.

Have a lead on a space for Robertson, you can let him know at crumbleandflake.com or via Twitter @crumbleandflake.

• Need a pastry fix in the meantime? 12th Ave’s Ba Bar (CHS advertiser) has a new pastry chef in the kitchen. Other worthy Capitol Hill croissants we should know about?
• Skelly and the Bean pops up on 10th Ave E.
• Expect an uptick in the great Capitol Hill food and drink media wars. Former CHS contributor seadevi has been hired by the national Eater chain to rock their Seattle Eater effort. Congratulations, Shalini.
• Here’s seadevi’s last piece for us way back when Terra Plata was “a go in 2010.” Terra Plata opens this week.
• Meanwhile, Shalini Gujavarty writes up the latest kitchen personnel activity at 14th and Union’s Marjorie.
• Capitol Hill was all over the Today Show last week. Next time, they should just set up the show in Cal Anderson, am I right?
• Bimbos: “We believe that every individual should be treated with respect.“
• A new deli will be part of the opening of the Thomas Street Market this week. But, just in case you missed it in our write-up of the new Summit Ave grocery store, though the market shares some ownership, it won’t share the same sandwich menu as the much-loved Trinity Market in the U-District.
• You can now buy jars of Marination Station’s signature condiment Nunya Sauce.
• First Hill’s Vito’s recently shared this awesome anecdote about a favorite customer:

[Governor] Al Rosselini died today at 101 years old. He was an old friend of Vito’s and continued to make the trip down for a plate of Spaghetti and Meatballs at Vito’s old round table in the corner. He will be missed. We raise our glasses to you today Al.

• CHS advertiser Poco Wine Room will not be the home of Skelly and the Bean, is still for sale and is celebrating its fifth birthday:

— Poco Celebrates with Free Gift Cards

As part of Poco’s fifth anniversary celebration, we’re giving away free gift cards!

On three nights, October 24-26, for every $40 you spend on food, wine, or gift cards, we’ll give you a $20 Poco gift card. For free! Use it later, or give it to a friend.  It’s that simple!

— Poco Fifth Anniversary November 1st

Five years ago, on the night after Halloween, Poco opened its doors for the first time. That first year, Poco was one lonely little wine bar in a quiet corner of Capitol Hill that most people didn’t even think about.

Since then we’ve made a few changes: new benches downstairs, a garden patio andan expanded kitchen.  The neighborhood is livelier than ever, and it’s hard to remember just how quiet a lot of the nights were back in 2007 and 2008

Five years makes a big difference to a little wine bar. And that’s plenty of reason to celebrate!

On November 1st, we’ll be at Poco all evening long. Please come by and say hello. We’d love to see you.

Thank you for making the past five years a delight.

• Vegan Score loves Broadway’s Annapurna Cafe:

These photos do not do the food justice, but I didn’t want to keep this secret just because I have terrible snaps. Annapurna Cafe is warmly lit, jewel toned, and inviting – really an ideal place for a date. They even have saffron infused vodka and Mustang Beer, a Napali lager supposedly brewed from the “Himalaya’s purest water.”

• These people may have robbed it.
• The buildout begins at CHS advertiser Manhattan Drugs in the old Izilla Toys location.

  Under construction: Manhattan Drugs

• Oola Distillery drawing Seattle’s talented people making delicious booze.
• Molly Moon has started a new fund to help provide families with milk as a sweet tribute to sister Anna Banana.
• New cocktail menu at Artusi
• When Noah’s returns to Broadway, it will find Capitol Hill’s bagel landscape a changed place, no?
• Lion O’Reilly’s and B. J. Monkeyshines Old Fashioned Bar & Grill? They knew how to name a place back in the old days on Capitol Hill.
• Upcoming Capitol Hill-related fundraiser dinners: Volunteer Park Cafe (November 7), Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce (November 4), Country Doctor Clinics (November 5)
• Congratulations, Missy of Sun Liquor: “Missy just won the Speed Rack speed bartending competition at Portland Cocktail Week! Winning qualifies her to compete in the ultimate Miss Speed Rack national finals next May in NYC!!”
• Savage Street Cuisine makes its pop-up debut at Volunteer Park Cafe tonight (Monday, 10/24). Next pop-up slated for November 14.