Cafe Nordo: Kiss Me Cake
Cafe Nordo presents: The Pressure Cooker - Kiss Me Cake
Cafe Nordo is here to save the concept of "dinner theater". Whenever I describe my evenings at Nordo, I trip over my words in an attempt to reduce the gentle sniffs of disapproval shown by those around me when I use the phrase "dinner theater".
"It's so much more than that!" I cry, my hands desperately shooing away the image of a seedy theater from the 80's, filled with smoke, off-key singing, and daring high-low dresses.
But depending on the show, Nordo is like that. Just this past season, Nordo has tackled sci-fi, spaghetti westerns, Christmas mysteries, and radio dramas (a collaboration with Book-It which was so delightful you wanted to walk away with an audio version of their performance). The upcoming season promises a new diverse array of themes, truly ensuring there is a show for everyone.
Placed in a charming old building in Pioneer Square, the space is completely transformed for each performance. Tables are re-arranged, platforms come and go, and the audience is immersed in the environment. The cast (who double as wait-staff) should keep track of how many steps they take per night as they rush up and down main aisles, and in and around tables. As a graduate from the University of Washington, it's becoming more rare for a show to not feature a Husky that I knew from my forays into the drama department. I try not to break them out of character when they wander up with my course cocktail.
The plots are engaging, the cast is lively and infectious, the audience is full of regulars and feels like family, and then there's dinner.
Nordo menus are four (4) courses: appetizer, salad/bigger veggie appetizer, main dish, dessert. The performance is split into thirds, and between each third, a plate (and a corresponding drink) is delivered to your seat. They have vegetarian (often vegan) substitutions which are often even better than the already fantastic omnivore dishes. The set menus are available to view before arriving at the theater, which means that I'm often sending them to everyone I know to drool over in case they were on the fence about joining my table. Working in the kitchen at Cafe Nordo must be a true joy, because they get to work on a full new menu every few months based off of the location/theme of the show.
Oh, and they also do cocktail or wine flights that are designed specifically to compliment each course. (Yes, if you see just one cocktail you want, you can order just that one. Yes, I spend 5 minutes trying to decide if I want to do a flight or just order the gin drinks, and yes, I always end up ordering the flight.) The flights are 1/2 size pours so it works out to 2 drinks per show. I'm a lightweight and am very grateful for this structure.
Now to the show at hand.
Part of the Nordo Summer Series, which is 3 shows for 1-2 weekends each, Kiss Me Cake was a few glorious nights of ballet and buttercream. Frosting adorned both the personal cakes which made up each course (the dinner was picnic-style cold chicken and finger food nibbles consumed pre-performance), and the dancers who scampered nimbly up and down the aisles and a few of the tables. It was a small cast, sharing a coming of age narrative through dance and sugar (but not gluten, all the cakes were gluten-free!). My group was carded at the door because a few of the dancers were not yet of drinking age and some of their equally-youthful friends had been arriving in support.
Beginning with a delicately rose-flavored pavlova with a crystallized rose-petal fascinator, we entered the world of a young girl full of pointe shoe dreams. She and her friend gingerly found their footing and pirouetted through the narrow aisles. The next cake was a deep dark chocolate mouthful featuring orange, basalmic, and touch of gold leaf. It came with a gin drink (yay!) and the stomps of a flamenco dancer staring us all down very akin to a bull preparing to charge. Two dancers took to a corner of the room to tap dance out the fury of heartbreak, trampling hard sugar flowers with pleasingly loud cracks. It looked very fun, and I'm now planning on giving large sugary creations to any friend going through a breakup to stomp on until they've calmed down and are ready to watch both Princess Diaries. A plum-colored yam cake accompanied a seductive table dance, thoroughly entrancing every man (and definitely some ladies) in the room. I was mildly distracted by my bourbon and watching the face of the man sitting closest to the stage, who was clearly ready to risk it all for Table Girl. Another table performance of a dancer acting as the cake being actively decorated with buttercream was mimicked on our smaller tables as we were provided our own frosting bag to decorate our yummy yammy cakes. These cakes also wore little flower hats; a woman near me placed hers as decoration on her forehead(?). A slice of classic birthday cake (Happy Birthday Cafe Nordo, congrats on reaching double digits! Is 10 a pre-teen? I don't know/don't care the stages of youth anymore.) prepared us for the grand finale, where the dancers pulled audience members out on the floor to participate in a celebratory BIRTHDAY PARTY conga line.
There was live music, an old-timey movie of the cake making process, and a recording of Julia Child discussing chocolate cake. Cafe Nordo is the perfect environment for this type of performance which blesses all of the senses.
Kiss Me Cake is the brainchild of Kristina Dillard who conceptualized and created the cakes, choreographed and designed the visuals (more cakes), and danced on the stage herself (kinda as a cake). Seattle is full of experimental art, and I consider Ms. Dillard's Nordo takeover to be a great success.
Cafe Nordo is here to save the concept of "dinner theater". Whenever I describe my evenings at Nordo, I trip over my words in an attempt to reduce the gentle sniffs of disapproval shown by those around me when I use the phrase "dinner theater".
"It's so much more than that!" I cry, my hands desperately shooing away the image of a seedy theater from the 80's, filled with smoke, off-key singing, and daring high-low dresses.
But depending on the show, Nordo is like that. Just this past season, Nordo has tackled sci-fi, spaghetti westerns, Christmas mysteries, and radio dramas (a collaboration with Book-It which was so delightful you wanted to walk away with an audio version of their performance). The upcoming season promises a new diverse array of themes, truly ensuring there is a show for everyone.
Placed in a charming old building in Pioneer Square, the space is completely transformed for each performance. Tables are re-arranged, platforms come and go, and the audience is immersed in the environment. The cast (who double as wait-staff) should keep track of how many steps they take per night as they rush up and down main aisles, and in and around tables. As a graduate from the University of Washington, it's becoming more rare for a show to not feature a Husky that I knew from my forays into the drama department. I try not to break them out of character when they wander up with my course cocktail.
The plots are engaging, the cast is lively and infectious, the audience is full of regulars and feels like family, and then there's dinner.
Nordo menus are four (4) courses: appetizer, salad/bigger veggie appetizer, main dish, dessert. The performance is split into thirds, and between each third, a plate (and a corresponding drink) is delivered to your seat. They have vegetarian (often vegan) substitutions which are often even better than the already fantastic omnivore dishes. The set menus are available to view before arriving at the theater, which means that I'm often sending them to everyone I know to drool over in case they were on the fence about joining my table. Working in the kitchen at Cafe Nordo must be a true joy, because they get to work on a full new menu every few months based off of the location/theme of the show.
Oh, and they also do cocktail or wine flights that are designed specifically to compliment each course. (Yes, if you see just one cocktail you want, you can order just that one. Yes, I spend 5 minutes trying to decide if I want to do a flight or just order the gin drinks, and yes, I always end up ordering the flight.) The flights are 1/2 size pours so it works out to 2 drinks per show. I'm a lightweight and am very grateful for this structure.
Now to the show at hand.
Part of the Nordo Summer Series, which is 3 shows for 1-2 weekends each, Kiss Me Cake was a few glorious nights of ballet and buttercream. Frosting adorned both the personal cakes which made up each course (the dinner was picnic-style cold chicken and finger food nibbles consumed pre-performance), and the dancers who scampered nimbly up and down the aisles and a few of the tables. It was a small cast, sharing a coming of age narrative through dance and sugar (but not gluten, all the cakes were gluten-free!). My group was carded at the door because a few of the dancers were not yet of drinking age and some of their equally-youthful friends had been arriving in support.
Beginning with a delicately rose-flavored pavlova with a crystallized rose-petal fascinator, we entered the world of a young girl full of pointe shoe dreams. She and her friend gingerly found their footing and pirouetted through the narrow aisles. The next cake was a deep dark chocolate mouthful featuring orange, basalmic, and touch of gold leaf. It came with a gin drink (yay!) and the stomps of a flamenco dancer staring us all down very akin to a bull preparing to charge. Two dancers took to a corner of the room to tap dance out the fury of heartbreak, trampling hard sugar flowers with pleasingly loud cracks. It looked very fun, and I'm now planning on giving large sugary creations to any friend going through a breakup to stomp on until they've calmed down and are ready to watch both Princess Diaries. A plum-colored yam cake accompanied a seductive table dance, thoroughly entrancing every man (and definitely some ladies) in the room. I was mildly distracted by my bourbon and watching the face of the man sitting closest to the stage, who was clearly ready to risk it all for Table Girl. Another table performance of a dancer acting as the cake being actively decorated with buttercream was mimicked on our smaller tables as we were provided our own frosting bag to decorate our yummy yammy cakes. These cakes also wore little flower hats; a woman near me placed hers as decoration on her forehead(?). A slice of classic birthday cake (Happy Birthday Cafe Nordo, congrats on reaching double digits! Is 10 a pre-teen? I don't know/don't care the stages of youth anymore.) prepared us for the grand finale, where the dancers pulled audience members out on the floor to participate in a celebratory BIRTHDAY PARTY conga line.
There was live music, an old-timey movie of the cake making process, and a recording of Julia Child discussing chocolate cake. Cafe Nordo is the perfect environment for this type of performance which blesses all of the senses.
Kiss Me Cake is the brainchild of Kristina Dillard who conceptualized and created the cakes, choreographed and designed the visuals (more cakes), and danced on the stage herself (kinda as a cake). Seattle is full of experimental art, and I consider Ms. Dillard's Nordo takeover to be a great success.
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