If you guessed that Primo Grill was going to win Best Overall Restaurant in the Weekly Volcano’s 2010 Best of Tacoma Readers’ Poll, you guessed right. And you knew what was up. The perfect balance is hard to strike in the restaurant business. And it’s different depending on where you put it, who you’re serving and what you serve.
Primo Grill is Tacoma’s Best Overall Restaurant for good reason.

Co-owner Charlie McManus worked his way up from washing dishes to become one of Tacoma’s premier restaurateurs, earning praise far and wide from food critics and patrons for menus created at the now legendary Primo Grill.

“Hospitality is in my blood,” says McManus, who immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1979.

And you can feel it when you enter. McManus and partner Jacqueline Plattner created an interior that is a nice blend of now and then, past and present. The dining room bears royal tones of purple alongside a range of earth tones. The color combinations seem designed to make you hungry. The artwork is heavy on metalwork, which works perfectly as a balance to the pottery tones that frame the dining room. An open kitchen gives you the chance to see some of the action, and a grand wood-burning oven lends to the overall warmth of the place. Best part: McManus commissioned Tacoma Community College students to design the tabletops. They dug into Minoan, Greek, Etruscan and Moroccan cultural designs, which became 12 original hand-painted tabletops. Since then, Primo has held yearly benefit shows that have raised nearly $100,000 for TCC student art scholarships.

Local engagement and support for the arts and education — another reason this award shouldn’t be entirely surprising.

But let’s be honest. Atmosphere helps, but it’s really about the food.

For starters, Primo uses a ton of local produce. Entrees include locally raised organic chicken, buttermilk fried; Thundering Hooves range-fed beef burgers; and fresh sea scallops. Meats and produce are procured from local farmers. Salmon is delivered from Nisqually fishermen. McManus uses what he refers to as a farm-to-table program. Beef comes from Walla Walla, and all Primo’s greens and fruit come from local farmers. By providing healthy eating options and strengthening community, people like McManus and others help support the local economy, and help preserve farmland that might otherwise be paved over or go unused.

The menu is a nice blend of Mediterranean and Northwest cuisine. Appetizers include goat cheese-stuffed paquilla peppers, wood roasted calamari with garlic saffron sauce, crispy duck leg (which is tastier than it sounds) and steamed local mussels. And don’t forget the pizza. Hint: Mushroom pizza with grilled portabella, mozzarella, goat cheese and caramelized onions. Oh hell, try them all.

Pasta dishes are delightfully sparse, bringing out only the best. Wood-roasted lasagna; Thai coconut curry; and house-made fettucine with smoked salmon and lemon asparagus sauce. Specialties include Primo Paella, consisting of Saffron rice, Spanish chorizo, duck confit, shrimp and  mussels; and an amazing pork rib chop with sun-dried cherry sauce.

We hope you get it by now.

601 S. Pine St., Tacoma. 253.383.7000