After Mollusk chef’s dramatic exit, brewmaster asks for second chance

After Travis Kukull quit his position as head chef of brewpub Mollusk in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, he was panned for how he handled his exit. Many, including KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz, found his position arrogant and condescending. But now Kukull’s business partner is coming to his defense.

Related: Seattle Chef is mad you don’t like his ‘creative’ food, quits restaurant

“One of the things to remember is that Travis is a very passionate person,” said Mollusk Brewmaster Cody Morris. “I think he has really deep ambition and aspirations for people’s exploratory side to break from the norm and try something different.”

But the menu was too different with Kukull’s meals difficult to decipher. Take for example his Nachos Picasso dish. It wasn’t nachos. Not even close. It was delicata squash chips and Indonesian garlic crackers, topped with smoked avocado crème frâiche. Folks living in the techie South Lake Union neighborhood were not interested in the food, certainly not at their high prices.  So Kukull left, complaining to The Stranger that “[t]he food I create is the way I want Seattle to be and eat.” He went on to imply people living in SLU were not cultured.

“I think the attitude of the former chef is what really rubbed people the wrong way,” Rantz told Morris. “People aren’t bad because they don’t understand or appreciate one particular chef’s creative mind.”

Rantz actually enjoyed Mollusk’s menu, including the Nachos Picasso. But he wrote a searing rebuttal to the chef’s “bizarrely arrogant” insults of the community.

So why did the concept truly fail? Morris said that there are many reasons that Mollusk wasn’t working, but it mostly came down to not meeting the desires of the community.

“It’s a case of expectations,” Morris said. “We had such a good time with what was so well received at Gastropod … (we thought) it could just be plug and play and it would work. That quickly became evident that wasn’t the case.”

Gastropod was their former restaurant. It was a success with critics, as well as diners. But it was a small space in a completely different neighborhood. Mollusk is massive and people thought they’d get traditional pub grub.

“You don’t really see a lot of high-end restaurants that are as large as the space Mollusk is,” Morris explained. “With a huge space comes a lot more overhead and costs. It’s pretty hard when you are doing some of the more exotic ingredients to make the margin with financial sense. Instead, what you end up with is a lot of sticker shock. That was a huge issue with us.”

But like any smart business, Mollusk is adapting.

“We’ve scaled things back quite a bit now,” Morris promised. “Our ambition is to still provide a high quality experience. I take a lot of pride in the beer we brew … What worked in a little 30-seat restaurant in SoDo — known as a destination pub — just wasn’t the format that would work in a neighborhood that really just wanted a brewpub.”

With a new chef, the menu at Mollusk has been stripped down and continues to undergo changes. It includes some burgers and fish and chips, mussels and a selection of sauces, though Morris said that they will continue to tweak it.

“It’s sort of the brewpub I remember as a child being taken to in Seattle,” Morris said. “It’s seafood centric but still very much the Americana bar experience.”

Rantz explained he wants the restaurant to succeed because, first and foremost, he doesn’t want to see people lose their job. But he is also a foodie and wants to check out what the new menu has to offer. Morris is hoping the community will also give his business a second chance.

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