there are actual residents in the state. The president of the Kentucky Distillers Association said there’s “an explosion” of small-batch and single-barrel products. Good to know.

“Bourbon is a great value,” Anderson said. A premium bourbon costs less than half as much as a single-malt Scotch. The winning Manhattan No. 5 goes on sale this weekend for $14, down a buck from last year.

photo/Ronald Holden

On Capitol Hill, Nathan Lockwood (of The Ruins) has just opened Altura, a tiny, “seasonal Italian” spot on Broadway. Guy Kugel, a familiar face from Flying Fish (back in its Belltown days) is on hand as sommelier. The menu features appetizers such as grilled octopus, gnocchi with lamb and beef ragu, and three fixed-price menus.

Belltown’s evolving: The Innkeeper is the name of the new venture by Chris Linker and Brian Durbin of Black Bottle on First Avenue, taking over the Marco’s Supper Club space. Opening is expected later this month.

Coterie Room is the name of Brian McCracken and Dana Tough’s place, taking over Zoe’s — very elegant, with a chandelier and all.

And Giuseppe Forte has renamed La Vita è Bella Express; it’s now called, simply, Forte.

In Madison Park, chef Celinda Norton is getting ready to open Parco, a very Italian spot in the cottage that, for many years, housed the Madison Park Cafe. The Italian-themed menu promises duck breast with angel-hair pasta, beef cheeks in Nebbiolo and risotto with lobster.

At Pike Place Market, a new restaurant named Marché — which is, as you suspected, the French word for “market” — is a combination bistro-and-wine bar, headed by Daisley Gordon, last seen in this very kitchen, which used to be known as Campagne.

At the north end of the top of Queen Anne, an offshoot of Ballard’s Carta de Oaxaca called Mezcaleria Oaxaca, opened last week. It combines high-end spirits with genuine family fare from the south of Mexico. It’s half a block from La Luna, a Tex-Mex drinking establishment that opened mid-summer, and will help consolidate the Top of Queen Anne as a neighborhood dining destination to rival the best of them: a brace of taverns (Hilltop Ale House, Paragon), an Asian trio (Ototo Sushi, Thai Kitchen, Chinoise), a couple of Europeans (the French-themed Portage, the authentic Italian Enza Cucina Siciliana) and a couple of New Americans (Emmer & Rye, How to Cook a Wolf ).

At the south end of the top of Queen Anne, meantime, are a new ice cream parlor from Molly Moon; a new tenant where Bricco dispensed wine, LloydMartin; and new pizza spot, Domani, where Sezoni tried for a couple of years.

Also, three more bars: The Local Vine has now opened an outpost in University Village.

Vessel, which operated for a couple of years in the White-Henry-Stuart building, has now reopened at Seventh Avenue and Olive Way, in the Tower Building.

The third is Cannon, a newcomer that replaces Licorous on 12th Avenue in Capitol Hill; the owner is Jamie Boudreau, Vessel’s original barman.

photo/Ronald Holden

¦ Food Network’s “24-Hour Restaurant Challenge” winner Rossella Rago (left), with her local “nonna,” Enza Sorrentino, during last month’s Festa Italiana.

Rossella Rago, a delightful 23-year-old from New Jersey, has a website and TV show called CookingWithNonna.com,which features a string of borrowed nonnas (Italian grandmothers). Her debut on Food Network’s “24-Hour Restaurant Challenge” was with her own mother and grandmother, and she won.

She came to Seattle for last month’s Festa Italiana, where her “nonna” was Enza Sorrentino, owner of Enza Cucina Siciliana. And, because 2011 is the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification, the dish prepared by Nonna Enza was tri-colored gnocchi in the green-white-red colors of the Italian flag.

RONALD HOLDEN is a restaurant writer who blogs at Cornichon.org.