Restaurants in Seattle
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A
5 Spot
In Upper Queen Anne, everyone’s favorite breakfast and hangover diner is the 5 Spot. Good strong coffee keeps the staff ultraperky. Try a local legend, like the red flannel hash ($9.50), or get crazy with the wild-salmon cakes. On weekends, go early to avoid the lines snaking out the door – or go for lunch or dinner; this is an excellent place for a quiet meal featuring good American cooking.
reviewed
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B
Bizzarro
With a name like Bizzarro you’d never guess that this Wallingford hotbed is an excellent neighborhood Italian cafe. When you learn that it’s actually someone’s garage crammed with kitschy art and weird antiques, the name makes sense. Deliciously buttery pasta dishes, a good wine list and frequent live music add to the experience.
reviewed
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C
Salumi
Sure, you’ll have to wait in line. This is Mario Batali’s dad’s place, after all. But the line to get a Salumi sandwich is like its own little community. People chat, compare notes, talk about sandwiches they’ve had and loved…it’s nice. When you finally get in the door of this long, skinny shopfront, you’re further teased by display cases of hanging meats and cheeses. Sandwiches come with any of a dozen types of cured meat and a handful of fresh cheese on a hunk of bread – you can’t go wrong. There’s only a couple of seats, so be prepared to picnic. On Tuesdays, family members hand-roll gnocchi in the window.
reviewed
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D
Black Bottle
The huge crowd congregating outside the front door of this new Belltown restaurant is your first clue that something interesting is happening inside. The menu has a lot more clues: octopus carpaccio, lemon-caper-squid salad, saffron risotto cakes, eggplant-mozzarella flatbread. It’s a spartanly decorated but warm-looking space, with friendly service and a chic atmosphere. Reservations are accepted, and might be a good idea if you want to avoid a wait.
reviewed
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E
Agua Verde Café
On the shores of Portage Bay at the southern base of University Avenue, Agua Verde Café is a little gem that overlooks the bay and serves fat tacos full of lemony cod, shellfish or portabella mushrooms, plus other Mexican favorites. There’s usually a wait for a table, but you can have a drink and wait on the deck, or order from the walkup window. You can rent kayaks in the same building, in case you want to work off your dinner.
reviewed
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F
La Carta de Oaxaca
This lively place serves the cuisine of Oaxaca, particularly black mole sauce – try the mole negro Oaxaqueno, the house specialty. You can sample the same stuff on tamales or go for a combination of various small plates. Seating is mostly picnic-style, and there’s a full bar – handy considering there’s usually a wait for a table.
reviewed
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G
Pink Door Ristorante
Beloved for its atmosphere at least as much as its food, the Pink Door is an old-school favorite – on a nice evening, stopping for dinner and drinks on the deck overlooking the market is hard to beat. The menu is traditional Italian, and the vegetarian lasagne comes highly recommended.
reviewed
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Alki Bakery
This is a great place to grab a coffee and pastry, then sit down at a window seat to partake of the bakery’s free wi-fi connection while digging your beach-front view. Cinnamon rolls and cookies reign supreme, but you can also get takeout sandwiches and salads to eat on the beach.
reviewed
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Spud Fish & Chips
The competition is fierce over which Alki institution has the best fish and chips, here or Sunfish. (Why not try both?) Spud gets the tourist vote, with its crisp, beachy interior, friendly staff and large portions of fried fish, clam strips and oysters.
reviewed
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Le Pichet
This tiny French café, bistro and wine bar is elegant and tasteful, and yet it’s casual enough to quickly become a favorite haunt. The menu features traditional French cuisine without the aorta-clogging heaviness that this often implies. Breakfast is simple and delicious, and small snack plates of olives, almonds or various rillettes (potted meats) are available all day. For a treat, order the roasted chicken with celery and potatoes ($34); it’s made only on request and takes an hour, but is worth the wait.
reviewed
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K
Beth’s Café
The best – or at least biggest – hangover breakfast in the world is at Beth’s, and you can get it all day long. Key words: all-you-can-eat hash browns. You can’t smoke in here anymore, which, depending on your view, either ruins everything or makes it possible to enjoy Beth’s infamous 12-egg omelet while breathing. Feel free to contribute a piece of scribbled artwork to the wall, preferably one that’s strongly pro- or anti-pirate.
reviewed
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Ivar’s Acres of Clams
Ivar Haglund was a beloved local character famous for silly promotional slogans (‘Keep clam!’), but he sure knew how to fry up fish and chips. Ivar’s is a Seattle institution that started in 1938. Forgo the dining room for the outdoor lunch counter; the chaotic ordering system involves a lot of yelling, but it seems to work, and then you can enjoy your clam strips or fish and chips outdoors on the pier.
reviewed
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Macrina
You might have to wait in line, especially if you want to sit at a table, but as soon as you bite into your breakfast roll or lemon lavender coffeecake, you won’t care. Macrina makes some of the city’s best artisan bread and decadent snacks.
reviewed
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N
Skycity
Balanced on top of the Space Needle, this revolving restaurant makes a full turn every 47 minutes. The steep prices reflect both the setting (all tables have a full city view) and the fine dining incorporating fresh ecofriendly ingredients.
reviewed
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O
La Isla
What started as a food stand at Fremont Sunday Market has become this always-packed little cafe, offering possibly the only Puerto Rican cuisine in the area. As a starter, try the empanadillas ($4), little fried dough pockets filled with your choice of shrimp, pulled pork, garlicky potatoes, cheese, tofu, chicken or beef. Better yet, go for the appetizer platter ($9.99), which lets you also sample the salted cod fritters and the alcapurria, made with plantains and green bananas. The enormous pernil (pulled pork) platter ($15) has a huge pile of juicy meat alongside saucy rice, beans, avocados and cheese, plus a couple of piquant sauces. It’s hard to beat – you’ll be eatin…
reviewed
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Steelhead Diner
‘Highbrow diner’ sounds like an oxymoron, but the Steelhead does it right – hearty, homey favorites like fish and chips, buffalomeatloaf or pork rib chops become fine cuisine because they’re made with the best of what Pike Place Market has to offer and paired with cleverly chosen sides. ‘Sequimbled Eggs’ (named after Sequim Bay, known for its crab and oysters) come poached over Dungeness crab on toast; a fried-chicken sandwich is fall-apart moist and lemony; and the crab cakes make local foodies swoon. The place is all windows, which is great considering it’s perched right over the market and Elliott Bay, and decorations include tied flies in glass. Reservations are recom…
reviewed
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Q
Georgian
A treat above treats, the Georgian at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel is one of the most imposing restaurants in the city – the ornate high ceilings and dripping chandeliers, shiny silver and gilt details will have you swooning. The food is equally eye-catching and inspired by regional ingredients, such as scallops with truffles or roasted sea bass. Service is tops, and it’s one of the few places where Seattleites tend to be sharply dressed; jackets aren’t required but they’re certainly not discouraged. Reservations are recommended. Bargain-hunters or those short of time should try the express lunch, which includes soup, salad, sandwich and dessert delivered all at once.…
reviewed
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Café Presse
This dreamy new cafe, opened by the owners of the cute French bistro Le Pichet, specializes in unfussy dishes the likes of which you’d find once upon a time in a terrace cafe around Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The croque monsieur and madame are huge slabs of creamy goodness, steak frites are perfectly cooked and filling, and the vegetables are fresh and crispy. There’s a handful of outdoor tables outside the beautiful cafe-bar; a long list of aperitifs and digestifs adds to the classy Euro feel. The cafe’s adorable servers seem to have been hired based on their resemblance to Jean Seberg in Breathless.
reviewed
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S
FX McRory’s Steak, Chop & Oyster House
This vast Pioneer Square landmark across from the sports stadiums is a weird blend of class and ass – it’s a majestic old space with a bar on one side, a fancy dining room on the other and an oyster bar in between, but the ball-cap/jock quotient gets high on days when the Seahawks or Mariners play. McRory’s claims to have the largest selection of bourbon in the world – believable when you ogle the pyramid of booze behind the bar. Tuck into classic fare like prime rib or Dungeness crab, or share a seafood platter of oysters on the half-shell, smoked salmon, prawns, crab, Penn Cove mussels and scallops.
reviewed
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Palace Kitchen
Owned by the Dahlia’s Tom Douglas, the Palace is a see-and-be-seen hotspot that really picks up for the late-night cocktail scene. Daily dinner specials present such wonders as spaetzle-stuffed pumpkin or traditional pork loin. Snack on appetizers – including a smoked-salmon-and-blue-cheese terrine or a sampler plate of regional cheeses – or go for the whole shebang with grilled trout, leg of lamb or roasted chicken with blackberries and nectarines. There’s a late-night happy hour starting at 11pm that includes barbecued short ribs and other awesome deals ($4 to $5), plus drink specials.
reviewed
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Cicchetti
The sister restaurant to Serafina, and right round the corner, Cicchetti has a small kitchen built around a wood-fired brick oven and a menu of Mediterranean-influenced snack plates that, in combination, add up to an immensely satisfying meal. Try the Turkish fried-eggplant sandwich with feta and tomato sauce ($7), the perfectly roasted asparagus (if it’s in season; $6), and anything with lamb – a recent dish of Moroccan-spiced shredded lamb with lentils and harissa yogurt ($15) blew us away. The cocktail list is stellar, too – never did Bitter Tears taste so sweet.
reviewed
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FareStart Restaurant
FareStart serves substantial meals that benefit the community. The constantly changing lunch menu is pretty darn gourmet for the price – try the veggie reuben, or a flatiron steak in blue-cheese sauce. All proceeds from lunch and the popular Thursday-night Guest Chef dinners – when FareStart students work with a famous local chef to produce outstanding meals – go to support the FareStart program, which provides intensive job training, housing assistance and job placement for disadvantaged and homeless people. Reservations are strongly recommended for dinner.
reviewed
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Tilth
The only ingredients on chef Maria Hines’s menu that aren’t organic are those found in the wild – like mushrooms and seafood. Everything else, from asparagus to cheese, is carefully selected to meet certified-organic standards and prepared in a manner that preserves its essence. Try the mini duck burgers, made with the first organically raised ducks in Washington. Servers in the small restaurant are unpretentious and friendly, and will gamely answer any questions about the food or wine. Reservations are recommended; there’s also a small bar in the corner.
reviewed
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X
Globe Café & Bakery
We’re not even vegetarian and we’d still go miles out of our way for the Globe’s incredibly rich vegan food, especially the tempeh-and-yam gyros dripping with onions and tahini sauce. It’s an industrial gallery-type space with a huge comic-book panel on the ceiling, giant Plexiglas bookplates hanging like curtains between low booths, funky art on the walls, and a ragtag clientele of workmen, young punks, homeless people and middle-aged intellectual poets. Hipster boys in an open kitchen churn out tofu scrambles, french toast and sandwiches to die for.
reviewed
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Y
Sitka & Spruce
Now in a new location in the Capitol Hill ‘hood, this small-plates fine-diner has won acclaim for its casual vibe, constantly changing menu, good wine selection and involved chef-owner (he’ll be the guy who brings bread to your table). All the ingredients are obtained from local producers, and the idea is to assemble a meal out of a bunch of different taster-size dishes. Only a few reservations are accepted each night, and the wait can be long, so grab yourself a beer and spend some time studying the chalkboard menu until it’s your turn.
reviewed
