Strolling through Seattle is a bit like watching an epic battle between art and commerce play out in real time, set against one of America’s most stunning natural backdrops. Homegrown corporate giants like Microsoft and Amazon may grab the headlines, but the city’s creative cred hasn’t been optimized out of town. Musicians still compose, art walks draw crowds, and craft brewers repeatedly up their game. Meanwhile, a revamped waterfront serves as the city’s new front porch, and a major light rail expansion across Lake Washington includes a first-of-its kind rail route set atop a floating bridge.
In dining, the biggest ideas often start small, and reinvention is a constant. Pop-ups that built followings during the pandemic have leveled up to brick-and-mortar locations. Butcher shops and bakeries have spun off into full-service restaurants. And the talent pool continues to grow—it’s the sort of town where chefs relocate purely for the ingredients.
Puget Sound offers a portal to incredible seafood, from pristine Pacific salmon to the oyster beds along Hood Canal. East of the city, vast orchards and fertile farmland yield a new microseason of crops every few weeks. Meanwhile, local grain, grown in the north, has powered some incredible new bakeries, not to mention a pizza renaissance.
High-profile restaurants still keep things casual, while unassuming spots nail the details with the ferocity of a Michelin-starred kitchen. Seattle has its own way of doing things. And just when you think you’ve figured out what to expect, everything upends once again. Here’s a practical guide of where to dine right now.
Morning
Start strong with Japanese American flavors and contemporary Vietnamese fare.
The black sesame rhubarb tart at The Wayland Mill.
Photo by Ellary Collins
On the shore of Portage Bay, a line of perpetual fans waits each morning for the croissants and breakfast sandwiches at Saint Bread. Just a little farther up the lakeshore, co-owner Yasuaki Saito’s new spot laces its breakfast menu with Japanese ingredients and Americana swagger. And, unlike Saint Bread, there’s indoor seating at The Wayland Mill. You can drop into this all-day café for a shio miso caramel mocha and an amaretto and espresso canelé from the pastry case, but a full meal is the best way to experience the spot’s knack for memorable culture collision, like petite buttermilk biscuits swimming in a miso-chasu gravy.
Don’t Miss: It’s hard to pass up the showier plates, but the Japanese-American Breakfast offers a range of sensory pleasures—a silky tamago omelet, teriyaki-glazed slab of Canadian bacon, and a slice of Saint Bread’s flawless shokupan with jam. If the shoyu peanut butter icebox pie is in the pastry case, order it, no matter the time of day.
A quince sorbet at Ramie.
Photo by Andrew Valantine
After dazzling Seattle with a dinner menu of hyper-contemporary Vietnamese fare, siblings Trinh and Thai Nguyen turned their attention to brunch—with a little help from their mother and her recipes. Evenings are for pushing boundaries, but brunch embraces classic dishes like a bánh mì with pork meatballs and a hearty plate of cơm tấm, a classic dish of broken rice with a resplendent pork chop. Not that everything’s rustic—take the pommes pavé, which started out as an amuse-bouche on Ramie’s refined dinner menu. (Dipping silken squares of potato in whipped cream cheese is an indisputably elegant way to start the day.) The immaculate lineup of laminated pastries, like a pandan cream croissant, is similarly finessed. The drink menu gets in on the fun with a lineup of matcha creations and Vietnamese coffees made with condensed milk, whipped egg yolk, or coconut cream.
Don’t Miss: The shrimp cake Benedict topped with XO sauce beurre blanc atop rounds of laminated croissant dough, preferably with a condensed milk and egg coffee.
Lunch
Travel from the Middle East to Italy without leaving Seattle.
Roasted cauliflower, apricot amba, caramelized shallot labneh, aleppo chile oil, sesame crumble, and sorrel at Café Suliman.
Photo by StarChefs | Alexander Zeren
Most of Ahmed Suliman’s restaurant career happened front of house, at lauded places like Homer and Sitka & Spruce. A pandemic shift to cooking yielded this charming café, tucked in a stall inside the vintage timbered charm of Melrose Market. Suliman’s original vision was making food for a chill wine bar; the café shares space with natural wine purveyor Cantina Sauvage. But his menu drew crowds (and James Beard attention) and gave the space an energy all its own. Here, Northwest ingredients give expression to flavors from across the Arab world, layered with herbs and acid and spice. The menu by Suliman—Sudanese by heritage but raised in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates—features snacks, toasts, and dips, plus a handful of elegantly hearty mains, like a black cod roasted in yogurt and tahini. Cantina Sauvage owner Marc Papineau has a particular talent for matching natural wines to Suliman’s bold flavors.
Don’t Miss: The pair of toasts on the menu present detail-oriented bursts of flavor atop thick slabs of sourdough from Cantina Sauvage owner Marc Papineau A version topped with roasted cauliflower fizzes and pops with spiced labneh and a relish of olives, and pickled sultanas.
A sandwich with pancetta, burrata, Pecorino, roasted walnuts, balsamic glaze, and arugula from Bottega Gabriele.
Photo Courtesy of Bottega Gabriele
The handwritten sign on the cooler, extolling the glories of bottarga, is your first hint that Bottega Gabriele’s Italian bona fides run deep. The second clue: a menu of focaccia sandwiches, brimming with nduja, prosciutto, and delicate mortadella, all tucked and layered with the finesse of croissant pastry. An importer and chef duo—both originally from Italy, both named Gabriele—run this scrappy Italian deli on one of Seattle’s oldest blocks in Pioneer Square. Outside, seagulls caw and commuters zip into the ferry terminal across Alaskan Way. Inside, the two Gabriels call orders back and forth in Italian. Seattle’s seen a mini-wave of Italian sandwiches of late, a movement that’s raised the city’s collective consciousness of what good focaccia should look like. Bottega Gabriele fills its delicately crusted squares with hyper-classic Italian flavors and slightly modernized combos of those ingredients.
Don’t Miss: The nduja sandwich adds a hearty swipe of spreadable pork to a hearty stack of capocollo, salami, tapenade, artichokes, and Pecorino. The spicy Calabrian salume comes from just two doors down, where Nduja Bella, a generations-old Italian company, has set up its stateside production.
Afternoon Snack
Head to Pike Place Market for some punchy ginger beer or next-level gelato.
A cup of vanilla malt ice cream from Hellenika Cultured Creamery in Pike Place Market.
Photo Courtesy of Hellenika Cultured Creamery
For years, Seattle’s waterfront was isolated and written off as a tourist trap thanks to a double-decker highway that cleaved it from the rest of the city. When the roadway came down in 2019, the city started rekindling its relationship with the sights and sounds of the piers. Visitors to Pike Place Market can fortify themselves with a bracing to-go cup at Rachel’s Ginger Beer or a scoop of cultured gelato from Hellenika Cultured Creamery, a nearly intellectual alternative to ice cream, before crossing the new pedestrian-only Overlook Walk. Its swoops and stairs deposit you in the heart of Waterfront Park, home to enormous adult-size swings, a playground shaped like a giant jellyfish, the expanded Seattle Aquarium, public art galore, and the chill new Pioneer Square Habitat Beach, which offers respite for both humans and juvenile salmon moving along their migration corridor.
Dinner
Two different but delightful takes on British-inflected cuisine.
A seasonal pork chop with sautéed red cabbage from Mio Oh Mio.
Photo by Sea Creatures
There’s a formula to a good Renee Erickson restaurant, even if her Sea Creatures restaurant group runs a wide range of venues. Take a spot loaded with historic charm, add great art, local oysters, and a menu that celebrates Northwest produce and some delicious corner of Europe. The James Beard-winning chef’s latest follows the playbook, and yet it’s an entirely new thing. Mio Oh Mio’s 30-seat dining room is one of three projects fitted into RailSpur, a complex of revitalized warehouses across from the city’s stadiums. This time, the menu touches down in London by way of Italy, serving dishes like black cod with melted leeks and a pork chop with creamed nettles and spinach. The restaurant adds culinary heft to a neighborhood often geared toward sports (the name is an Italian translation of a legendary Seattle Mariners sportscaster’s signature phrase) and shares its windowed space with two other new Sea Creatures projects, a brewpub and a slice bar.
Don’t Miss: Chef de cuisine Ryan Hatleberg’s Guinness bread, crunchy on the outside, spongy within, and even better with liberal smears of salty butter.
The lamb korma meat pie from Little Beast at Hotel Ballard.
Photo Courtesy of Little Beast
Kevin Smith is a butcher—the sort of butcher who serves after-hours tasting menus in his shop and makes competition-level pâté en croute, molded loaves of pâté baked into ornamented pastry. In short, he had more ideas and abilities than could fit inside his butcher shop, Beast & Cleaver. Enter this pubby restaurant in the heart of Ballard. Yes, there are steaks, a chalkboard lineup of dry-aged trophy cuts alongside lesser-known pleasures like toro or zabuton. But Smith’s British heritage inspires lots of meat-wrapped-in-pastry moments, like the unmissable lamb neck korma meat pie and Scotch eggs. It’s unlikely anyone would recommend this place to a vegetarian, though the kitchen does do exceptional things with seasonal produce. The 120-day bone-in porterhouse isn’t the only celebrity on premises. Nelson Daquip, who won a James Beard Award running the wine program at Canlis, now handles the bar and front of house.
Don’t Miss: If the London Royal is on the chalkboard, don’t miss a chance to see how proper preparation (and a skillet full of hot butter) can transform a top round, that humble cut known for being too tough. Also, it bears repeating, that lamb neck korma meat pie.
Post-Dinner
Still hungry? Late-night tacos are calling your name.
The vampiro from Tacos Cometa with carne asada, Chihuahua cheese, cabbage, tomato, and red onion.
Photo by Vlack Media
This taco stand turned taqueria in the heart of Seattle’s bar zone stays open until 2 a.m. on weekends in a city that tends to go home early. But don’t call it drunk food. Brothers Rey and Osiel Gastelum make Sinaloa-style tacos piled with grilled steak. Each plate reflects their upbringing, but also a combined background working in Michelin-starred kitchens like San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn and other cuisine destinations in Beverly Hills and Paris. Tacos Cometa’s brick-and-mortar evolution is kiosk-order casual, but the aproned crew grills and plates with the focus of an elite fine dining team. The open kitchen puts out three items—tacos, vampiros, and quesadillas, all dressed with finely chopped cabbage and onion and a bright tomato sauce. The menu lists the meat choices as “Carne asada, that’s it.” But one bite of that primally exquisite beef—grilled over mesquite and too pure of flavor to require any marinade—and you’ll understand why nobody’s complaining. (There’s also a mushroom-based filling for vegetarians.)
Don’t Miss: Even on a menu with just three items, it can be hard to decide. Hit the menu button for The Perfect Order and you’ll get one of each.
Bonus Side Quest
Seattle’s otherworldly pizza moment isn’t to be missed.
The pepperoni pizza at A.K. Pizza.
Photo Daquan Terrence
Everyone in Seattle is raving about A.K. Pizza. At least, everyone who has sat poised over their keyboard, at 11:59 a.m. and clicked the Order Here button fast enough to score a preorder as soon as the second hand hits noon. Pizza seekers have 30 seconds—maybe—before they’re all spoken for. Enjoying one of Alex Kim’s pies requires a level of commitment usually reserved for sneaker drops or Oasis reunion tickets, and rightly so. Kim previously made pizza at Oxbow, a top-flight bread bakery in Montlake. His pies at A.K. have a crisped base and perimeter ringed by a triumphantly charred crust that’s pillowy soft within. Sauce: restrained. Toppings: classic, usually with a final shower of Parmesan. If all this sounds eye-roll-inducing, take note that the pies’ scarcity isn’t a form of elitism, or a McRib-style marketing gimmick. Kim’s one-man production capacity taps out at 60 per day. And truly, the challenge of procuring A.K. Pizza makes victory taste even better. For those who aren’t so lucky, his Othello storefront sells another prize just to walk-ups—a craggy behemoth of a chocolate chip cookie that’s almost more chocolate than cookie. Come early before they sell out.
