Where to Eat in Seattle Right Now
A plugged-in local food writer on where to find the city’s best seafood, tacos, teriyaki, and more.
When the saltwater air blows off Elliott Bay into Downtown Seattle, it gets tourists dreaming of salmon and oysters. But the real pearls sit beyond the city-center skyscrapers, in neighborhoods where chefs are digging deep into the local bounty—and their own cultures. Seattle’s laid-back restaurant scene gives chefs the freedom to play around, often using the region’s marquee ingredients. One such delicacy is Dungeness crab, the super-tender crustacean caught off the coast, which might get curried and folded into scones, or rendered of its fat, which makes a rich and briny dressing for roasted cabbage.
This genre-bending and boundary-busting makes Seattle an unpretentious food town that harbors surprises at every turn and prioritizes flavor and function over formality. My list of essential local restaurants tells the story of a city in constant flux—and invites you to join in. Whether you wind up tucking into a serrano pepper Caesar salad, toasting with a fish-sauce cocktail, or sharing an order of Ethiopian-spiced green beans at a Halal butcher shop, use this roadmap to plan your culinary adventures. Along the way, you’ll get a true taste of Seattle’s diverse communities.
1508 NE 117th St.
(206) 440-3399
Samuel Ephrem and Menbere Medhane’s Ethiopian restaurant evolved from a butcher shop when customers started asking if the duo could cook Halal beef. It wasn’t long before the ribeye was destined for kitfo (raw chopped beef with spiced butter) and the bone marrow for a stew called kikel. They still bring in fresh local meat and break it down themselves. But the expert butchery can’t explain why their (vegetarian) green beans—heady with caramelized red onion and floral coriander—are such a sleeper hit.
418 Maynard Ave St.
(206) 389-7099
The food and decór at this cash-only Chinatown-International District standby are as straightforward as its name implies. The chatter of elderly couples, the clatter of families serving up soup, and the slurps of solo diners fill the room better than any wall art could. Mike’s light, flavorful broth and needle-thin egg noodles draw lines out the door on weekends. The soup comes in almost 30 varieties, from standard wonton to house-made fish balls with beef brisket. And there are nearly as many styles of dry noodle and congee.
When the pandemic forced drummer Lupe Flores to cancel her shows, she found a new way to entertain audiences: by making them tacos like the ones her Lebanese Mexican grandmother cooked for her as a kid. Fastened shut with toothpicks, the crisp, fried tacos come filled with brown butter beef, garlic mashed potatoes, or harissa cauliflower and cilantro chickpeas. Place your order at the counter, then head to the oilcloth-covered tables, or grab a spot at Tilda’s Bar in the back to wash them down with a “sad girl shot” (el Jimador with a side of Tillamook cheese).
16212 Bothell Everett Hwy.
(425) 225-6420
In 1976, Toshi Kasahara opened a tiny shop near Seattle Center selling his spin on the teriyaki of his childhood in Japan. Filling Styrofoam containers with piles of steamed rice and shiny, crackly-crusted chicken year after year, Kasahara honed and defined Seattle-style teriyaki. When Seattle teriyaki took off, so did Toshi, expanding and franchising until he completely burned out. Now, he’s back to his roots, with a single spot which harks back to the original: small and simple enough that he can run it himself, serving only teriyaki—no extras or ceremony.
Muhammad Fairoz Rashed shapes his pains au chocolat like flowers, dotting each petal of feather-light croissant with semi-sweet chocolate, which ups the ratio of chocolate to pastry. The same attention to detail and innovation fuels the savory specialties, such as the curry crab scones or black truffle goat cheese focaccia served in T55's sleek, minimalist space.
401 N 36th St. Unit 103.
(206) 420-4685
This casual spot specializes in fun and funky seafood lunches. The bounty of the Pacific Northwest's chilly and pristine waters shines through in dishes inspired by Seattle's favorite foods, like the bánh mì filled with ground rockfish and pork patties. Subtle surprises also tweak familiar flavors in the house clam chowder, enriched with clam fat, the “BLT,” which swaps in crispy salmon skin for bacon, and Local Tide’s own “Filet-o-Fish” starring Dover sole.
3220 S Hudson St.
(206) 723-2054
When this Vietnamese pool hall sprung up off Martin Luther King Jr. Way in 1986, Seattle barely knew its bánh mì from its bún thịt nướng. But today, locals line up at Billiard Hoang for both those dishes, plus soups and rice and noodle bowls. The latter come topped with tender short ribs or puffy fried tofu, which pair well with either Vietnamese coffee or beer, no matter the time of day.
4725 California Avenue SW.
(206) 935-4339
Seattle has an outstanding sushi scene, but Mashiko stands out for being the first established sushi restaurant in the country committed to serving only sustainable seafood. Those limitations elevated the skills and resourcefulness of the chefs, who have created a thrilling menu centered on offbeat species like spot prawns, geoduck, and herring.
1210 South Bailey St.
(206) 466-6032
In the casual, low-slung brick dining room in Georgetown, chef Johnny Sullivan’s high-end, Northwest-inflected Italian cooking turns out seasonal gems such as tender asparagus cloaked in bagna cauda sauce, burrata draped over sweet grated carrots, and Dungeness crab pappardelle. Upgrade the experience by booking the Nonnakase: a tasting menu that brings diners face to face with the chefs as they cook.
11805 Renton Ave S Suite C
(206) 906-9331
When Salima’s Restaurant closed in 2009, the region’s significant Cham population lost its community gathering point—and Salima Mohamath’s bold peanut sauce. For those unfamiliar, the cuisine of these Indigenous people of Southeast Asia is a blend of local and Islamic cuisines. At the new Salima Specialties, which opened in 2022, expect Malaysian-style satay, rich lamb curry, and Vietnamese sandwiches with housemade Halal chicken “ham”—plus that killer peanut sauce.
3513 Stone Way N
(425) 524-1604
Elmer Komagata made his name cooking in L.A.’s fine dining restaurants in the 1980s, then spent decades running hotel kitchens in Mexico. But he always dreamed of something smaller, like the tiny ramen cart parked inside Figurehead Brewing’s Stone Way Taproom. The concept is modeled after yatai, the evening mobile food stands he remembers from growing up in Japan. His balanced ramen is a testament to decades spent cooking and studying French, Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese cuisines; it combines Chinese preserved vegetables and ground chicken breast, while the noodles are specially made for Midnite and parboiled to his specifications, so they cook in 15 seconds. Round out the meal with gyoza, sushi, or yakitori from one of the other stands.
In this quiet Ravenna neighborhood kitchen, there’s always something cooking that will grab your attention: a cheese plate with housemade queso fresco wrapped in hoja santa, perhaps, or scallop aguachile with sorrel and watermelon radish. These dishes embody chef Janet Becerra’s skills and Mexican heritage, and take inspiration from Mexico City’s top restaurants while using the Pacific Northwest’s finest ingredients. Tortilla connoisseurs will appreciate that Becerra nixtamalizes all the corn in house for her tacos and antojitos, choosing each heirloom corn variety specifically for each dish.
2510 1st Avenue
(206) 375-4557
The beachy vibe, rum-heavy cocktail list, and bright flavors make this Afro Latino restaurant feel as if it were dropped in from Puerto Rico—whose cuisine looms large on the menu. Big, crispy slices of rolled lechón; an oversized empanada stuffed with pollo guisado; and mustard greens in coconut potlikker with housemade sazón are emblematic of chef Jhonny Reyes’ upbringing in Spanish Harlem and South Seattle. Don’t miss his interpretation of bistec encebollado, which starts with a flavorful bavette steak and comes with caramelized onion soubise.
Sophon is Karuna Long’s ode to his Khmer heritage. It’s named for his mother, a Cambodian refugee who helped create pop-up dinners at his craft cocktail bar down the street, Oliver’s Twist. Those events have since evolved into this full-service restaurant, an immersive experience and education in Khmer (and Khmerican) art, history, and cuisine. Dishes rely heavily on kroeung, the lemongrassy traditional herb paste that graces everything from fried chicken marinade to aïoli to chile oil. Each of the eclectic cocktails—the khlang, made with brie-washed rye, and the hel, made with sesame oil and fish sauce—come with language lessons in the form of its name. The non-alcoholic vetomon describes the whole restaurant: magic.
If you giggled at the punny name of this tiny slip of a restaurant, you might just be enough of a food nerd to appreciate the equally tiny (and always changing) menu. (Offal being animal organs, and the back facing onto an alley.) Chef Evan Leichtling fuses hyper-seasonal Pacific Northwest ingredients into dishes rooted in Western European techniques, but without any clear adherence to tradition or convention. There’s just one row of bar seats facing a narrow counter on a brick wall, but somehow that’s enough space to enjoy crab-fat-bathed roasted Caraflex cabbage, rabbit kidneys on toast, and just-cracked uni still in its shell served with Meyer lemon kosho and brioche. To wash it down, pick something fun from Meghna Prakash’s handwritten list of low-intervention wines.
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