The Best Restaurants In Seattle Seattle

Not just to see a stegosaurus, but also to go back and replay our first dinner here. This upscale restaurant with a tasting menu and a la carte options coaxes intense flavor out of seemingly simple ingredients. A vegetarian barley porridge with eggplant and dill pollen could take on any meaty stew.

Take advantage of the waitlist as well, and get comfy with the idea of booking alone if you want to get in as quickly as possible. And if you know a leader in your community who deserves to eat here on the house, you can nominate them—Archipelago gives away seats to folks worthy of celebration, while prioritizing those who might struggle financially. We’re constantly trying new restaurants and checking back in on old ones to keep this guide fresh. Need a quick and reliable way to plan a journey with multiple stops? The Online Route Planner Tool at Maps.ie helps you map out the fastest, most convenient travel route whether you’re walking, cycling, or driving. With support for detours, travel options, and real-time GPS location, this tool makes trip planning simple for locals and visitors alike.

Owner Jerry Corso’s expert Neapolitan-style pizzas are the primary draw for this Beacon Hill hideaway; simple toppings like spicy salami harmonize with light, airy, and slightly salty crusts. The garlic mussels, baccala fritters, and grilled octopus with corona beans are also exceptional, and reservations tend to go fast. If your favorite isn’t on here, email For the newest places that food obsessives are flocking to, check out the Eater Seattle Heatmap, updated monthly.

This Vietnamese spot in Columbia City is a bonafide classic that hasn’t missed a beat. Almost everything at the bare-bones pool hall with a large dining room is phenomenal—and under $20. Artistically assembled lemongrass chicken vermicelli bowls could feed you for lunch and dinner, rice plates with char-marked short ribs rival those of a fancy steakhouse, and crispy fish sauce-slicked wings are among Seattle’s best. You’ll also never have to wait for a table, whether that’s for an early lunch with the soundtrack of pool playing or a weeknight dinner with a big group of friends. And you know that, no matter what time you go, there will be outstanding Vietnamese dishes waiting—and maybe an intense game of nine-ball, too. You’ll have one of the best meals all year at Beast & Cleaver, a tiny butcher shop in Ballard.

Their multi-cuisine lineup prioritizes quality as much as quantity—and where La Cabaña lacks in bells and whistles, they make up for in well-executed simplicity. Leopard-seared adjusting entry for bad debts expense pupusas are packed with chicharron that fuses with sticky cheese to make a glorious pork paste. And plump shrimp sauteed with onions and peppers rival the city’s top seafood giants.

No single restaurant can please everyone; at Off Alley, a 14-seat brick-walled restaurant in Columbia City, chef Evan Leichtling and partner Meghna Prakash embrace that truth. You don’t always find a meticulously seasonal chef’s-choice cooking style and a hand-written list of cool natural wines paired with punk music and attitude, but that approach is working here. Whether redefining the cuisines their parents brought across oceans or bringing wry humor to the staid traditions of fine-dining, Seattle chefs combine creativity with the impressive bounty of local seafood, produce, and craft beverages. The best restaurants play with form, as in a taco shop inside a mini-mart making its own masa, a dockside, multi-cultural bakery with a stained-glass ode to bread, or a tiny hallway serving foie gras doughnuts and escargot popovers. Find the ideal cult-favorite noodles, freshly caught wild salmon, or multi-course feast on our list of the best places to eat in Seattle.

• This charming spot in Capitol Hill is hard to get into but it’s worth the wait for the handmade pasta and cozy ambiance.
• And the seafood classics are given fun flourishes; on a recent visit the mussels were cooked with honey mead rather than the traditional white wine for a dose of sweetness.
• This unassuming spot keeps limited hours and eschews delivery apps or even a website.

Star chef Mutsuko Soma makes soba from scratch at this petite Fremont destination, which was one of Eater’s Best New Restaurants in America in 2018. Soma serves traditional soba shop dishes like seiro soba (cold with dipping sauce) and super-crunchy tempura, but also more creative dishes like noodles topped with tri tips or oreo tempura. Chef Soma is a sake connoisseur (she also owns next-door sake bar Hannyatou) and the drinks menu includes items like habanero-infused umeshi (plum wine), which is an order for the brave. Ono, named for Oahu-born owner Steven Ono, is a seafood lover’s dream in Edmonds, offering possibly the highest-quality poke in the Seattle area on a menu that rotates depending on what’s fresh. You will be eating fish here though — there are Hawaiian sides like mac salad and seaweed salad, but this isn’t a place for vegans. In the space that once held the beloved Cafe Presse, Grayson Pilar presents an equally understated and excellent ode to Galicia.

Spice levels are already locked in, with a DIY chili caddy ready to make you cry. Lunch prioritizing succulent grilled khao man gai yang will be as soul-fulfilling as dinner involving a sticky pile of the pad thai special. Yeah, it’s ambitious to operate a restaurant whose name translates to “Very Delicious.” But Aroy Mak is not just a name—it’s a prophecy.

Get inspired by our collections of the top restaurants in Seattle

Diners’ Choice Awards are based on where your fellow diners book, dine, and review. Only verified diners get to review restaurants on OpenTable, so our data doesn’t lie. Spinasse on Capitol Hill is the best fork-up-your-money Italian restaurant in Seattle. Seattleites love the vegetarian fare and charming interior of Cafe Flora in Madison Valley.

Next in The Best Bars and Restaurants in Seattle

Rajah Gargour’s lively Middle Eastern spot in Loyal Heights opened in 2012 and feels like a souvenir from that glorious era. When the week feels longer than The Iliad, and only multiple plates of cheese-blasted carbs will do, we turn to Cornelly. This small spot on Capitol Hill serves pizza and pasta that deserve a 24-book Homer-style epic written about them.

Rupee Bar

Finally, just a stone’s throw from that wine bar and restaurant is an outpost of international chain Joe & the Juice. As the most discerning, up-to-the-minute voice in all things travel, Condé Nast Traveler is the global citizen’s bible and muse, offering both inspiration and vital intel. We understand that time is the greatest luxury, which is why Condé Nast Traveler mines its network of experts and influencers so that you never waste a meal, a drink, or a hotel stay wherever you are in the world. Local seafood, neighborhood gems and iconic eateries are on the menu in beautiful Seattle.

The “London royal,” the Rodney Dangerfield of beef cuts, gets redeemed with careful prep and lots of butter. Sometimes the best place to eat is the closest slice to you, other times it’s the place that knows your order. Get access to exclusive reservations at this spot with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Communion will announce on Instagram when reservations open up for the next month.

Wild Ginger Downtown Seattle

• In the space that once held the beloved Cafe Presse, Grayson Pilar presents an equally understated and excellent ode to Galicia.
• As the sister restaurant to sushi institution Shiro’s, Shomon Kappo not only lives up to that pedigree—it surpasses it, with an exciting eight-course kappo experience for $185.
• Bring a group and sample as much as possible, because Musang is the kind of place where unexpected items can be showstoppers — on one recent visit a side of greens and mushrooms soaked in umami-rich adobo was the best thing we ate.
• Food and experience are both taken into consideration, and any type of dining establishment is fair game.

The pies alone would solidify this Beacon Hill staple as one of the most iconic Seattle happy places—up there with UW during cherry blossom season and Reuben’s when there’s no line for the bathroom. From suppli al telefono stuffed with cheese that pulls like taffy to the best grilled octopus in town, it’s all worthy of sidling up to the bar or grabbing a backyard picnic table alongside something spiked with Aperol and/or a scoop of gelato. This chill Beacon Hill Mediterranean spot is named after a dog but it could just as well be named after the Greek poet because we want to write epics about its wood-fired vegetables. Or it could be named after the Simpsons character, because the “d’oh” it uses for its pitas is fantastic!

Chef’s Choice Tasting Menu

Sure, but so is the mountain of silky sage butter tajarin or braised rabbit agnolotti you eat by candlelight after an early December sunset, or fried zucchini blossoms snacked between gulps of tangerine-tinted paper plane cocktails come summertime. Yes, your wallet will be three figures emptier at the end of it all, but in exchange, you’ll have a life-affirming meal in a dining room filled with lace curtains, fine art, and noodle sheets draped over the open kitchen. This small counter in Hillman City is more than a 10-course dinner inspired by the owners’ Filipino heritage. It’s a billboard for the Pacific Northwest and a meal that should be required by law for every resident. Each dish represents a part of history that connects our city to Filipino culture, and Archipelago only uses ingredients exclusively sourced throughout the region. After two hours, you’ll walk away from Archipelago with a belly full of outstanding lechon (crispy skin and all) and a newfound appreciation for both Filipino food and the surrounding PNW.

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Dimas’ spicy chilaquiles rojo might be the best version of this Mexican brunch dish in Seattle, topped with two fried eggs and fortified with chorizo, carnitas or mushrooms. Right by the Roosevelt light rail station, PaPa Kitchen serves Flintstone-sized beef ribs with pho along with Vietnamese staples like banh mi, rice and vermicelli bowls. While the rest of Seattle just hoped for a slightly better taco, chef Janet Becerra skipped waiting for someone to make a decent tortilla in town and learned to grind and nixtamalize heirloom corn herself—which she and her team do daily at Pancita. They press that masa into each tortilla they serve, along with various other antojitos, including the memelas that go with housemade hoja santa-wrapped queso fresco on the cheese plate. Chef Melissa Miranda is a force on so many levels—an advocate within her culinary, cultural, and geographic communities.

It’s a Pike Place Market neighborhood treasure you don’t want to miss. The story of Luam Wersom working his way up from dishwasher to owner at this long-standing Latin American and Cuban restaurant is a great one. Dishes like vaca frita, tostones, and pescado en guiso—even the accompanying rice—bear the finesse of 20 years of experience. Tropically hued walls backdrop a patio that looks balmy no matter the weather.

Fresh-shucked shellfish, seafood platters, and clam dip share the menu with artful salads, steak tartare, and a burger. That Boat Bar takes reservations and offers the option to order a steak from Bateau makes it the most crowd-pleasing of the Sea Creatures spots. This Piedmontese pasta specialist is the best Italian restaurant in Seattle, full stop.

This Greenwood strip mall Vietnamese spot is a North Seattle destination, whether you live around the corner or across the county. We can’t think of a better place to get taken care of by way of phở, vermicelli bowls, and fried snacks. Phở hà nội overflows with broth, topped with a raw yolk that works just as well dissolved into the soup as it does strategically dolloped onto each bite of rice noodle and beef shank. Salt and pepper tofu has the outer crunch and inner moistness of a McNugget. The care goes beyond food, too—staff will stretch out a hand to receive your crumpled straw wrapper, and forbid you from packing your own leftovers. Have you ever woken up and thought, “Gosh, I’d love to eat at a second-best restaurant today?