Seattleites are serious about their favorite neighborhood haunts, places they return to for consistently great flavors, warm service, and charming quirks.
Locals know to ask for a scrambled egg on top of the pork banh mi at a longstanding Vietnamese pool hall in Columbia City. Or that Sundays mean a no-decision-required chef’s choice menu, featuring skewers and mezze, at a homey Lebanese cafe in Ballard. And while tourists line up at the waterfront in search of Seattle’s best seafood, residents head to a spot in Fremont for top-notch grilled mackerel salad and barbecued octopus.
Meet 12 Emerald City spots worthy of repeat visits. Read on to book a table at these beloved local restaurants now.
Art of the Table (Wallingford)
Chef Dustin Ronspies has pulled people to the Wallingford neighborhood to enjoy his culinary masterpieces since opening Art of the Table in 2007. His original location was a cramped 24-seater; the current spot has triple the seats while maintaining an intimate, family-like feeling. The best seats in the house are at the chef’s counter that semicircles the open kitchen, where you can watch dishes come together. Five-course tasting menus featuring seasonal ingredients are offered Wednesday through Saturday (with wine pairings). Courses might move from scallop crudo to duck tortellini to honey-lacquered duck breast to red beet panna cotta. Sundays are extra special, with family-style takeout meals available by ordering in advance.
Betty (Queen Anne)
Betty sits on the commercial strip of Upper Queen Anne, a favorite of local residents as well as those visiting for the views at nearby Kerry Park; others come up the hill before or after sporting and cultural events at the Seattle Center. It’s a cozy place for comfort food, with two dishes tied for MVP status: oven-roasted chicken with mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, roasted garlic cloves, and the all-important pan jus versus lasagne, layers of housemade pasta, Italian sausage, marinara sauce, pesto, béchamel, and parmesan. The lasagne’s so popular that Betty offers a take-and-bake option that includes two portions, mixed green salad, and a bottle of wine or two desserts to share—or not.
Café Campagne (Belltown/Pike Place Market)
Locals adore Pike Place Market as much as tourists do, and part of the reason is the beloved Café Campagne. Chef Daisley Gordon does French cuisine right, making use of the freshest meats, fish, produce, and more from various market vendors. Look for traditional French starters such as pâté de campagne (made from pork and chicken liver) and escargots de Bourgogne. Entrées include boeuf Bourguignon, cassoulet, and steak frites. Also find one of the best brunch dishes in the city: œufs en meurette, or poached eggs on garlic croutons with pearl onions, bacon, and champignons, all in a red wine-foie gras sauce. As if that’s not decadent enough, it’s served with a basket of pommes frites.
Harvest Beat (Wallingford)
Herbivores aren’t the only ones who make the pilgrimage to the vegan and vegetarian Harvest Beat in Wallingford. A meal here is an event, with a setting that’s equal parts intimate and lively. The prix-fixe, five-course dinners showcase locally sourced ingredients. Harvest’s take on the spanakopita, for instance, is a flaky, flavor-packed treat, featuring cashew cheese, accompanied by roasted tri-colored carrots and yam potato puree. Those in the know won’t leave without stopping at Harvest Beat’s to-go market, stocked with items including beet hummus, heirloom bean and preserved lemon soup, crackers, and cookies.
Kisaku (Wallingford)
Kisaku quietly perseveres as a local favorite for sushi in Tangletown, a small neighborhood southeast of Green Lake. Regulars and first-timers are greeted with the same, inviting “Irasshaimase!” (Japanese for “welcome to my restaurant”). What draws people is high-quality fish at reasonable prices, especially compared to the swankier sushi restaurants that dot the city. Seats at the counter offer a chance to interact with the sushi chef and are popular, but table service is friendly and efficient, too. In addition to sashimi and nigiri, there are a number of creative rolls to try such as the Green Lake roll of salmon, asparagus, flying fish egg, avocado, and marinated seaweed.
Revel (Fremont)
Revel is the casual follow-up to Joule from perennial James Beard Award nominees Rachel Yang and partner Seif Chirchi, and it’s a favorite in the Fremont neighborhood. The place pulses with energy, thanks to the ultimate open kitchen with an endless butcher block counter that’s shared by diners and the kitchen crew. Sit here and you’ll be overwhelmed (in the best possible way) as the dishes come out. The pan-Asian menu moves from papaya salad to kimchi pancakes to spicy miso rice cakes. The short rib wontons with chile oil and garlic crunch are an excellent place to start, and the noodle and rice bowls shine, such as the Dungeness crab noodles with seaweed, red curry, and crème fraîche.
RockCreek Seafood & Spirits (Fremont)
Tourists often flock to the waterfront in search of seafood in Seattle. But locals know that one of the best spots is RockCreek, off the radar in the Fremont neighborhood. Chef and owner Eric Donnelly sources globally but in an eco-friendly way, in starters such as grilled Norwegian mackerel salad, small plates like barbecued Spanish octopus, or “fin fish” entrées including Baja brown grouper with jerk marinade, bacon-onion mojo, yuca frita, cilantro, and sea salt. Vegetables are also done right here, and the egg section of the brunch menu makes weekend mornings appealing. The outdoor deck is popular even when the weather is cold, while the second-level loft attracts its own fans.
Terra Plata (Capitol Hill)
Other restaurants come and go, but Terra Plata has remained a mainstay of the trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood since 2011. Locals love the intimacy of the rooftop garden and patio lifted above the bustle below. And they appreciate chef and owner Tamara Murphy’s decades-long dedication to working with local farmers, butchers, and other producers. This plays out in a menu with Spanish and Mediterranean influences, with savory dishes divided into earth, sea, and land categories. One of the most popular orders is roast pig with Manila clams, chorizo, sofrito, bay-scented potato, hot smoked paprika, and pickled onion. Many look forward to Mondays, as that’s paella night with a couple of different types typically on offer.
Vendemmia (Leschi/Madrona/Madison Park)
Refined simplicity is the name of the game at chef and owner Brian Clevenger’s Vendemmia, an Italian restaurant with Pacific Northwest influences in the Madrona neighborhood. It’s an ideal place for a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine. The noodles, from spaghetti to garganelli to gnocchetti, are all housemade and simply adorned to let the quality shine; rigatoni with lamb ragu and mint is a prime example. In fact, most dishes have just three to four main ingredients—from gem lettuce with pistachios, chives, and aioli to braised pork shank with corona beans and tomato—allowing the chef to show off ingredients at peak freshness. Newcomers and regulars continually comment on the staff’s friendly and attentive service.
Billiard Hoang (Columbia City)
This Columbia City pool hall has been a popular hangout for the area’s Vietnamese community since 1987. It originally stood out for its banh mi, a barbecue pork and Vietnamese sausage version best topped with a lightly scrambled egg. But the quality of the kitchen also shines in Billiard Hoang’s expanded menu, where noteworthy items include bun (dry noodle bowls) and bun rieu (crab meat with tofu and rice noodles). Look around and you’ll see plenty of regulars gathering over orders of bun mang vit (duck noodle soup with bamboo shoots).
Café Munir (Ballard)
Café Munir, in the Loyal Heights part of Ballard, serves modern Lebanese and Arabic food in a homey setting. Diners are drawn to its colorful assortment of mezze for the table. The appetizer lineup includes usual suspects such as baba ghanouj, lebneh with beets, and hummus. But lesser-known small plates worth sampling include bassal Munir, or baby onions preserved gently with Lebanese wine and honey and served with fresh farmer’s cow cheese and pine nuts. For those who don’t feel like decision-making, Sundays mean a chef’s choice menu that might feature skewers such as the best-selling grilled chicken with garlic sauce. Seats typically sell out in advance, so grab a table as early as possible.
Gan Bei (Chinatown-International District)
The Chinatown-International District teems with local favorites. Some are historic, boasting over 100 years of business. Others, like Gan Bei, opened in 2020. This restaurant (named for the Mandarin phrase for “cheers”) draws a following for its Hong Kong- and American-style Chinese food—what some call “Chinese soul food.” Comforting plates include fried rice, chow fun, and fried chicken with gravy. The hidden gem on the menu is the claypot rice, particularly the version with freshwater eel. Gan Bei is also a popular spot for the after-hours crowd—even though last call for the kitchen is 9:30 pm, cocktails, beer, and wine are available as late as 1:45 am on Friday and Saturday nights.
Jay Friedman is a Seattle-based freelance food writer whose work has been featured in publications like USA Today, Lucky Peach (RIP), Eater, and Serious Eats, to name a few. He’s been hailed as “Seattle’s authoritative voice on Asian cuisine,” and his Gastrolust website aggregates some of his writing about Asian restaurants (and more) from Seattle to Chengdu.
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