This year’s been full of adjustments. But seattles best teriyaki beautiful bars, grilled meats, and the occasional aloo slider.
Between the staffing challenges and supply chain shortages, not to mention the forever-shifting landscape of safety protocols, each day brings new challenges. This wild year gave us great bakeries and new restaurants with a deep focus on the customer. So grab that vax card, order a cocktail, and save room for a tasting menu of meat on sticks. Niku Niku Japanese BBQ Northgate Pass through the heavy double doors inside the Asian Family Market complex on Aurora Avenue and you’ll enter a cavernous yakiniku temple with highest-end wagyu on the menu and round tabletop grills set into every spacious booth. Co-owner Andy Tsang was so enamored with Japan’s new wave of kushiyaki restaurants, he recreated this omakase-esque experience in a striking new space in Madison Valley. Grilled meat goes glam at Aki Kushiyaki.
Autumn Seattle Phinney Ridge Brian Clevenger’s newest restaurant might be his best yet. Autumn doubles down on the chef’s signature formula: A dining room that leans into new construction’s austerity and dishes that make cost-effective ingredients feel special. Karachi Cowboys Capitol Hill More than any other dish on the menu, the aloo sliders with tingly barbecue sauce tap into dual facets of Nasir Zubair’s heritage—his Texan upbringing and Pakistani roots on his father’s side of the family. Saint Bread is holy ground for croissants.
Saint Bread University District When Yasuaki Saito, a partner in London Plane, turned a motorboat repair shop on Portage Bay into a bakery, he assembled a supergroup of dough talents who deserve to be household names. In baker Randi Rachlow’s hands, brioche dough becomes almost sculptural—think of her cardamom knots as cinnamon rolls with intellect. Flavor Lao Bowl Greenlake A trove of noodle soups from Laos steam up a modest storefront on Aurora Avenue. Kao poon, a spicy bowl of coconut milk broth and rice noodles, arrives at the table piled with ground pork, shredded chicken, and red flecks of chili. Flavor Lao Bowl offers further proof: Everything is better with sticky rice. Crumby Fremont Technically this is a sandwich shop, though it exudes art gallery vibes: white walls, tall windows, framed black and white photos.
Inside Passage Capitol Hill Behind a sliding door inside Rumba hides a new immersive cocktail bar, meticulously designed to create a borrowed reality of drinking amidst sunken ships, sea creatures, and piratical rum heists. House cocktails might come in a zombie-fied Amazon package, a ceramic anglerfish, even a faux rice cooker trailing tendrils of dry ice. At Inside Passage, Seattle history meets sea creature decor. In-N-Out Burger’s animal-style fries—without involving any actual animals. Cedar and Elm Kenmore Years of public-private financial handstands turned the long-empty Saint Edward seminary into a boutique hotel within a state park, the former dining hall now a restaurant by Jason Wilson.