Six Seattle Bars With Very Good Food

Gone are the days when a bar food menu meant peanuts, stale pretzels and a dried out burger. Seattle’s bars are stepping up their food game more now than ever. Here now, six Seattle bars with very good food:

1) Le Caviste: This year-old Downtown French wine bar doesn't have menus or fancy cardstock. You’ll see three main boards on the back wall: one for white wines, one for reds and a well curated food list consisting of charcuterie, chevre salad, steak tartare and AOC cheese—if they've got stinky runny epoisse go for it. A favorite is the "paper fish" which is a classic preparation of baked trout in a bag.

2) Quoin: Next door to Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi’s much-loved Korean street food restaurant Revel, Quoin serves up killer cocktails alongside its sister restaurant's menu. One perk of sitting at the bar for happy hour: from 4-6 p.m., you can get $7 dollar ramen or a $7 kalbi burger—two coveted items that aren’t served on the dinner menu. They only crank out ten of each daily, so go early for your best shot.

3) Essex: This craft cocktail bar in Ballard has earned a reputation as more than just the spot to grab a drink while you’re waiting for a table at next door Delancey. Brandin Petit, co-owner of both businesses, spent months testing a burger recipe before releasing it to the masses. There's also New Orleans-style oysters and pretzels cooked in the pizza oven.

4) Quinn’s Pub: Quinn’s motto: "We’ve given bar food a promotion." People who judge the quality of a bar’s food lineup by its burger give this Capitol Hill bar a huge thumbs up. Meanwhile food snobs are ecstatic they can order oysters on the half shell, beef tartare and seared foie. The wild boar Sloppy Joe is a favorite.

5) Single Shot: This five-month-old Capitol Hill bar has many things going for it. For starters, former Walrus and the Carpenter bar manager and owner of Seattle Seltzer Company Anna Wallace works here. Secondly, there is black rice porridge—an uni, mussels and pork belly black sticky rice dish—on the menu. Regulars know to save room for dessert, namely the toasted honey pot de creme.

6) Montana: There’s something both satisfying and eclectic about eating Malaysian food in a Montana-style dive bar, especially when the Malaysian food is prepared by Kedai Makan owners Kevin Burzell and Alysson Wilson. The pair operate a takeout window next to Montana where you can enjoy your nasi goreng with a Moscow Mule on the side.

—Jen Chiu