Seattle’s Most Anticipated Restaurant Openings, Fall 2023

As everyone knows, Seattle only has two proper seasons, wet and dry. Many Seattleites savor the dry days — the sunny, hike-perfect weather, the mountains returning on the horizon like old friends. But the wet days have their pleasures as well. It’s a time for hunkering down, for hoodies, for zipping your quarter-zip fleeces all the way up. IPA weather, stew weather, a cup of soup or coffee warm in your hand. These wet days, which will be on top of us before we realize it, are the cozy days.

So this is a cozy little fall restaurant preview. The coffee shops, restaurants, and bakeries on this list are more familiar than they are paradigm-breaking. They are expansions, revivals, and in one case a pop-up finding a much deserved permanent home. Maybe this reflects the reality that the restaurant industry is tough for newcomers to break into right now. But it’s not as if these places are playing it safe, either. They have ambitions to be community hubs, to introduce the city to new flavors, to be places where you come in from the wet, and are welcomed.

Atoma

This is a new restaurant from Sarah and Johnny Courtney, the former executive sous chef at Canlis; it’s going to occupy the converted house in Wallingford that was home to innovative organic restaurant Tilth. But we’re not here to read Atoma’s resume. Our excitement about it comes from tasting Courtney’s food at his pop-ups this year. His dishes highlight seasonal ingredients, but in fresh ways — we’re still thinking about the savory rosette cookie with cheese, garlic powder, and spring onion we ate in May. Unlike the pop-ups, the brick-and-mortar will have an a la carte menu. (For the indecisive, there will be a tasting menu option as well.) The first wave of reservations will be released on October 20 at noon, and those will likely go fast based on how popular those pop-ups were.

Address: 1411 North 45th Street in Wallingford
Anticipated opening date: November 2

Lady Jaye

Lady Jaye Cafe and Bakery

This bakery has a unique origin story: Charlie Garrison, one of the owners of West Seattle barbecue joint Lady Jaye, started baking cookies and other treats for the West Seattle Farmers Market. The shokupan doughnuts, the incredible coconut cookies, the Rice Krispy treat made out of Ruffles chips — it all attracted such a fan base that Garrison is now turning the operation into it’s own standalone spot.

Address: 309 Cloverdale Street (in the Cloverdale Business Park) in South Park
Anticipated opening date: Early October

Xóm

Cuong Nguyen is moving fast. The 27-year-old restauranteur came to Seattle from Vietnam in 2005 with his parents, and after working at their pho restaurant as a teenager he struck out on his own, opening Ong Lam Bistro in Roosevelt earlier this year. Now, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports, he’s launching Xóm in the Chophouse Row space recently vacated by Bruce Naftaly’s Marmite. The new restaurant, Nguyen told CHS, will have “dishes that you cannot find anywhere else” and seek to appeal to Vietnamese immigrants as well as non-Vietnamese diners. He’s planning a grand opening, complete with a lion dance and maybe fireworks, by mid-October.

Address: 1424 11th Avenue in Capitol Hill
Anticipated opening date: mid-October

Lioness

After some delays, Renee Erickson’s Sea Creatures group is set to open its new restaurant this fall in the Shared Roof building that’s also home to Ben’s Bread, Doe Bay Wine Company, and Holy Mountain Brewing’s taproom. It will be an Italian enoteca that serves small plates and charcuterie (and oysters, of course). The small plates at Erickson’s other restaurants like the Walrus and the Carpenter and Willmott’s Ghost are worth repeat visits, and we’re sure the same will be true of Lioness.

Address: 7009 Greenwood Avenue on Phinney Ridge
Anticipated opening date: Late October or early November

Kilig

The new restaurant from Musang’s Melissa Miranda, one of Seattle’s true star chefs, isn’t fooling around. It will specialize in bulalo, a soup made by slow-cooking beef shank and bones until the marrow melts into the broth, and pancit, a dish of noodles and vegetables. Kilig — named after a Tagalog word meaning a feeling of elation caused by a transcendent or romantic experience — will be more casual than Musang, and is slated to open soon.

Address: 710 Eighth Avenue South in the Chinatown-International District
Anticipated opening date: TBD

Harry Cheadle

Black Coffee Northwest

It’s been an unfortunately eventful few months for Black Coffee Northwest, which used to be a standout Black-owned cafe in Shoreline. After a dispute with its landlord (the details of which are still a bit murky), the coffee shop closed abruptly on June 17. This was just weeks after the owners, Darnesha and Erwin Weary, announced that they were taking over the space on Jackson and 23rd that had previously been a Starbucks. BCNW has since opened a location on the North Seattle College campus, but this new cafe at the heart of the historically Black Central District will start a new chapter for the business, which serves coffee but also does youth programs and other nonprofit work.

Address: The corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue South in the Central District
Anticipated opening date: TBD

Marjorie

After closing down her legendary Capitol Hill restaurant this March, Donna Moodie was supposed to open a new place called Boujie Bar in the Midtown Square development. But she had a change of heart, and announced that actually this restaurant is going to be “Marjorie 3.0” (Marjorie 1.0 was originally in Belltown). So the Central District is hosting another reopening — expect some great jerk chicken, and the best plantain chips in the city.

Address: The corner of 23rd and Union in the Central District
Anticipated opening date: TBD