Chef Holly Smith’s Kirkland fine-dining mainstay serves several excellent tasting menus, including pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan options, many of which feature exquisite pasta dishes. Dishes currently include ravioli with oxtail and greens and hand-cut tajarin with creme fraiche and caviar.

This Sunset Hill favorite offers exquisite Italian fare for reasonable prices, including a pappardelle topped with veal ragu and a selection of excellent ravioli, including one stuffed with goat cheese and ricotta and tossed in browned butter with sage. In addition to the comfortable dining room with a bar, there’s also a outdoor courtyard with plants growing on trellises that’s open for seating.

The menu at this popular Ballard restaurant is minimal and lighter than one might see at more traditional Italian joints, featuring standouts such as the strozzapreti with lamb sumo, and the saffron spaghetti bolognese with pork and veal. There’s also an outdoor deck and expanded sidewalk seating.

Ethan Stowell’s Capitol Hill restaurant dedicated to the cuisine of Rome serves well-executed renditions of classic pasta dishes like spaghetti carbonara and cacio e pepe. But the restaurant also offers more creative dishes, like tagliarini with uni butter, Fresno chili peppers, and smoked trout roe. Tavolàta, another Ethan Stowell restaurant with locations in Belltown, Capitol Hill, Spokane, and on Stone Way in Fremont, serves similar pasta dishes, including a bucatini dish with bits of pork belly adorned with a shimmering egg yolk. 

More than 10 years in, and this romantic trattoria on Capitol Hill continues to entrance diners with food from Italy’s Piedmont region. The nest of delicate tajarin pasta with butter and sage sauce is a Seattle comfort food mainstay, but every pasta dish from chef Stuart Lane — including the agnolotti stuffed with braised rabbit — is memorable. 

This excellent Capitol Hill restaurant features dishes from chef Sabrina Tinsley, emphasizing northern Italian cuisine. Must-try pastas include tagliatelle with white alba truffle butter and the gnocchi al pomodoro. The restaurant also launched a pop-up series in 2021 that celebrates local BIPOC chefs.

Star chef Brian Clevenger is beginning to grow a mighty little line of Italian restaurants in the city, and it's all thanks to the success of this Madrona gem. The pastas here draw fans from around the city, with options like tonnarelli with prawns, uni butter, and Meyer lemon and strozzapretti with duck and dandelion greens.

One of Seattle’s enduring Italian restaurants, located at Post Alley, offers plenty of well-crafted pasta selections, including linguini with baby clams and pancetta in a white wine sauce and a popular spinach lasagna. Diners who plan ahead should try to score a spot on the outdoor deck, which fills up quickly on sunny days.

Nationally recognized chef Mike Easton turned the historic Alki Homestead into a classic Seattle dining experience that offers rotating list of excellent pasta dishes. He also aims to make the restaurant more accessible with a new “aperitivo hour” that doesn’t require reservations (which need to be booked well-ahead for the main dining room), as well as a patio. But the main dinner service continues to be a special treat.

Diners flock to this West Seattle Italian restaurant for creative pasta dishes like the lamb bolognese served with pecorino and mint and fusilli with arugula pesto. To add flair to more simpler pasta dishes — like the tonnarelli cacio e pepe — order shaved truffle for an additional $15. As a plus, you can watch cooks toss the pasta in sauce from most areas of the compact dining room.

Diners come to this small Columbia City restaurant for its well-crafted pasta dishes with Pacific Northwest ingredients, which shift regularly based on seasonal availability. A recent menu included campanelle with kale pesto, mafaldine with pork coppa, and casarecce with braised rabbit ragu. Head next door to a new mini market, Persephone, where you can sip amaro at a bar or buy local vegetables.