Ono, named for Oahu-born owner Steven Ono, is a seafood lover’s dream in Edmonds, offering possibly the highest-quality poke in the Seattle area on a menu that rotates depending on what’s fresh. (Ono sources a lot of his fish directly from the Honolulu Fish Auction.) Just as importantly, the restaurant uses a light hand with flavorings so you don’t lose the flavor of the fish itself, whether you’re eating salmon dressed with ponzu or a spicy ahi bowl.

Kirkland’s Northern Italian fine dining mainstay offers several excellent seasonal tasting menus, including pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan options. Chef Holly Smith’s omnivorous tasting menus include dishes like duck breast with charred strawberries and English pea pignoli tartelette, while vegan and pescatarian options showcase what the talented team here can do with fish and mushrooms.

Chef Eric Donnelly’s Greenwood steakhouse is one of the best in the city, serving simple 21-day dry-aged Washington steaks that are perfectly grilled and buttered, with options for filet mignon, New York strip, Delmonico, and tomahawk. Flintcreek Cattle Co. also stands out for incorporating game meats like elk and wild boar into the menu. Don’t overlook the stunning vegetable dishes amid all this meat, though.

This casual Filipino fried chicken shop in Phinney Ridge was Eater Seattle’s pick for Best New Restaurant in 2022, and one of Eater’s favorite fried chicken restaurants in the country. The gluten-free batter on the chicken — wings, drumsticks, or 10-inch-long cylinders of white meat on sticks — crackles under the teeth and has the puffy texture of Rice Krispies or Frosted Flakes. The meat is packed with flavor from soy sauce and garlic. The restaurant’s owners, Paolo Campbell and Donald Adams, had wanted to start a fried chicken restaurant for years while working in fine dining, and now serve the fried birds with Filipino sides like collard greens served with coconut milk, marinated vegetables, and garlic rice. As a bonus, this fried chicken is gluten-free and dairy-free.

We don’t need to get into the Shakespearean drama that resulted in the demise of the old Paseo, that legendary Caribbean sandwich shop run by Lorenzo Lorenzo. Suffice it to say that Un Bien, run by Lorenzo’s sons, is carrying on that legacy, and more importantly the marinade. Sweet, tangy, dripping from the slow-cooked pork (or chicken thighs), you could make a whole meal out of the marinade itself. The onions are so tender and flavor-packed you should be able to get a sandwich that’s just onions, and in fact, you can. Don’t tell anyone but sometimes we’ll buy a little container of their black beans and eat spoonfuls in the car while we do errands.

James Beard Award-winning chef Renee Erickson has had a major hand in the evolution of Seattle’s dining scene, and her Sea Creatures restaurant group owns many of Seattle’s top restaurants, from steakhouse Bateau to Westward on Lake Union. But this is still arguably the flagship of her fleet. The Walrus and the Carpenter serves several varieties of Washington oysters, seafood dishes like raw albacore tuna with Meyer lemon sauce and blood oranges, and snacks like beef tartare, beef shank terrine, and plates of sliced cheese, along with a long wine list and a thoughtful cocktail menu. The dining room is bright and airy, and the heated, covered patio sparkles with string lights. Be warned that you can’t make reservations at this perennial favorite; on the upside, this is one of the few Seattle-area date-night restaurants open on Mondays.

Seattle’s premiere Native American-owned food truck opened its first restaurant in 2019 at the revamped Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus. Its menu is vibrant as ever, drawing on traditions that co-owner Mark McConnell’s mom shared from her upbringing on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana. Indian “tacos” showcase fluffy fry bread topped with 12-hour-smoked pulled pork, braised bison, or vegetarian chili, while wild rice bowls feature the likes of braised bison and seasonal vegetables.

A growing number of excellent independent pizzerias in Seattle represent pizza nerds’ obsessive quests for the perfect pie, all a little different but often built on a base of local grains and seasonal toppings. Fremont’s Lupo stands out for its chewy, blistered sourdough pies with powerful but perfectly balanced flavors, like the burrata pizza topped with basil, sharp Calabrian chile hot honey, and coppa. Lupo also has a full bar and a solid list of natural wines. For a more casual experience with the same attention to the craft, check out the owners’ new sibling, Stevie’s Famous, in Burien.

After building a strong following as a pop-up inside Fremont’s Pomerol, contemporary Indian specialist Meesha took over the space and became a full-fledged restaurant in 2020, complete with a covered and heated patio around the back. Chef Preeti Agarwal's can’t-miss dishes include rarah keema pao with expertly prepared ground lamb, fried Amritsari fish, and paneer lasagna. The restaurant also features a robust drink menu with wine, beer, and original mocktails and cocktails like Mughal Empress, a creamy gin sour with pomegranate, rose, and sumac.

Calling Saint Bread a bakery is like calling Notre Dame a church. Yes, it is a bakery — a damn good one that has great cardamom knots, black sesame seed rolls, and Norwegian-style school buns. But what Saint Bread really specializes in is merging Seattle’s many different culinary cultures. You can get a breakfast sandwich on Japanese melonpan to add a layer of sweetness above the egg, or a smashed cheeseburger topped with “hoisin island dressing,” or an okonomiyaki-style Spanish tortilla. Its out-of-the-way location on Jensen Marina belies its importance; eat the whole menu and you’ll get a sense of what Seattle cuisine is all about. In 2023 it added a waterside food truck called Hinoki and a bar called Heave Ho.

Chefs Rachel Yang and partner Seif Chirchi offer simple, refined dishes at their Korean-influenced Fremont restaurant, from smoked mackerel kedgeree and succulent kalbi short rib over grilled kimchi to smoked tofu with mushrooms and geoduck black rice modeled after paella. With easygoing service and an inviting, open space as well as a patio, the restaurant provides a special night out sans pretension. Sit at the bar and watch chefs plating dishes while you sip on one of Joule’s creative cocktails, like the Jalisco Campfire, which blends a lapsang souchong-infused tequila with lime and Thai chile agave.

New executive chef Aisha Ibrahim helms this Queen Anne icon, owned and operated by the Canlis family for over 70 years. The gorgeous restaurant overlooking Lake Union has won several James Beard Awards in recent years, including for its design and its wine program, and serves as a study in how to do fine dining without stuffiness, including excellent service whether you walk into the piano lounge or sit for a multi-course meal. Ibrahim energizes the historic establishment with a super-seasonal approach inspired by Japanese kaiseki cooking, and options might include duck with bitter chicory, celeriac, and blood orange; grilled sablefish with abalone, dashi, and daikon; and dark chocolate sorbet with koji and spruce tips.

The cuisine of Laos takes center stage at Capitol Hill’s Taurus Ox thanks to three chefs, Sydney Clark, Khampaeng Panyathong, and Jenessa Sneva, with strong Seattle dining pedigrees. The tiny counter-service shop recently upgraded to this full-service home, where dishes such as thom khem and chicken laap continue to benefit from local produce and a whole-animal approach to butchery. Don’t miss the Lao pork sausage, fragrant with lemongrass and lime leaf, or one of the city’s best patties, a smash burger made with pork jowl bacon and jaew tomato sauce. (This burger became so popular the team opened a burger-only place, Ox Burger.) For another rare treat, pair it with a locally made sato, or Laotian rice wine, from Village Ghost.

Behind a relatively anonymous new-build door on a busy stretch of Madison, chef Aaron Tekulve and his team are doing exceptional things. This two-seating-a-night tasting menu spot should be on every fine-dining fan’s radar, not just for the impeccable service — a meal comes with a welcome sangria at the door, a poem written to celebrate the menu, even a bouquet made by Tekulve’s mom — but for the inventive food. The menu shifts constantly based on the seasons and turns over completely every several weeks, but recent highlights include a porcini macaron and fantastically tender octopus cooked with bay leaf and splashed with fish sauce. Sitting at the chef’s counter really makes you feel like you’re at a dinner party hosted by an incredibly thoughtful, inclusive host. As one example of that inclusivity, Surrell has a nonalcoholic drink selection that’s among the best in Seattle, as well as a fantastic Washington-focused wine list.  

More than 10 years in, 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 mainstay, but every dish from chef Stuart Lane is memorable. After a satisfying dinner at Spinasse, head to next-door sibling bar Artusi for a digestif and dessert, or stop by the bar another night for snacks like beef tongue with salsa tonnata (tuna sauce) and burrata with pomegranate seeds and toasted pistachios.

Chef Kristi Brown — who made her name running the catering operation That Brown Girl Cooks — calls the food at her Central District restaurant “Seattle Soul.” At Communion, fusions like the Hood Sushi Bowl featuring fried catfish and seaweed salad come from Brown’s memories of shopping at Asian markets in the neighboring Chinatown-International District. But the dishes that shine brightest are her more traditional Southern ones, like a pork neck bone stew, with smoky meat simmered in umami-packed broth with lima beans. It’s hard to get a seat at this Eater Award-winner in the renovated Liberty Bank Building. Make reservations weeks ahead, or show up right when the restaurant opens on a weekday to vie for a spot.

This longtime Pike Place Market wonder from chef Daisley Gordon is well-regarded for its dedication to classic Parisian fare, served in a warmly lit dining room. Start dinner with escargot or calamari, order the white bean stew with lamb, pork, and duck confit for an entree, and finish with a delightful chocolate cognac mousse. Lunch and weekend brunch menus offer fresh croissants and a popular quiche with Comté cheese, which you can also take to go.

If you want to impress the tourists you (inevitably) have to take to Pike Place Market, skip pass the fish-throwers and overcrowded waterfront view joints, cross the street, and take them to this restaurant inside a grocery store. The salmon collar sinigang and succulent longanisa have made this place into an American classic. Literally, the James Beard Foundation gave Oriental Mart an America’s Classics award in 2020, and you can see why — sitting here eating adobo dishes makes you part of a long lineage of people of all classes, creeds, and colors who have eaten adobo dishes at this stainless steel lunch counter. While you ponder this, you can look at the handwritten signs cluttering the kitchen. One of them reads, “WIFI PASSWORD: TALK TO EACH OTHER” 

Nirmal’s demonstrated that Seattle had an appetite for upscale Indian food; the Pioneer Square destination serves soups, biryani, and curries from a variety of regions and happily caters to pescatarians and vegetarians with items like paneer-stuffed bell pepper with spicy tomato sauce. Owners Oliver and Gita Bangera have always made sure the takeout service is as robust as the dine-in experience, although seeing the gregarious Oliver in person adds a spark to the meal.

Since opening in early 2020, Beacon Hill’s innovative Filipinx restaurant from star chef Melissa Miranda has developed a dynamic menu with items such as succulent short rib kare kare, smoked oysters, and mussels cooked with moringa. The homey space makes diners feel like they’re eating in a beloved family member’s living room, albeit one with killer cocktails, world-class food, and reservations that fill up quickly. Musang also gives back with charitable endeavors like a community kitchen and youth program Little Wildcats, which provides education about Filipinx recipes and culture.

This chill Beacon Hill Mediterranean spot is named after a dog but it could just as well be named after the Greek poet because we want to write epics about its wood-fired vegetables. Or it could be named after the Simpsons character, because the “d’oh” it uses for its pitas is fantastic! Sorry, sorry, but these pitas — fluffy, warm, and fresh, are must-orders, as is the soft-serve, which comes in flavors like strawberry–lime leaf. The menu constantly changes, but one recent standout is mackerel with nduja, cultured cream, and smoked potatoes. Except for large parties, Homer is walk-in only, so prepare to have to go someplace else for a drink while you wait for a spot to open. This is no great sacrifice, as Homer is surrounded by great bars, including its sister restaurant, Milk Drunk.

Owner Jerry Corso’s expert Neapolitan-style pizzas are the primary draw for this Beacon Hill hideaway; simple toppings like spicy salami harmonize with light, airy, and slightly salty crusts. The garlic mussels, baccala fritters, and grilled octopus with corona beans are also exceptional, and reservations tend to go fast.

No single restaurant can please everyone; at Off Alley, a 14-seat brick-walled restaurant in Columbia City, chef Evan Leichtling and partner Meghna Prakash embrace that truth. You don’t always find a meticulously seasonal chef’s-choice cooking style and a hand-written list of cool natural wines paired with punk music and attitude, but that approach is working here. The menu changes daily, so check the website to see what you might encounter, from juicy smoked mussels with celery on sourdough and whole quail with nettles in a cream sauce to salt cod with squid ink rice and a burning-hot Scotch bonnet ice cream.

Hillman City’s nationally acclaimed Filipino American fine dining restaurant hosts intimate tasting-menu experiences that showcase the ingenuity, storytelling ability, and passion of husband-and-wife team Aaron Verzosa and Amber Manuguid. Inventive takes on anything from pandesal to sinigang and banana ketchup weave local ingredients together with the duo’s personal journeys in the area as well as those of Filipino immigrants to the Pacific Northwest, creating a unique history lesson with each dinner. The tiny restaurant’s 12 seats are normally booked out months ahead, but you can sign up for a waiting list on the website.

A relative newcomer to the vibrant Hillman City Ethiopian scene, Delish Ethiopian Cuisine has a bar area and a comfortable atmosphere in which husband and wife Delish Lemma and Amy Abera of Addis Ababa share recipes passed down from Abera’s mother and grandmother. Run the meat-free section of the menu with the 10-item veggie combo or try succulent beef tibs pan-fried in garlic, butter, onion, and berbere spice. Delish also offers an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for five or more diners.

The name Tomo means “friend” in Japanese and pays homage to Tomoko Ishiwata Bristol, the grandmother of former Canlis chef Brady Williams. Book a seat inside the lauded chef’s intimate White Center restaurant for coursed dinners of hyper-seasonal Pacific Northwest cuisine like pork collar with squash, fermented radish chawanmushi, and sweet potato with miso caramel. In 2023, Tomo launched an a la carte menu for diners who wanted a slightly more casual experience.

After five years as a food truck, El Cabrito became a brick-and-mortar restaurant on Burien’s Ambaum Boulevard in 2019, with a few seats indoors and some covered tables on a back patio. Owner Leticia Sánchez started making moles with her grandmother in Oaxaca when she was 5 years old, and these years of experience show in dishes like the expertly balanced mole coloradito that pools around pork enchiladas and the molotes (fried masa dumplings filled with potato and chorizo) drowned in smoky morita pepper and avocado salsas, all presented on brightly hued ceramics. El Cabrito also serves specials like rockfish ceviche, tamales, and blue crab empanadas.

Vashon Island’s celebrated Thai restaurant is so good that many Seattleites take the ferry over just to sample the food. Owner May Chaleoy’s flavors shine brightly in entrees like whole fried trout alongside mango salad flecked with mint and cashews as well as satisfying appetizers like grilled pork skewers marinated in yellow curry. She also offers versions of ubiquitous Thai dishes with elegant twists, like pad thai served with turnips and banana blossom or tom yum soup with oyster mushrooms.