Summer in Seattle is hard to beat. In my three years living there, my favorite part was the disorientingly late sunsets — best viewed looking out over the Olympic Mountains. The go-go days of the Amazon tech boom, and its total compensation packages, have subsided, but the city is forever changed. And the dining scene it fueled is in many ways still among America’s most exciting.
Our list of the 25 best restaurants in Seattle, updated this week, features stalwarts like Renee Erickson’s Walrus and the Carpenter, still a Pacific Northwest must, and the modern Vietnamese classic Ba Bar. The list also highlights newer spots like the dynamic Filipino tasting menu at Archipelago and the shoot-from-the-hip neo-bistro Off Alley, which remains one of my favorite restaurants in America.
But in the spirit of change, we’ve updated the list with a couple of new entries:
The restaurant that pivoted to fun
When Brady Ishiwata Williams opened Tomo in 2021 — described on its website as serving “eclectic Japanese-American cuisine and serious wine in a former adult video store” — his decision to open in White Center was a bit of a head scratcher for some. The chef had been running the kitchen at Canlis, the finest fine-dining restaurant in Seattle, for six years, and a splashy spot in the hip Capitol Hill neighborhood might have made more sense than an off-the-beaten path storefront on the south end. Nevertheless, by the time the doors opened, there was a 15,000-person waiting list.
Williams recently shifted away from the tasting-menu format and punched up the restaurant’s à la carte options. I’ve eaten at Tomo several times over the years, and this new iteration is the best yet. The dining experience is just more fun. The dry-aged steam burgers, which the staff has taken to calling the White Center Castle sliders, are just one example. It’s well worth a trip from downtown or beyond.
9811 16th Avenue Southwest (Southwest 98th Street), White Center, tomoseattle.com
Pandemic to pop-up to popular
I’m going to say it: Detroit-style pizza can often be gimmicky, over-puffed and unimpressive. But I am not going to say it about My Friend Derek’s. The pies here are perfectly pillowy and righteously crusted with cheese around the edges. Derek Reiff, your titular friend, started the business as a pop-up during the pandemic and rode that popularity to a physical location on a charming stretch in the Tangletown neighborhood. The dining room has a cozy pizzeria vibe, but when the weather is nice, the place to be is the outdoor dining shed, alongside the neighborhood dogs lounging under picnic tables. The restaurant also makes some of the wittiest merch in the business — listed on its website under “dope shirts” — so add one to your tab while you’re there.
2108 North 55th Street (Kenwood Place North), Tangletown, myfrienddereks.com
For your itinerary
The Seattle Art Museum consistently punches above its weight, and the ongoing Ai Weiwei show is no exception. The exhibit, on view until September, is spread across three locations in the city and constitutes a capsule retrospective of the Chinese avant-provacateur’s work, including his porcelain sunflower seeds and a monument-size reimagining of Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies,” on view until March 2026, made from 650,000 Lego blocks.
The post We Updated Our Seattle Dining Guide appeared first on New York Times.
