I keep this ongoing list in a 42-page Google doc all year long. It’s really just a personal food diary, and it’s for my own pleasure that I curate it and share it with you.
What does best mean in this application? Delicious, sure! But also brilliant, astonishing, hilarious, bizarre, or even ingeniously simple. The baseline is that the dish tastes really good, and then we build from there.
Some caveats: As ever, this list is limited to the restaurants that I personally happened to go to in a year, so it’s far from comprehensive. It’s also not ranked. Think of it as a collection of hits, not a fully realized concept album. None of these blurbs are a judgment on an entire restaurant either—in some cases, I’ve never tried another dish at the joint in question.
If you don’t like my list, I have great news. You can make your own. You should make one even if you do like mine! The more folks who are out here celebrating Seattle restaurants, the better.
Mixed BBQ Plate at Taste of Samoa truck
(Roving locations)
It was the night of the Super Bowl, and I was rooting for the Seahawks to lose because the world would be loud if they won and I had work to do. Walking to the office, I spotted a new food truck outside a tavern that was showing the game. The truck had a Samoan flag. Hold up, wait a minute. Is this seriously the Taste of Samoa truck I’ve been chasing all over the greater Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan region for a year?
Out of my way, football people. I got the mixed BBQ plate and inhaled it all like Kirby. Amid the excellent beef ribs and barbecued chicken were these lamb… chunks. The chunks shared properties with Kansas City–style burnt ends and had a sweet huli huli–type glaze, which, when barbecued, created wonderfully knurled edges to seal in all the lamby juices and rendered fat. Little tropical meat bombs, like popping boba.
Then the Seahawks won, ugh. But as the hooting and fireworks and pandemonium erupted outside, these caramelized lamb hunks kept me blissed all the way out.
Bisara Munir at Cafe Munir
(Loyal Heights)
I could never write enough love letters to Cafe Munir, and guess what, here’s another one. In March, while sampling the Lebanese bistro’s seasonal cocktail list, I ordered some miscellaneous snacks and dabs so I could chat longer with owner Rajah Gargour about Palestinian wine.
The Bisara Munir couldn’t be more humbly described: “Palouse lentils ground with roasted garlic, tomato.” Named, as the restaurant also is, for Gargour’s favorite musician—Iraqi-Assyrian oud player Munir Bashir—the dish could perhaps be more visually appealing. A grayish blat of pureed lentils in a bowl, garnished with a fan of sliced tomato, snipped herbs, and an imperial shedload of olive oil.
But some alchemy is afoot here. The combined effect is downright dreamy: unctuous, garlicky, umamescent, herbal, steamy, velveteen. Alongside charred pita triangles, a chunky pear-tahini salad, a hibiscus rose soda, and a Lion’s Blood cocktail, it was a cozy-luxurious refuge from the springtime drizzle. I wasn’t even hungry, and I devoured every speck.
French Tacos at Nue
(Capitol Hill)
Nue is a Carmen Sandiego–flavored tour of foods that owner Chris Cvetkovich liked while traveling, so the menu is kinda all over the place. [Cymbal crash] They have South African bunny chow and Dutch war fries and the elusive-in-Seattle Burmese tea leaf salad. There’s an item called World Butter Board that’s just some bread and a bunch of different international butters. For a while, they served okonomiyaki-spiced Icelandic krill on crackers as an app. I personally think this is cool, but like my list here, it’s a collection of randos, not a congruous unified concept.
Among this patchwork quilt of a menu is a French tacos [sic], which is not a taco at all. Nue’s take on the Lyonnaise street snack involves loading a tortilla with merguez sausage, French fries, harissa sauce, carrot-raisin slaw, and ras el hanout. This saucy monstrosity is then bound together with a thick, sausage-fat-commingled béchamel sauce that’s haunted my life since the first taste. Finally, the tacos, singular, is folded up like a burrito and grilled to a buttery crisp.
I’m not really the type to fuck with fries whimsically inserted into places they don’t belong—like a burrito, you perv—but this dithyramb to carbohydrates doesn’t need me to. It completely fucks, without any help, all by itself.
Braised Octopus at Upwell Wine & Coffee
(West Seattle)
Because of its name and the fact that it’s co-owned by one of the best sommeliers on the planet, Chris Tanghe, Upwell Wine & Coffee has a rep as a beverage place. But its other co-owner, Chef Rosanne Zhu, comes to us from stalwarts like Café Campagne and NYC’s Gramercy Tavern, and she’s wielding hardcore culinary chops. You want to get your wine and coffee here, for sure, but you want to eat your dinner here, too.
I recently went for the braised octopus entrée and it was an edible post-Impressionist painting, stippled and pastel in the sunlight. The sections of Spanish octo arrived on a heap of both gigantes and cannellini beans—all anointed with Calabrian chili, lemon-thyme vinaigrette, red yuzu kosho, and plenty of good olive oil, all swirling together like an aquarelle galaxy.
Although Zhu’s octopus was immaculate, it was the beans and especially the lake of soubise-y sauce surrounding them that really floored me. These beans show up in other permutations on Upwell’s menu, and whew, they are for the ages. I may have ordered an extra Sea Wolf half-baguette to better transport every drop of the celestial bean sauce into my body.
Weird Made-Up Sundae at MOTO Pizza
(Various locations)
MOTO’s Detroit-style pizza is great, but even more special to me is their customizable soft-serve. And, like pizza, it’s all about the toppings.
Last visit, I was feeling real fuck-the-police about what society tells us to put on our ice cream and had the server just whimsically add everything that sounded fun to me. The result was a twirly little cup of vanilla with a thin helix of butter pecan syrup, another of peach syrup, and the pizzeria’s housemade chili crisp.
Risky on paper, but it was correct to do this. The mellow chili crisp added bright, toasty depth while working harmoniously with the fruity-peachy sweetness, the brown sugar in the pecan syrup, and the rich vanilla cream. Total party. You are a free agent in the universe, and I encourage you to make up your own weird sundae at MOTO. But to also try this one.
Breakfast-for-Dinner Pizza at Good Shape Pizza
(Inside Jupiter Bar, Belltown)
On a cold, shiddy January night, after a mandatory fun event for work, I realized I had an empty fridge at home and had only eaten happy hour canapés all day. Eyeing Jupiter Bar en route to the bus stop, I thought: Can Good Shape Pizza hook me up with a peetz in 22 minutes before my chariot arrives?
By god, they did it in 14. I’d tried Good Shape before, but the Breakfast-for-Dinner was a new one: mozzarella, fried eggs, fancy frizzled bacon, cream cheese, and chives on an everything-bagel-seasoned crust. Along with the luscious ingredients—why is that bacon so extra good?—they’re doing something next-level to their dough. And then leopard-spotting it in a 700-degree oven, causing the crust to sizzle and crumble like a hot shortbread cookie.
In the surplus eight minutes before the bus arrived, I tried not to gobble down the whole 10-inch pie. Reader? I failed.
Lamb Ribs at Carrello
(Capitol Hill)
I mentioned these in my cocktail column, The Last Word, only briefly, but their aura has been long-lasting.
This summer, a pal and I threw down on Carrello’s Abbinamento deal, which includes mini versions of every single one of their happy hour dishes and drinks. The three pasture-raised lamb ribs we received were whittled-down, baby-carrotted versions, with a colorful pile of roasted peppers scattered all around. Voluptuous, bacony, succulent—all of it gleaming with grassy lamb fat.
Not to brag, but my Carrello column also included one of my favorite things I wrote all year: The lamb ribs and peppers are dressed lightly with mint, chili, and toasted rice powder that added a tiny crunch. A mouse stepping on a leaf.
You can order a big version too, which I haven’t done yet. I’m still not finished thinking about the small one.
A note: As of October 2026, Carrello’s space has been taken over by its sister restaurant, Altura. No word yet on menu changes, but philosophically, the lamb ribs are forever.
Potato Croquettes at Itto’s Tapas
(West Seattle)
At lovably exquisite Itto’s, they’ve been doing Spanish-Moroccan entrées, small plates, and curated Mediterranean wines for over a decade. Ergo, skulking around with the flamboyant paella and chicken bastilla are super simple Spanish bar snacks. Like the boring-sounding potato croquettes.
No. These babies can easily outshine the mains. You get a pair of golden-fried, panko-breaded spheres of mashed potato, sprinkled with feta and served on a swath of lemon-garlic aioli. There’s sheep’s-milk manchego mixed all up in there, too. With a gentle push of the fork, the croquette’s delicate shell snaps and gives way to a creamy, savory center that’s light as a dang dandelion puff.
The move here is to punch each bite up with a swipe of lemony aioli and feta crumbs. The crunchy-creamy-saucy-citrusy contrast is so heavenly, you feel like a bad person if you don’t share with your buddy. But yeah, don’t. They’re yours. There’s more in the back.
Al Pastor Torta at Baba Yaga
(Pioneer Square)
Some may not know that, along with the live music, bartop classics, and ’70s-toned murals, neo-witchy bar/venue Baba Yaga also serves up espresso drinks, pretty elaborate craft cocktails, and Mexican food.
Eating sit-down food at a former EDM club is weird, and I didn’t know how to feel. But oooh, they have tortas. From the filling options, I chose al pastor, and what arrived was…really something.
An industry-standard telera roll is slathered in thin chile sauce, and upon it is a flat parcel. The saucy al pastor pork comes fully encased by a lacy sheet of cheddar that’s somehow burnished evenly on all surfaces, and this shiny little packet is the sandwich’s innards. Upon biting into it, the sauce and meat (or veggies) burst forth like a Fruit Gusher. It reminds me of a beetle or a crab, its exoskeleton protecting the tender, squishy body meat.
Baba Yaga’s is not the city’s best al pastor (because Tacos la Cuadra’s is), but it’s still delicious, and wrapped in an architectural marvel, no less. How did they do that?
Krispie Treat at Bar Bayonne
(Squire Park)
This triangular treat is a Bar Bayonne signature, and first of all, it’s fucking huge. The size of a folded American flag. You could make it out at 100 paces.
Plenty of restaurants do a Krispie treat, but Bayonne gets the balance right here: puffed rice and salty-buttery Ritz smithereens against bits of intense dark chocolate, browned butter, and a light marshmallow chew.
The touch of salt keeps the sugar from bowling you over, and browned butter adds a round, nutty flavor. Together, the combo brings a deeply soul-satisfying mix of softness, richness, and cronch.
On my last trip to Bayonne, I grabbed one of these treats for the road, shoved it in my bag, and immediately deleted it from my brain. Until later, at a Hot Hail! show at Central Saloon, when my pals and I were trashed and starving. Lo, the staff had thrown an extra triangle in the bag. Oh my god, there’s enough here to feed all the goths! Those two gigantic treats lasted about three minutes.
Butter is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, to be fair, but ugh, they are just so empirically good. You don’t even have to be gothic or drunk to think so.
