Looking Closer at Seattle Restaurants

Someone at Arts and Faith challenged the readers there to post their favorite hometown restaurants. And since this blog is all about the best of the arts, why not include the culinary arts?

Here’s what I quickly posted in response. If you’re visiting Seattle, take note:

The Santa Fe Cafe
Modeled after Santa Fe’s famous “The Shed,” it’s the best New Mexico cuisine in Seattle. Try the Blue Mesa plate “Christmas style,” with a house margarita, and bread pudding baked with whiskey hard sauce, and you’ll be blissfully happy for about $30.

Hilltop Ale House and 74th Street Ale House
Two great pubs with a selection of ales that shows true discernment, as well as an excellent menu of full meals. Try the gumbo with a goat cheese salad. A full evening of joy for about $20.

Orrapin
Seattle is overrun with thai restaurants, and I’m trying to visit them all. Orrapin has the best phad thai I’ve yet enjoyed, and I’ve been going back there for more than ten years. Lunch combos are only $7.95.

Cupcake Royale
You will believe a cupcake can qualify as “gourmet.” The red velvet cupcake with real cream cheese frosting is amazing. Several bites of bliss for three bucks.

Cafe Ladro, Hotwire, and Zoka Coffee Roasters
The best coffee shops in Seattle. The lattes are so artfully done you’ll want to photograph them before you drink them.

The Blue Water Bistro
Located on Greenlake, this bistro’s clientele is a bit too posh for me to feel entirely comfortable, but they have fantastic breakfasts (try the “Texas Toast“). For dinner, I usually get a large salad with pear, walnuts, and cranberries, but I can’t remember what they call it. After dinner they’ll bring you an open flame and little forks so you can make s’mores for dessert.

The Celtic Swell
An excellent Irish pub on Alki beach, where almost everything on the menu, right down to the bangers-n-mash, is so authentically greasy that you’ll go into cardiac arrest just reading the menu. They serve Guinness room-temperature, which is as it should be.

Chutney’s
Excellent Indian food, and nan so good that it could be a meal by itself. with a great lunch buffet.

Pizza
For thick cheesy, sauce-heavy pizza with the ingredients baked inside, nothing beats Spiro’s. For flatter, more traditional pizza you can grab and eat on the run, Zeek’s has the best variety. Try their thai chicken pizza.

What’s YOUR favorite restaurant?