Welcome to Seattle: A Newcomer's Eating Tour (2025)

Photo: Sarah Flotard

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Welcome to Seattle

Seattle is a city best known by tech-heads, outdoor adventurers and grunge rock fans still pining for the ’90s. But below the plaid-clad stereotype lies a scene of passionate, inventive chefs — and the well-fed food fanatics who support them — who forage mushrooms from local forests, troll the sea for fresh Dungeness crabs and visit Pike Place Market for the freshest produce. Obviously, you’ll find the bounty of the Pacific Northwest on the menus of rock star chefs around town, but you’re just as likely to see these ingredients in the mom-and-pop ethnic restaurants, the plentiful pop-ups and the food trucks that feed the city’s growing work force.

Photo: Colin Bishop

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Iconic Spot: Matt's in the Market

Blink as you’re walking past the corner flower stand at Pike Place Market and you may miss the sign for this hidden gem tucked above the market’s busy thoroughfare. But it’s worth tracking down:Matt’s in the Marketis Seattle’s most-enchanting neighborhood bistro, made even more enjoyable by views of Pike Place’s iconic neon sign out the dining room window and the tiny ferry boats crossing Elliott Bay beyond. Chef Shane Ryan’s food is at once casual — you shouldn’t miss the half-dozen deviled eggs — and sophisticated. This is the sort of place that makes both lunch and dinner feel special. Make sure, too, that you check out the restaurant’s sibling bar, Radiator Whiskey, across the hall.

Photo: Colin Bishop

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Seafood: White Swan Public House

This dimly lit, near-broody restaurant on Lake Union’s southeastern shore has different water views from the Elliott Bay vantage tourists have come to expect. For that matter, White Swan doesn’t serve the standard seafood dishes either—and that’s precisely the point. Chef Josh Nebe approaches oysters, clams, scallops and even whole daily fish with a bit of a rock-and-roll attitude. Check out the Poutine O’ The Sea (essentially chowder-topped fries) and the Bone Marrow Kilpatrick (with smoked oysters and bacon) for excellent examples.

Photo: Colin Bishop

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Pizza: Delancey and Dino's Tomato Pie

It’s a local toss up — pun intended — whether the pizza is better at Delancey or Dino’s Tomato Pie. If the Pacific Northwest had a style of pizza, Delancey would have spearheaded it: The wood-fired pies at the cozy Ballard restaurant are topped with nettles or roasted padron peppers, as seasons allow. But owner Brandon Pettit (the same that owns Essex, and its awesome burger) is an East Coast native, and though Delancey’s pizzas are New York-ish, he longed for the kind of square Sicilian “grandma pies” he grew up eating in Jersey pizza taverns. So he started one of his own: Dino’s Tomato Pie opened in Capitol Hill in early 2016.