The Top 100 Restaurants Near Taco Time

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

Twelve seats, one seating, and roughly ten courses tracing the Philippines' complicated history with the Pacific Northwest. This intimate tasting room in South Seattle builds menus around heirloom grains, fermented local produce, and house-rolled miki noodles while serving up genuine cultural context alongside every plate. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Chef, the chef here makes the backstory feel inseparable from the food, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

1. The Infatuation Infatuation’s Highest-Rated Restaurants In America
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Hospitality
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Aaron Verzosa

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Twelve seats in a brick corridor, a chalkboard that changes daily, and a chef who treats gooseneck barnacles as a reasonable Tuesday ingredient. Off Alley is an intimate Pacific Northwest tasting spot where foie gras might end up as ice cream and snails arrive on sourdough with bone marrow butter, though the stranger touches tend to punctuate dishes that are, underneath it all, quietly seasonal and elegant. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the staff describe every plate like they can't quite believe it either.

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Kristi Brown
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

1. US Coffee Championships #2 · U.S. Coffee in Good Spirits Championship · Richelle Taylor

A barely-there sign on Beacon Hill marks this casual Guamanian restaurant and bar, which is either accidental humility or the universe's way of filtering out TikTokers (it has not worked). The menu follows the chef's biography through Filipino chicken adobo tacos and Guam-style corn soup, but the achiote-orange empanadas, stuffed with raisined beef and served in a pool of fina'denne', are what drew a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025.

1. Esquire Lola Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Melissa Miranda
2. The Infatuation #3 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Aaron Tekulve
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

The pitas come out of the wood oven almost too hot to handle, still puffed from the heat, and they anchor a menu built around big Mediterranean flavors in a neighborhood restaurant that also runs a soft-serve window because why not. The chef knows the local dogs by name, which tells you something about the room. Lamb ribs and meatballs fill out the regular order for anyone who can't decide, which is most people.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Logan Cox

Each basket of xiao long bao arrives with bamboo tongs and a card explaining exactly how to pinch and transfer without losing the broth, which tells you something about how seriously this soup dumpling shop takes its product. The room is neutral-toned and quietly polished. Six styles of xiao long bao, plus pan-fried buns and wontons that get the same careful treatment. Seattle Met named it one of Seattle's best lunch spots, and the expansion to multiple cities suggests agreement was widespread.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Quynh-Vy and Yenvy Pham
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Yenvy and Quynh Pham
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

The boat-shaped building in Little Saigon runs the whole menu on a single dish: a garlic-crusted half chicken, fried crisp and lacquered in fish sauce, served with rice or a noodle soup sidecar and a chrysanthemum greens salad that quietly steals the table. The drinks list is broader than you'd expect, with Vietnamese iced coffee, pandan iced tea, and cocktails. Save room for the pandan waffles, or come just for those.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. The Infatuation #17 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Quynh Pham and Yenvy Pham

1. Seattle Met Bozena Shero · The Best Things I Ate This Year
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

A postcard mural splashes the back wall of this fast-casual Filipino spot in the International District, setting the tone for a menu that's equally unsubtle about what it loves. Bulalo, the clear beef shank soup, is the centerpiece, and Melissa Miranda's kitchen pulls it off with enough technique to make a simple bowl feel considered. The pancit, the lumpia, the sinigang wings, all travel well in the same direction. The New York Times has named it among Seattle's 25 best.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now
3. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. The Infatuation #2 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

The smash burger with house-cured pork jowl and jeaw condiment is either a flex or a provocation, possibly both. Taurus Ox is a casual Laotian restaurant that moved out of its original counter spot into a proper dining room, and the menu came with it. Khao poon and a family sausage recipe built around lemongrass anchor the Lao side of things, while that burger quietly complicates any notion of what the restaurant is supposed to be. The New York Times named it among Seattle's 25 best.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #12 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

The hollow bread comes with honey butter, and if that sounds simple for a Capitol Hill restaurant pulling Vietnamese flavors through a global filter, the rest of the menu will readjust your expectations fast. This is a contemporary dinner spot where risotto gets a Southeast Asian pesto and carpaccio arrives bright with nuoc cham. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, and the cocktails have their own following.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Seattle Met Tôm Cocktail · The Best Things I Ate This Year

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

Starry lights over soft banquettes set the mood at this fine dining room on Capitol Hill, where the kitchen turns very local ingredients into something quietly elegant. The four-course tasting menu gives you real choices at each round, which makes it unusually painless for people who normally flinch at tasting menus. The hospitality carries the same care as the food, a James Beard Semifinalist nod for Outstanding Hospitality confirms that's not accidental.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Hospitality
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

Bún bò Huế arrives as tacos here, which tells you everything about the approach. This Vietnamese cafe in South Seattle pairs deep-cut dishes like stir-fried snails in coconut sauce with banana cookie crumble matcha lattes, and somehow neither feels out of place. The bánh xèo comes gasp-inducingly large on a woven basket ringed with herbs. Seattle Met named it one of Seattle's best new restaurants in 2025.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Christina Wood

The whiteboard of daily specials is where regulars look first at this old-school Japanese restaurant and bar in the International District, an institution that has been around forever and shows no interest in pretending otherwise. No-nonsense aunties keep things in order, traditional cooks keep the kitchen honest, and the wait for a table is more or less constant. Come hungry and unhurried.

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

The Canlis salad gets made tableside, which tells you exactly the kind of place this is: old-school fine dining with a capital F, perched on a cliff above Lake Union with views that earn their keep. A five-course prix fixe leans into Northwest ingredients with a quiet nod to the restaurant's Hawaiian roots. Food & Wine named it among the top US restaurants in 2025, and the wine program has a hall of fame plaque to its name.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Food & Wine Best New Chefs · Aisha Ibrahim
3. Wine Enthusiast The Wine Restaurant Hall of Fame

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. The Stranger The Lamb Mabo Pizza · The 10 Best Things I Ate in Seattle

A hand-carved wooden angel watches from an overhead alcove while chef Nathan Lockwood plates Northwest ingredients on moss and stones below, which pretty much sets the tone. Altura is a fixed tasting menu restaurant on Capitol Hill, the kind of place where the cooking is polished but the service stays warm enough that you don't feel like you're being graded. A good call when the occasion demands it.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

The chef's pastry background explains why the flan de erizo and the croissant sobrasada roll have each turned heads at Seattle Met. This tapas bar on 12th Avenue riffs on Galician cooking, leaning into the Pacific Northwest's seafood to find where Spain's northwest and Washington's coastline overlap. The menu takes liberties, in a good way, and the sherry list is longer than you'd expect. A James Beard semifinalist in 2024.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Croissant Sobrasada Roll · The Best Things I Ate This Year
3. Seattle Met Flan de Erizo · The Best Things I Ate This Year

Marble cafe tables inside a wine shop looking out at Melrose Market set the scene at Cafe Suliman, a Middle Eastern lunch spot where Pacific Northwest ingredients quietly take over the menu. The toast is famous enough to anchor a meal, and smaller bites like pickled gigante beans and carrot-lentil dip let you graze your way through without committing to a plan. The chef earned a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist nod in 2026.

1. Eater Best Counter
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Ahmed Suliman
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

The kitchen grinds and nixtamalizes heirloom corn daily, which means every tortilla at this innovative Mexican restaurant starts from scratch in a way that most places quietly gave up on long ago. Chef Janet Becerra, a James Beard Emerging Chef nominee, brings European fine-dining technique to cauliflower al pastor tacos and tuna tostadas with morita Kewpie mayo. The room is cozy and the crowd is lucky to have found it.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Emerging Chef · Janet Becerra
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Seattle Met 2026 · Seattle's Best Shaved Ice and Slushies

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Quynh-Vy and Yenvy Pham
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Yenvy and Quynh Pham
3. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

Brady Williams built his name at Canlis, and Tomo is what happens when a fine-dining chef stops apologizing for also loving a steam burger. The à la carte menu lands somewhere between Japanese comfort food and upscale American, with kakigori towering improbably over its bowl for dessert. The room runs dark and stylish, and the wine list is adventurous enough that the four-glass, diner-paced flight exists as a sensible entry point.

1. The New York Times Dungeness Crab Rice · The Best Restaurant Dishes We Ate Across the U.S.
2. Esquire #30 · The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

Savory rosette cookies arrive first at most tables, which tells you something about the chef's sense of humor and ambition. Atoma is a fine dining spot tucked into a converted Craftsman home in Wallingford, running a hyperseasonal Pacific Northwestern menu that's formal enough to take seriously and loose enough to actually enjoy. A James Beard nominee, it draws the kind of crowd that knows exactly where Canlis is, which is where the chef came from.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best New Restaurant
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Johnny Courtney
3. Eater Best New Restaurant

The cinnamon rolls are vegan, which almost feels like a dare. This Madison Valley vegetarian restaurant has been the city's plant-based anchor for what feels like forever, drawing brunch crowds for veg scrambles and rosemary biscuits drowned in savory gravy alongside dinner plates that tend to quiet the table no matter who ordered the steak down the street. A plant-filled atrium and a year-round patio make the room easy to linger in.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

The pizza here is long, rectangular, and crust-heavy enough that it reads more like an open-faced sandwich than a pie, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities. Sacro Bosco is an Italian-leaning dinner spot sharing space with Temple Pastries, and chef Christina Wood brings an almost artistic fussiness to a small, seasonal menu. The housemade ricotta alone has been called one of Seattle's best bites this year, and looking at the plate, you'd believe it.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Housemade Ricotta · The Best Things I Ate This Year
3. The Infatuation #9 · Seattle’s Best New Restaurants

1. The New York Times The Restaurant List
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Baker · Pamela Vuong

1. The Infatuation #19 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. US Coffee Championships #2 · U.S. Coffee in Good Spirits Championship · Richelle Taylor

The hojicha canelé, flavored with roasted green tea and whiskey, tells you everything you need to know before you've found a seat. The Wayland Mill is an all-day café on the ground floor of a Wallingford office building, where the chef's Japanese heritage, Midwest upbringing, and years running Seattle restaurants converge on one menu. The Saint Paul Sando alone, a riff on St. Louis Chinese-American egg foo young pressed into precise tamago on shokupan, has made it a James Beard semifinalist.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. Eater Best All-Day Cafe · The 2025 Eater Seattle Award Winners
3. The Infatuation #2 · Seattle’s Best New Restaurants

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. The Infatuation #16 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Mutsuko Soma
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

The bar is lit by a marquee sign, the wine list describes something as "the purple nurple of pet-nat," and fresh urchin sometimes arrives in the spiny shell with bread and butter. This wainscoted French bistro on Capitol Hill pairs classic technique with Northwest seafood, keeps the natural wine program largely French, and still serves pimento cheese left over from a pop-up era because the menu has a sense of humor about itself.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Urchin · The Best Things I Ate This Year
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. West

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Ajay Panicker

1. The New York Times Lamb Neck Korma Pie · The Best Restaurant Dishes We Ate Across the U.S.
2. Eater Best New Restaurant · The 2025 Eater Seattle Award Winners
3. The Infatuation #10 · Seattle’s Best New Restaurants

Heather Earnhardt's Southern-inflected restaurant now lives inside a historic coastal hotel in Tokeland, having migrated from its Capitol Hill origins. Cozy breakfast anchors the day, surrounded by farmhouse antiques and tchotchkes that feel genuinely accumulated rather than styled. Big buttery biscuits and fried chicken carried over from the original, joined by fried oysters from nearby Willapa Bay and local fish gone cornmeal-and-grits.

1. Seattle Met The Best Restaurants in Washington State

The lechon arrives as a pinwheel of pork with skin so shatteringly crisp it sounds like a problem. Lenox is a Caribbean restaurant in Belltown doing Nuyorican cooking with palm-print wallpaper, rattan fixtures, and a rum-heavy cocktail list that leans hard into the beach-bar premise. The spice mixes are made in-house, the piña coladas get poured generously, and Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
3. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. AAA Five Diamonds

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now

1. US Coffee Championships #4 · U.S. Barista Championship · Noel Goodwin

A katsu shop born from the owners' off-hours obsession with Japanese cutlets, this Redmond spot keeps things focused: pork, chicken, cheese, all fried to a crunch you can hear across the room. The chef pulls from Tokyo tradition and Vancouver's izakaya scene, so the cutlets land in dark chocolate curry, bubbling nabe, or buried under enough grated Parmesan to require a snow shovel. A focused, casual lunch counter doing one thing with real conviction.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. The Infatuation #13 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · Kevin Smith

1. The Infatuation #25 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #8 · Seattle’s Best New Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

A tofu production company that sprouted a deli counter, Thanh Son is the rare spot where the house-made soy milk and fresh tofu, sold by the pound, upstage everything else on offer. The banh mi are built to order on house-baked bread, and the glass case of che, Vietnamese sweet dessert, stacks up a rainbow of tapioca, jellies, and beans in combinations that take a minute to decode. Bring restraint, or at least a spoon.

1. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

Byrek are coils of flaky pastry from Albania, and they're the reason to find this small, stylish cafe near Seattle University. The menu covers baguette sandwiches, fries, and salads well enough, but the byrek, stuffed with leeks and feta or beef and onions, arrive with housemade yogurt for dipping and upstage everything else. Save room for baklava or a slice of cake from the counter display.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

1. The Infatuation #24 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurant

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle
2. Seattle Met 2026 · Seattle's Best Shaved Ice and Slushies

1. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. The Infatuation #21 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
2. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle
2. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots
2. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

1. Seattle Met Pak Mor Yuan · The Best Things I Ate This Year
2. Seattle Met Khao Soi Chiang Mai · The Best Things I Ate This Year
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots

1. The Infatuation The 21 Most Fun Dinner Spots In Seattle

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Seattle

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots
2. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

1. Eater Best Comeback · The 2025 Eater Seattle Award Winners

The menu calls them "Sichuan ravioli," which tells you everything about the vibe here. This old-school International District Chinese restaurant has been serving homestyle Sichuan long before hot pot chains made the cuisine trendy in Seattle, and the approach hasn't changed much: big plates, ropy noodles, a pepper-reddened boiled fish that sounds mild and isn't, and portions sized like someone's grandmother is worried you look thin.

1. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

1. The Infatuation #5 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle Right Now

1. Seattle Met 2026 · The Best Restaurants in the Chinatown–International District Right Now

A small, bright restaurant on Aurora where the kitchen turns out somewhere between 700 and 800 momos on a busy weekend, which tells you everything about the pace. The six-page menu covers Indian and Nepali cooking, with dumplings in ten styles, a full vegetarian slate, and enough bread to require a decision. The dal bhat thali is where to start, a sampler of traditional foods that the team describes as the closest thing to a home-cooked dinner in Nepal.

1. Seattle Met Seattle’s Best New Restaurants
2. The Infatuation #8 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Seattle
3. Seattle Met Seattle’s 50 Best Restaurants