The Stranger

Our Favorite Bowls of Hot Soup in Seattle

Julianne Bell — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:20:00 -0800

Don’t worry, we’ll start yelling at politicians again soon. by Julianne Bell

It’s cold. Earlier this week we saw a few tiny flurries of snow, even! And while some weather reports suggest we might soon break out of this chilly, mid-40s prison we’ve been locked in, it’ll be by just a few degrees. And probably rainy. It’s the perfect weather for soup. So we took a break from screaming about Trump and City Hall, and switched gears for a minute to appreciate some of our favorite warm and comforting bowls of soup. Don’t worry, we’ll start yelling at politicians again soon.

Isarn’s Chiang Mai

Look, this whole soup is fucked up. The curry noodle soup from Northern Thailand comes out looking like a sculpture, with a nest of fried noodles perched on top of perfectly poached chicken and surrounded by a thick curry broth—creamy and spiced so it feels like it warms you from the inside out. When it’s served, you’ll get three things on the side: raw red onion, chopped pickled veg, and a deep red chili oil. After your first bite, you’ll be tempted to roll up your sleeves and forget about these little treats. Do not be that fool. These bits and bobs are what turn each bite into its own experience. Is your palate feeling a little tired of the richness of the broth? Add a little pickle on top of that spoonful of noodles. Repeat until you see the bottom of the bowl. HANNAH MURPHY WINTER

Situ Tacos’ Soup of the Day

Yes, the Ballard oasis Situ Tacos is primarily known for its fried Lebanese Mexican tacos, but soups are one of owner Lupe Flores’s favorite things to make, and it shows. As the shop’s resident animatronic parrot, Armando, occasionally squawks: “Don’t sleep on the soups…uh, don’t sleep in the soup. Uh, the soup is super!” They rotate weekly, and there’s a meat and veggie option each day, so you might encounter molokhia (Lebanese seven-spice chicken and rice stew), chorizo potato kale, Lebanese veggie stew, fideo con bistec, vegan pozole rojo, zuppa toscana, pumpkin curry, broccoli cheddar, chicken tortilla, or something else altogether. Whatever it is, it’s sure to be soul-soothing and seasoned to perfection—you really can’t go wrong. Get a combo with tangy, crunchy slaw and/or a couple of tacos for dunking. JULIANNE BELL

Halcyon Brewing's Vegan Butternut Bisque

I first happened upon Halcyon Brewing’s vegan butternut bisque by chance. Well, sort of. I was attending Ravenna Brewing Company’s annual “Soup Battle,” where local bars and breweries go head-to-head with their best soups, mostly because my good friend runs the event. Saddled with four delicious soups, I didn’t know where to begin. But Halcyon’s yellow-y orange soup with a swoop of coconut milk and a crack of black pepper on the top beckoned. I finished my bowl. It was sweet, it was savory, and it had a nice kick of spice—the brewery’s homemade chili crisp— that warmed my insides. Something vegan had no right to be so good and so creamy. Everyone at my table agreed that it should take the top prize.The rest of the Soup Battle patrons thought so, too—Halcyon’s vegan butternut bisque won the coveted Golden Ladle. NATHALIE GRAHAM

Pho Than Bros’ Veggie Pho with No Mushrooms and No Cilantro and Extra Broccoli

I’m not about to tell you how to order pho. And I’m not going to try to convince you that Pho Than Bros is the best pho in Seattle, even though every bowl comes with a sweet little custard-stuffed pastry puff. Pho is personal, pho is sacred. How I pho and how you pho can be—and should be!—very different experiences, each one custom-tailored after years of slurping and experimenting and learning the hard way that your sriracha threshold isn’t nearly as high as you thought it’d be. And, at Than Bros, I have perfected my order. I get a small veggie pho with no mushrooms, no cilantro, and extra broccoli, then I load it up with black pepper, a fat ring of hoisin sauce, a delicate squeeze of sriracha, and as many of the bean sprouts that I can manage before my husband says, “Stop taking all the bean sprouts.” I finish it off with a squeeze of lime and dig in.

This isn’t an invitation for you to try what I think is the best pho in Seattle; this is an invitation for you to find your own. But if you’re looking for a place to start, or a change up from your usual, to me, Than Bros is perfect. It’s my happy place. And it comes with a cream puff. MEGAN SELING

Metropolitan Market’s Cioppino

Metropolitan Market’s cioppino has been there for me since I was a child, when my parents would bring home a pint of the hot seafood stew on chilly winter nights when they didn’t feel like cooking. The rich, tomato broth, seasoned with white wine, and filled with a potpourri of shrimp, mussels, salmon, and white fish, will always feel like a luxurious treat, despite coming from a grocery store’s hot food buffet. Considering that cioppino was created as a way for fishermen to use up unsold seafood at the end of the day, I would advise not making it yourself. Not because it’s difficult, but because it will cost you approximately $5 million to buy four types of fresh seafood. Instead, buy a 16-ounce cup from your nearest Metropolitan Market store for a mere $7.39, and buy yourself a nice warm cookie while you're at it. AUDREY VANN

Biang Biang Noodles’ Curry Tofu Dry Mix

Massive Chinese hand-pulled noodles boiled to a perfect chewiness texture, doused in a delectable yellow curry sauce and flavorful broth with chunks of tofu and cabbage, in a bowl so massive you might need two people to finish it. It’s the hearty Asian noodle dish you dream of on a frigid evening. It’s Biang Biang Noodles’ Curry Tofu Dry Mix.

If you’ve been to Biang Biang, you might be thinking, Seriously? This isn’t soup, it’s a quart of hot oil. Well, to that I say: 1) oil is a liquid, and Managing Editor Megan Seling said we could write about “anything served in a bowl that is at least 50 percent liquid,” and (2) this oil is delicious.

Call it soup, call it hot oil, call it a bowl of molten comfort—the Curry Tofu Dry Mix does exactly what the best soups are supposed to. It satisfies your savory tooth and warms you up when the weather’s unforgiving. So if you’re asking me to grab a casual dinner with you on a dreary winter day, gimme those chopsticks and a Chinese soup spoon and find me at Biang Biang. MICAH YIP

Gorditos’ Vegan Pozole

The biggest mistake I’ve made in my life was going to Gorditos for years and only ordering one thing from the menu: A veggie burrito, wet, with a side of chips and salsa. It’s no Veggie Nolasco from Mama’s, but I love it, and I have probably eaten hundreds of them in my 45 years on the planet with zero regrets. Well, zero regrets until one fated day in December. On that day, I was finally turned on to other parts of Gordito’s menu. Did you know they have tacos! And enchiladas! They even serve breakfast! What have I been doing all my life!? And, most importantly on a cold winter’s day such as the ones we’ve been experiencing this week, they have soup. Their current soup is a vegan pozole that is an explosion of flavor in your mouth. A savory red base that tastes not unlike a brothier version of the red sauce they ladle over my beloved burrito is loaded with onions, zucchini, corn, mushrooms, and hominy, which gives each spoonful a toothsome, meaty bite. The broth is salty and rich, in a craveable way, and while eight-ounces with a side of chips is definitely enough to be its own meal, I recommend opting for the four-ounce cup, adding a taco to your order, and then proceeding to use every curved chip in the bag as your spoon. MEGAN SELING

Ooink’s Spicy Vegetarian Miso Ramen

If I am going to pay to eat soup outside of my home, it’s going to be ramen. And the best ramen I’ve found, for a vegetarian such as myself, is from Ooink. There’s a Fremont location, but I can only speak for the Capitol Hill spot—the one in the strip-mall above the lit QFC on Broadway and Pike.

My order is the Spicy Vegetarian Miso Ramen (it can be made vegan, and there’s a version without “spicy” in the title). Not to worry: it has a warm kick, but is not the kind of spice that will make you cough or harsh your tastebuds.

The sturdy buckwheat noodles have just the right amount of tooth, and the miso broth has depth without being too salty or greasy—common traps that many vegetarian broths fall into when trying to overcompensate for something they do not need to overcompensate for. The toppings are correct: a springy pile of kikurage, little heaps of corn and green onions, a few sheets of seaweed, and a handful of happy baby bok choy that are blessedly not soggy and therefore retain a hint of peppery mustard flavor. This ramen also features a pat of melting corn butter, and a subtle sesame dressing drizzled onto the greens. I get mine without the tofu skin, but that’s just a personal preference (or aversion, maybe, that has something to do with its resemblance to, um, the second word there).

The star of the bowl is the house-made chili crisp. I sometimes wait until I absolutely have to stir it in because it’s such a banger taste all on its own; it’s crunchy and a little smoky and a little sweet, and the sesame seeds and spicy peanuts keep it interesting as you make your way to the bottom. Vegetarian ramens can get weird, and feel half-assed, but Ooink’s well-balanced version is the way to do it. EMILY NOKES

The Live and Let Dry at Lady Jaye

Meg van Huygen — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0800

An Herbaceous Mocktail Made from Caffeinated Leaves, Iris Roots, and Almonds

by Meg van Huygen

Although I didn’t observe Dry January myself, I absolutely respect the game, just as I understand that the liver wants what it wants (and doesn’t what it doesn’t). I’m also always nosy about what drinks my friends order, even if they’re teetotal. So at West Seattle’s Lady Jaye last month, when my NA pal was raving about their tasty mango shrub, I did something I normally wouldn’t. I took a peek at the mocktails. Er, fauxtails. Foxtails. Whatever we’re calling them now.

One drink had three things I love and one I’d never even heard of. The Live and Let Dry consists of Three Spirit Livener, Lyre’s Amaretti, lime, ginger, and Casamara Club Alta. I’m an old friend and lover of the Casamara pantheon, so that was enough by itself to make the sale, frankly. But what in the fuck is Three Spirit Livener? Plus ginger AND amaretti? “If you want, I can add gin to it,” bartender Nick consoled me as he put the drink together. “It’s really good both ways.” Tempting, but I had him hold off. Let’s taste it in its purest form first.

If you don’t know the Casamara Club line of botanical sodas, they’re all very leafy and horticultural-flavored, like drinking trees. These alcohol-free takes on amari-based cocktails come in six different flaves, and while there’s one that tastes exactly like the smell of the hand soap in my mom’s bathroom, the Alta soda is fuckin’ elite. Inspired by the Negroni cocktail, it’s made of chinotto—a bitter orange that grows along the Calabrian coast—as well as allspice berries, mandarin, lemon, clove, anise, juniper, and orris root, which is the root of the Dalmatian iris. Warm spice, sharp citrus. It’s like piney Christmas lemonade.

Then there’s a drop of virgin amaretto from UK-based Lyre’s, which styles their booze-free version as “amaretti,” after the cookie. It’s peachy-vanilla, toasty and nutty, kind of marzipan-tastical. Lyre’s is less sweet than the boozy stuff, too (and it’s lovely over ice cream, by the way).

Finally, the dark horse: the Livener by Three Spirit. Its base is the dried leaves of the ilex guayusa, a caffeinated tree that grows in the Amazon rainforest; a strong guayusa tea is served at South American convivencias (social gatherings) as a pick-me-up. To this, Three Spirit adds watermelon, pomegranate, and schisandra berries, which are distantly related to star anise. This elixir also packs some heat, from both ginger and cayenne, and astringent tartness from hibiscus extract. They add extra caffeine to it, too, and a little punch of apple cider vinegar. It’s super complex and bright and reminds me a little bit of those fruit teas from boba shops, but with chili and extra herbs, and without the big sugary slap in the face.

Lady Jaye owner Sara Rosales says she was eager to work with this stuff specifically for its mood-enhancing ingredients. “In theory,” she says, “this cocktail actually makes you feel revived!” Damn, it’s like the opposite of a cocktail—in more ways than one.

The effect is at once delicious and fascinating. In the end, I drank up the whole glass before I remembered to ask Nick to add gin, then came back later to try the ginned-up version. Both ways are fabulous, of course. I’ll try it with bourbon next time.

February Things to Do: Food

Julianne Bell — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:00:00 -0800

The best food and drink events in Seattle in February. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This & That.

Polina Chesnakova, ‘Chesnok’

FEB 5

Local author (and former Book Larder culinary director) Polina Chesnakova returns with her third and latest cookbook Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora: Recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, a love letter to the food of the Soviet diaspora. Chesnakova, who was born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from Georgia, has painstakingly documented over 110 regional recipes ranging from Ukrainian varenyky (dumplings) to medovik (honey cake), alongside essays and stories of her childhood memories of cooking and eating. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

Nicki Sizemore, ‘Mind, Body, Spirit, Food’

FEB 9

Trained chef, professional recipe developer, and cookbook author Nicki Sizemore has nearly 20 years of experience in the food industry, but she hasn’t always had an easy relationship with food. She’s shared her journey of overcoming diet culture and health issues on her Substack newsletter and podcast Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD and offers recipes paired with mindfulness techniques, as well as interviews with guests on their relationships with food. Her newest book, also called Mind, Body, Spirit, Food, contains 51 recipes (that just so happen to be free of gluten, due to her medical necessity) alongside mindfulness prompts that invite home cooks to slow down, invoke the five senses, and enjoy the process. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

Naoko Takei Moore, ‘Simply Donabe’

FEB 26

Meals cooked in a donabe (a traditional Japanese earthenware pot) are the original one-pot meals. Besides being energy-efficient and having even heat distribution thanks to their porous material, they’ve also given rise to “nabe o kakomu” (“surrounding the pot”), a culture of communal meals centered around the donabe. Naoko Takei Moore’s new cookbook Simply Donabe demonstrates how you can recreate some of this comforting, nourishing magic in your own kitchen, with recipes like sour minced pork hotpot and miso-simmered ramen, plus side dishes like quick-pickled Napa cabbage and desserts like matcha ice cream. (Book Larder, 6:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

More

Ballard Farmers Market Every Sunday, Ballard Ave, 9 am–noon, free

Capitol Hill Farmers Market Every Sunday, E Denny Way and Nagle Pl, 11 am–3 pm, free

West Seattle Farmers Market Every Sunday, Alaska Junction, 10 am–2 pm, free

Fremont Sunday Market Every Sunday, Evanston Ave N and N 34th St, 10 am–4 pm, free

Strong And Dark Beer Festival Feb 7, Figurehead Brewing Magnolia, noon–5 pm

Hops & Props Feb 21, Museum of Flight, 7–10 pm, 21+

Tacoma Beer Week Feb 27–March 8, various locations across Tacoma

Early Warnings

Taste Washington March 21–22, various locations, 21+

The Best Things I Ate in the Seattle Area in 2025

Meg van Huygen — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0800

Here are my best Seattle-based dishes of 2025—and likely a partial list of my future best restaurants, too. by Meg van Huygen

A best dish is not the same thing as a best restaurant. They’re different prompts, you know? A best dish can be a fluke, the only dish you liked on the whole menu, but it lifted you out of a shitty dining experience. It can be the greatest thing on a menu full of total bangers. It can also be an introduction to a new restaurant—a reason to put a pin in it and come back for more recon. Often, the rest of the album is great, too, although not always. Sometimes it’s just an emotion or a vibe that makes a best dish. The people you're eating with, or the people who served it to you. The song that was playing. Maybe the dish wouldn’t be as nice if it weren’t pouring outside.

Like any list of favorites, there’s no accounting for taste here, and everyone’s invited to make their own roster in the comments! But here are my best Seattle-based dishes of 2025—and likely a partial list of my future best restaurants, too.

Ahi tuna tostada at La Marea

This is easily one of the best things I’ve eaten not only this year but in my entire life. Future and past lives included.

After starting out making (excellent) spit-grilled tacos as Tacos Extranjeros, Liz Dones and Bo Tarantine revamped as La Marea, serving Mexican-style mariscos with a touch of Michelinney flair out of the back room at Fair Isle Brewing. This tostada is another deceptively simple dish: a crisp, flat tortilla spread with salsa macha—spicy oil loaded with fried Mexican chilis—then heaped with ruby-red ahi tuna and drizzled with umamescent XO sauce. The tostada’s absolutely piled with luminescent red ingots of ahi, cut sashimi-style and anointed by all the shiny sauces. Vivid as a Mormon Jell-O salad. It is so red.

The fish is immaculate by itself, but the sauces and textures and nubbly fried-out bits of chili elevate it to the point where you’re experiencing something like heartbreak with each bite. You will order this tostada thinking you’ll share it with your boyfriend, but you will soon discover he needs to order his own. You have become an ancient and untamed person, and your primordial greed will force you to slam the entire thing into your face before he can take any of it from you.

Prahok k’tiss and crudités at Sophon

Each year, the James Beard Foundation hosts its Taste America series, a trade show for bar/restaurant owners in cities across the nation, where you meander around the booths and bite the bites and sip the sips. In Seattle’s version this year, the second the guests walked in the door, they were hit with a fermented cloud of prahok, a Cambodian salted fish paste. Shoulda known we’d see Sophon chef/owner Karuna Long’s smiling face at the end of it.

Prahok k’tiss is an unctuous, saucy dip that reminds me of sloppy joe meat, or maybe a very dense bolognese—with the notable addition of fermented fish. It’s pungent and funky, so it needs to ride on the slices of raw cucumber and Thai eggplant to travel to your mouth. Long makes his with coconut milk, spicy kroeung sauce, and superdeluxe ground pork from Pure Country Farms in Ephrata, and it was the best dish in the whole room, easy, right out of the gate. He also makes a meatless mushroom version at Sophon that's comparably outstanding. This dish stayed on my mind (and breath) all day, and I’ve ordered it whenever I’m at the shop since.

The Kereviz is mandatory ordering. (Courtesy Hamdi) Kereviz at Hamdi

Full disclosure: Hamdi is destination-level fine dining, so it’s weird to write about a specific dish when you’re probably there for a giant spendy spread, not a single side of creamed celery root. But when you do find yourself at Hamdi, this kereviz is mandatory ordering.

It’s another dip: celery root that’s been puree-chunked into smoked ayran (Turkish-style yogurt) and garnished with figs, pine nuts, and anise hyssop. The move is to spoon it on some of their glorious charred sourdough, although you’d be forgiven for skipping the bread and spooning it directly into your throat. Sometimes chef Berk Güldal will change it up and add pomegranate molasses or green apple or puffed quinoa. The mouthfeel is like a coleslaw milkshake, but it’s savory and smoky, creamy and vegetal. Kereviz is essentially veg-at-the-bottom yogurt, made with the richest, finest yogurt imaginable, that’s been set on fire. There’s nothing else like it in town.

These coffee-rubbed ribs are the GOAT. (Courtesy Ramie) Coffee-rubbed ribs with butternut squash puree at Ramie

On one of the most obnoxiously sweltering days of the summer, with a buddy in tow, I stopped into Ramie with a belly full of wine and snacks from a Washington wine event at gorgeous fine-diner Surrell, full to bursting. We originally meant to find shelter from the miserable sun, but my friend didn’t nosh as much at Surrell, so he ordered some ribs off of Ramie’s happy hour menu. I managed exactly one bite of this dish before tapping out, but oh god.

You get a big slab of pork ribs that have been marinated in Viet coffee then low-and-slow-roasted, so the bones slide out like Jenga blocks. The tannins in the coffee and the sugar in the glaze play beautifully with the fatty pork, and the char on the edge is like gold gilt, or maybe the sprinkles on a sundae. The portion’s generous, five or six ribs, so it’s great for sharing over Ramie’s extremely elite cocktails. It also comes with a dab of pulverized butternut squash that we both wanted more of—and indeed, I went back the next week to split an order with my dude. To be fair, every single thing on Ramie’s menus is stunning, but for me, this happy-hour porkslab is the GOAT.

Pasta Brontese: one pasta to rule them all. (Courtesy Mezzanotte) Pasta Brontese at Mezzanotte

Within the vast Marcus Lalario cinematic universe, Mezzanotte is most analogous to The Two Towers—compared to, say, Ciudad’s Return of the King (swift and action-packed) or Li’l Woody’s Fellowship of the Ring (classic and simple). In contrast, Mezzanotte’s program is thoughtful and heavy, with a lot to take in—although adding some housemade amari breaks helps!—and your meal will be long as hell, but you’ll come away with a new understanding of goodness, innovation, and perseverance.

At a NonnaKase popup—Mezzanotte’s Italian take on a Japanese omakase, or chef’s dinner—the thiccccc pasta Brontese taught our table a Middle-earthian lesson about strengthening friendship through shared adventure, after triumphing over greed. Named for the pistachio-producing village of Bronte, Sicily, it’s a tangle of fresh fettuccine in a velveteen cream sauce that’s punctuated by ground nuts, grated pecorino, savory pancetta, and a splash of white wine. Right away, we forgot ourselves, each competing to consume as much of the dish as we scientifically could, and we were all still digesting it the next day. A reminder that there’s some good (pasta) in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting (er, sitting for three hours) for.

The bread course with all the marvelous little dips at Canlis

I grew up four blocks up the hill from Canlis and didn’t eat there until I was middle-aged, after my boyfriend won a gift card at work. Why? You know why. But what I didn’t know until then is that dining at Canlis’s twinkly little bar requires no reservation, and it’s an order of magnitude cheaper than prix-fixing in the dining room. The bar fare’s quite different from the main event, too, and new exec chef James Huffman’s snacky, down-to-earth menu still packs the same hyperlocal farm-to-table pizzazz. All with the same iconic view of the lake and the Lebanese cedar.

This is where the bestie and I spent her birthday this year, and although we loved all the bar snax—as well as the truly world-class cocktails and mocktails—it was the introductory bread course that left us frustrated we couldn’t scoop out the exquisite dregs of rhubarb jam and cultured miso butter and verdant cheese dip (green garlic, spinach, sharp cheddar) with our fingers. This isn’t a Buffalo Wild Wings, ladies. Instead, we used the tawny, luminous, sea-salt-crusted boule of sourdough to do the job, and it was hard not to ask for another loaf to go. An exercise in self-control, in the most pleasurable way possible.

I liked it before the New York Times did. (Courtesy of Little Beast) Lamb neck korma pie at Little Beast

Swear to god, this was on my list before the New York Times published theirs last week! Everybody’s Seattle restaurant of the year seems to be Little Beast, though, and if you’re a meat-eater, it’s hard to argue. This year, chef/owner Kevin Smith expanded his Loyal Heights butcher shop into an old-timey pub on Ballard Avenue, focusing on English-style chops, savory pastries, and Sunday roast dinner. The menu is a carnival of indulgence, and the standout among them—I gotta agree with the NYT—is the lamb neck korma pie.

A brilliant take on British–Indian fusion, it’s braised lamb oxtail suspended in golden-blond korma gravy, then hidden inside a frilly hot-water crust. Just cutting into this thing is real theater, as the molten yellow sauce curlicues out from between the pie shards and across your plate, and that’s to say nothing of tasting it. You feel like you’re a D&D character in some weird monster’s pelt who’s stumbled into an inn in a strange land after a long winter journey—it’s that kind of down-to-your-bones comfort food. Or, uh, maybe that’s just me.

Lao sausage on sticky rice at Vientiane Grocery

I knew I’d been delinquent for never having been to Vientiane Grocery, a nondescript Hillman City minimart with a food counter inside. I’d had their Lao sausage at lovely Communion, but all the recent IG reels full of noodle pulls were tantalizing me hard. It just looked like a spot where you should bring a crew, what with so many spectacular things to order.

In December, I finally organized a group of friends to meet me there… and then it was drizzly with a high of 40°F and almost everybody flaked. Just one pal showed up.

Fuck it. We’ll do it live. As prophesied, the chunky, succulent Lao sausage on sticky rice was the star of the show: rich and slightly sweet, flavored with lemongrass and shallots and chilis, bound with a little rice powder. A side of jeow bong—Laos’s earthy, smoky hot sauce—gave us a delicious little jolt with each bite. It was all eminently take-home-able too, as one should have guessed from the fact that it’s in a minimart. Who needs friends? You could have a porky, chunkulent sausage party all for yourself here, and you’d do just fine.

This ricotta ice cream will haunt you. (Courtesy Local 104) Ricotta ice cream at the Local 104

Stick with me here. In the dark, woodsy bowels of residential Lake Forest Park, beneath the tall Doug firs, there’s an old minimart that’s been turned into a pizza-n-sando spot, with a sign that makes you think it might be a labor union. And inside that building is a cozy sleeper-hit dinner wonderland.

It feels rude to not mention the fabulous wood-fired pizzas at Local 104 here—perfectly leopard-spotted, straight out of Neapolitan central casting, and topped with jewels like sliced Iberico chorizo and medjool dates—or the killer beer selection or the fried chicken sandwich. But it was the housemade ricotta ice cream that made this place haunt my skull all year. Bordering on custard territory, it’s flecked with salty Moroccan-style preserved lemon and served alongside peaches or other stone fruit. Salty and sweet, creamy and sharp, and downright luxurious.

The ice cream’s seasonal, per the summerfruit, but I recommend checking back often and eating whatever the fuck they have on the menu here, honestly. When co-owner Margaret Edwins—whom oldheads will remember from her flawless Capitol Hill bistro 611 Supreme, RIP—at the wheel, there are no wrong turns.

Encocado is perfect for getting coconutted on a rainy day. (Courtesy Bad Chancla) Encocado at Bad Chancla

This one was a surprise—a whimsical snack that ended up making my whole day. On Olive and Denny, teeny tiny Bad Chancla is serving pan-Latin soups and sandwiches, and it was just blustery enough one day to pop in from the cold and try this flavorful, aromatic stew. It was exactly what I wanted in that moment.

Encocado is the only Ecuadorian dish on the menu, says Guayaquil-born co-owner José Garzón, and they make it from Pacific cod that’s poached in coconut milk with sofrito and tons of cilantro, then poured over white rice. This is a coastal dish I’d never seen in Seattle, and now that the weather is doing the damn thing, it’s exactly what you want as well. The name of the dish, by the way, means “coconutted,” and I like this as a euphemism for ducking out of the pissing rain to hunch over a steamy bowl of fish stew. Peel that wet coat off and sit down. You’ve been coconutted.

Honorable mention: The curry paneer Caesar at Grann in Tacoma, which serves a fusion of Black soul, Indian, and Caribbean food. It’s not in the Seattle area exactly, but I could write a whole novella about this salad. Massaged kale is coated in tandoori spices and fresh paneer cheese that’s been blurred down into a pesto, then studded with lemon pickle and pistachios, and it’s now the gold standard that all the rest of my life’s salads must live up to. Get the pimento-cheese-filled pani puri while you’re there too.

Seattle Fucking Rules at Holiday Drinks, and Here Are Some of the Best

Meg van Huygen — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:25:00 -0800

Here, in the atheist-est part of the nation, the most important part of the holiday season is the food and drink. by Meg van Huygen

I’ll come out and say it: Here, in the atheist-est part of the nation, the most important part of the holiday season is the food and drink. If you’re in it for the Christmas spirit or the religious euphoria, that’s very nice, and I’m happy for you. But in a sometimes-lonely city of mostly transplants, when weather is doing… what it does this time of year, a nice fatty meal and a boozy drink in hand are more likely to nurture a cold Seattleite’s soul than a production of Handel’s Messiah. Also, frankly, this is one of the nation’s great bar towns, and Seattle industry folks tend to really revel in the holiday drink program as a creative prompt. Even if you don’t drink, the city’s bars are primed to hook you up with some serious seasonal cheer to brighten the drizzliest December day—at flexible booze levels. Check it out. We’re good at this.

Your favorite restaurant and mine, Lenox, is one of the few in Seattle that’s doing coquito this year. Their take on this coconutty Caribbean version of eggnog is made with coconut milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, holiday spices, cacao nibs, and Lenox’s house blend of butterscotchy Bounty gold rum and Planteray’s Three Stars white rum blend. It’s got a lightness to it—all the classic eggnog flavors without the gloppiness. Coquito is served at Lenox’s beautiful bar all month, and it’s also available in N/A 32-ounce bottles to take home and add your own rum to (or not).

Once again this year, the Sitting Room is doing their glamorously elaborate Home Alone cocktails, with a couple updates for 2025. The Battle Plan is their answer to a clarified milk punch, comprising mezcal AND tequila, Nixta Licor de Elote, Pamplemousse Liqueur, Licor 43, cereal-infused milk, grapefruit, lime, bergamot, and winter spices—topped with club soda and oat & hazelnut foam. Also back is Fuller, Go Easy on the Pepsi!—that’s WhistlePig cask-strength six-year rye, cola reduction, Luxardo sour cherry bitters, Ango bitters, and an orange spritz. (The bar actually bought their own barrel from WhistlePig, so it’s a Sitting Room single-barrel exclusive.)

Also on Lower Queen Anne, the crunchy old Streamline Tavern is doing a crazy-deluxe eggnog designed by Seattle’s own president of Chartreuse, Matt Pachmayr (bar manager at Le Coin). This one is giving Sitting Room a run for their money when it comes to sheer fance: Matty’s version has yellow and green Chartreuse, L’Encantada XO Armagnac, Roger Groult three-year Calvados, Foursquare 2011 rum, Worthy Park Single Estate Jamaican rum, eggs, sugar, and cream.

At the Portuguese-influenced Lonely Siren in Pike Place, bartender Grace Dai is hyping the Witching Hour Wassail: pear cider, Pisco, Madeira, cardamom, and clove-spiced pear butter. Owner Brandi Sather is also doing a cookie shot, made with housemade tequila butterscotch schnapps, housemade Irish cream, and housemade maple whip—and a housemade cookie on top. Pair it with a pastel de nata, one of Portugal’s national dishes, made from a recipe by chef Randall Ventura’s grandma, Ana.

At Belltown’s Rob Roy, bar manager JoJo Kitchen has devised a whole holiday drink program, and she’s going all out. Among her crafty cocktails this year are the Run Run Reindeer, which is mulled wine reduction, lemon, prosecco, and aromatic bitters, and I’m also a big fan of the understated Snowball Old-Fashioned, made with rye, gingerbread, aromatic and wormwood bitters, and orange essence. If you’re feeling a little more extra, there are a few other highly festooned drinks on the menu with eight or 10 different ingredients apiece, served in red and green dinosaur-shaped mugs. Kitchen was largely behind Rob Roy’s recent James Beard Award nomination, so you know every single one of these beverages is a real, ahem, tree-topper.

Along with a dozen other Seattle bars, Dark Room is participating in a promotion by Reykjavík Spirits, wherein each is assigned a cocktail to serve that contains Brennivín, a caraway-flavored aquavit that’s the pride of Iceland. In Icelandic lore, the 13 sons of cannibal troll Grýla, called the Jólasveinar, punish bad children around Yuletide, and each troll child is lending his name to a local cocktail. Dark Room’s serving a drink named for Askasleikir (“Bowl Licker” in English), and it’s got Cocchi Americano, Suze, black lemon bitters, burlesque bitters, and Brennivín Special Cask Aquavit, aged in bourbon and sherry casks. I’m sure all the Yule Lad drinks are delicious, but this one has the good stuff—the red-label Brennivín—and it’s the one you wanna start with.

The cozy Fireside Room at the Hotel Sorrento is doing a spread of festive drinks to sit with by the hearth. The Sugar & Spice is a fragrant favorite, made with rye, Faretti biscotti liqueur, ginger, orange blossom, and chocolate mole bitters. The Midnight Mistletoe Smooch, with fino sherry, sweet red vermouth, and saffron-scented Meletti Amaro, is another sweet little pick-me-up, and I also love the N/A Santa’s Little Helper: It’s essentially a cherry Italian soda, with Luxardo black cherry syrup, soda water, and a splash of cream.

And at the sultry secret-most bar in the city, legendary bartender Keith Waldbauer is bringing back his signature banana bread old-fashioned to the Doctor’s Office as a last blast before he moves on to more southerly climes. ([Loud stage whisper]: RENTON.) Made with a house rum blend that’s infused with brioche and a crème de banane liqueur by Pairidaēza that reminds me of plantains, plus a bit of Amaro Amorino Riserva from local operation Letterpress Distilling, the BBOF usually sells out immediately, so act fast. Waldbauer will have a batch ready starting December 1. TDO’s also doing their luscious signature eggnog with amontillado sherry and reposado tequila, so you better snag one of those too.

Honorable mention:

For the third year, Queer/Bar has polymorphed into its big X-messy Christmas Dive Bar manifestation, and it’s reportedly bigger, boozier, and merrier than ever. The bar’s serving up an expanded menu of holiday cocktails with names like Butterbeer Fizz, Grinch Martini, and Mistletoe Margarita, alongside nostalgic snacks like meatballs and Lil Smokies. At press time, there were no available details on what these festive cocktails actually contain, but perhaps more than the specifics of the drinks themselves, it’s about the spirit of the Christmassified space itself—and making merry inside of it. If you swing that way.

December Things to Do: Food

Julianne Bell — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:57:00 -0800

The best food events happening in December. by Julianne Bell

Want more? Here's everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, and Food.

Miracle on 2nd

Through Dec 25

In 2014, New York bar owner Greg Boehm temporarily transformed his space into a kitschy Christmas wonderland replete with gewgaws and tchotchkes galore. Now, the pop-up has expanded to more than 100 locations all over the world and returns to Belltown’s Rob Roy. Beverages are housed in tacky-tastic vessels, bedecked with fanciful garnishes like peppers and dried pineapple, and christened with cheeky, pop- culture-referencing names like the “Bad Santa,” the “Yippie Ki Yay Mother F****r” (their asterisks, not ours), and the “You’ll Shoot Your Rye Out.” (Rob Roy, 4 pm–2 am) JULIANNE BELL

We Are Where We Eat: Seattle’s Food Culture

Dec 11

Our city may have its own regional specialties like teriyaki and Seattle dogs, but does it have its own food culture, and if so, what defines it? Inspired by the exhibition Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism, this talk hosted by Seattle Art Museum will explore these burning questions, as well as the future of Seattle’s restaurant scene and how other cooking traditions have influenced local cuisine. Ruby de Luna of KUOW will moderate a conversation with Cafe Campagne chef/co-owner Daisley Gordon and chef/food writer J. Kenji López-Alt as they contemplate our culinary landscape. (Seattle Art Museum, 6–8 pm, free with admission, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

Seattle Christmas Market

Through Dec 24

Lately, I’ve been jealously poring over YouTube videos of German Christmas markets aglow with twinkly lights and full of bustling shoppers bundled up in their puffy winter coats, purchasing everything from handmade gifts to glühwein. I’ve been daydreaming of a Yuletide escape to experience one of these idyllic bazaars for myself, but since that’s not likely in the cards anytime soon, my next best option is Seattle’s Christmas Market, the local take on this Old-World European tradition. The event features live entertainment, over 60 artisan vendors, a lineup of German beers, sweet and savory treats, and of course, the requisite mulled wine to cup in your gloved hands as you peruse the booths. Plus, ride a Christmas carousel, embark on a scavenger hunt, and snap selfies with the festive mascots Holly and Jolly. (Seattle Center, various times, all ages) JULIANNE BELL

Holiday Makers’ Market at Fast Penny Spirits

Dec 6

Get ahead of the holiday hubbub and build an arsenal of classy host gifts and stocking stuffers at this market featuring local vendors, hosted by the woman-owned amaro distillery Fast Penny Spirits. One of their amaros, which come in gorgeous bottles with gilded Art-Deco-inspired art, would be a welcome addition to any aspiring mixologist’s bar cart, but you can also choose from items like cocktail kits from Crafted Taste, deluxe cherries from Orasella, vintage glassware from Mix Century Vintage, hand-poured candles from Pumarosa Candles, tonic from Bradley’s Tonic, and cookbooks from Book Larder, among others. (Fast Penny Spirits, 1–4:30 pm) JULIANNE BELL

More

Ballard Farmers Market Every Sunday, Ballard Ave, 9 am–noon, free

Capitol Hill Farmers Market Every Sunday, E Denny Way and Nagle Pl, 11 am–3 pm, free

West Seattle Farmers Market Every Sunday, Alaska Junction, 10 am–2 pm, free

Fremont Sunday Market Every Sunday, Evanston Ave N and N 34th St, 10 am–4 pm, free

Osteria la Spiga’s Fifth Annual Holiday Market Dec 7, Osteria la Spiga, 12–4 pm

Ballard Cocktail Trail Dec 12, Columbia Bank, 6–9 pm

WA Brewers Guild Winter Beer Fest Dec 19–20, Victory Hall at The Boxyard, 21+

Ellensburg Winterhop Brewfest Jan 17, Downtown Ellensburg, 12–5 pm

Strange Brewfest Jan 30–31, Port Townsend

Early Warnings

Tacoma Beer Week Feb 27–March 8, various locations across Tacoma