Need names of Seattle Restaurants
 

Help.
We will be staying at the Sheraton, arriving on Saturday 6/16, we are joining a tour that will start the next day. Three evenings we will be on our own , one night we know we are going to Etta's,but need two more names of nice restaurants to go to. No fast food and since we will not have a car something not on the other side of the city.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Nettie

www.nwsource.com

Lots of good restaurants in the downtown area, no need for a car.

I am a chef (the working real kind) and lived in Seattle for 10 years. This is where I go:
Wild ginger- Pan Asian very fresh ingredients
Sitka and Spruce- a dumpy area but small eclectic off the beaten track restaurant
Palace Kitchen and most of Tom Douglas restaurants are "pretty" good
Il Bistro in the market- Italian (cool area/experience)
Metropolitan grill or El Gaucho if you are craving tinis and steak, I like El for the NYC feel, have a cigar in the cigar room.
Flying Fish- my all-time favorite. Casual, unique fresh fish. I would not miss this one.
Lunch anytime- Walk the stalls in the Pike Place Market
Bon Appetit...

For seafood I recommend Waterfront, Elliott's, Flying Fish, and Oceanaire. Each one is good for a different reason.

Other good places include Union (American), Wild Ginger (Pacific Rim), Lola (Greek), Tulio (Italian), Il Terrazo Carmine (Italian).

I highly recommend Serafina on Eastlake. You would need to take a short cab ride there from the Sheraton, but it's a charming neighborhood Italian restaurant (east of Lake Union) that's worth the trek. I was there two weeks ago; both the service and the food were very good! They also have a charming little outdoor patio if the weather is nice.

Also, I haven't been to Wild Ginger in quite some time but my friends "in the know" say it's gone downhill lately, and that they're resting on their laurels! However, I can't confirm this myself, do with it what you will.

No need to leave downtown... Restaurant Zoe on 2nd at Blancard is wonderful. Assagio, La Fontana or Il Bistro are three Italian restaurants - all fantastic imo. Campagne is lovely for more upscale and French.

For "bistro" type French, I loved Le Pichet. I don't know if Matt's in the Market has re-opened after renovations yet, but they have my vote, as well.

Yes, Matt's is reopened.

Yes it's true, there's no need to leave downtown, but with three days it might be nice to see another part of the city, in addition to downtown. And I really like the eastlake neighborhood, as that's where I used to live!

However, I also like Il Bistro and La Fontana. Good Italian, all around...

Thanks to everyone. Went online and checked out all the menus for all of the restaurants you kindly suggested.
We have narrowed down the list to 3 one for each evening.
Etta's--we were there 2 years ago.
Flying Fish
Tulio
Thanks again all.
Nettie

You've picked three great places, though I prefer Flying Fish at lunch (Mon-Fri) when it is very quiet (and a great value). If you like lively and bustling, you will get it at dinner.

funny but i may be the only person i know who does not care for Flying Fish. i've only been twice, both at lunch, both times had bad service (brought the wrong dish, then argued with us about it!) and another not so great food (i do not recommend the fish tacos).
:-)

LOVE Etta's!

<i>I highly recommend Serafina on Eastlake. You would need to take a short cab ride there from the Sheraton, but it's a charming neighborhood Italian restaurant (east of Lake Union) that's worth the trek. I was there two weeks ago; both the service and the food were very good! They also have a charming little outdoor patio if the weather is nice.</i>

Just keep your head down if somebody starts shooting in the bar. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...robbery07.html

Suze,

Sorry about your experience at Flying Fish. True, they have a very small staff at lunch time.

However, when I was there for lunch on May 17, I had the most delicious piece of halibut I've had since 1984. It was cooked to perfection and presented with delicious pan-Asian sides.

The last time I had such wonderful halibut was in, of all places, the old Red Lion Inn in Port Angeles. When I asked the waitress what to eat, she told me the halibut was just off the boat and that the guy working in the kitchen knew how to cook it to perfection.

At Flying Fish I asked the waiter if the chef had covered the fish while it was cooking. He checked with the chef who told him that he did cover it but that wasn't the reason for its goodness--it was simply a wonderful piece of halibut.

Cost: $15.50!

mccormick &amp; smiccs on first ave.Paul

I agree on the comments about Flying Fish for lunch... not great.

Truly my problem was with just the one wait person. They brought friend's lunch... completely the wrong thing, not even close to what she ordered (it was a hot dish, and she'd ordered a salad!). But it had taken so long for the food to come (almost 1/2 hour) that she kept it. The server made it worse with the excuse saying &quot;I usually work dinner, I don't know the lunch menu&quot;!!! I say when you're in a hole... stop digging.

I know that is only one person and one time but with so many great restaurants in the Market and Belltown area, and my two experiences at Flying Fish being equally bad...

Suze,

That's a bummer, and I agree that the fish tacos don't hit the mark.

It would be very worth your time to write Christine Keff (the chef owner) and describe your experience.

If you do, I would expect her to send you an apology and a gift certificate.

That's the usual result I have when I let management know about service THAT DOESN'T MEET THEIR STANDARDS. If the intent is to give lousy service, you won't hear from her.

I recently had a below-par meal at Nell's where I celebrated the birthday of a friend who was dying to go there. I'm adding Nell's to the restaurants I won't visit again because they bummed me out.

HTTY

Maybe because I used to wait tables myself, I'll admit I like restaurants with consistency. And wait staff who don't tell me their problems.

That's one reason I am a fan of Tom Douglas' places. When I go to Etta's I get excellent service EVERY time. When I order the delightful spinach salad it looks and tastes the same EVERY time.

We are lucky to live in a city with loads of fantastic choices. With room for everyone to find their favorites. I don't have that much money to eat out fancy, I'd rather go with what I know is a sure thing when I do.

Lark is another place that people rave about that I did not like one bit. My only meal there was one time too many, it's not a place I'd give a second chance to (unless someone else wanted to go and was paying -lol!).

We are on the same page about restaurants in general and Tom Douglas in particular.

Years ago, when Dahlia Lounge was in it's original location, I had lousy service from a woman who told me she had been with &quot;him&quot; forever and could do as she damn well pleased.

I wrote TD and told him. He wrote back with a lovely apology and a $100 gift certificate.

Big is big, and that's why I think Christine Keff would want to apologize to you.

I'd add Matts in the Market and Campagne's. We're going to Zoe's on Monday, so will report back on that one.
I've been disappointed with Wild Ginger and Waterfront.

Also, suggest you check this out on chowhound.com.

As promised, reporting back about Restaurant Zoe where we went last night. Sorry to disagree with others, but I can't recommend it.

Thanks for the warning about Zoe's. I had an unpleasant experience at Nell's--highly recommended in the way Zoe is.

Some of these smaller places seem to fawn over a few regulars while they give short shrift to others and, in the case of Nells, my monk fish was a HUGE disappoint and I had better desserts in my grade school cafeteria.

Curious about what happened at Zoe, artlover, to make you say you don't recommend it? I've eaten there a number of times since it opened (I'd say 2x a year) and have always had great food and service, and I don't go often enough to be considered a &quot;regular&quot; by any means.

Maybe I had too high of expectations--in the restaurant section here, on chowhound, and from friends I trust who have been there, or maybe it was an offnight, or maybe as DD has pointed out, I'm going through &quot;food shock&quot; after being in France and Spain, but I was very disappointed.

We were a party of 5 and shared starters--sushimi was just so-so, asparagus were &quot;killed to death&quot;, chicken pate was so-so, and there was a complimentary lentil appetizer served on a tablespoon that was very good, as was the bread.

I ordered the lamb and it was so stringy and salty I would have sent it back, but this would have been very awkward since we were being taken here by DH's business associates. He had the halibut, which was good, and the wine our host ordered was delicious (he's Italian and ordered a really nice Italian wine).

We shared several desserts which were good, one in particular stood out--a polenta cake with apricots, and had cappacinos which were really awful--just coffee covered with whipped cream.

The service was o.k., not great, and I thought the noise level was a bit high. I didn't think that the food or atmosphere or service warranted the cost (which fortunately we didn't have to pay:D) But when I told a good friend this, she, like NW, was surprised, but I wouldn't go there again.

Thanks for posting the details. I can see why you wouldn't want to go back given your experience, and the fact that there are so many other good places in Seattle. I hope it was an aberration and not the new norm there (but as someone else pointed out, consistency is SO important).

Thank for the details, artlover.

I have found that it doesn't pay to complain to restaurant management about a bad experience because, rather that pick up the tab, they usually give me a gift certificate that can only be used to defray the cost of another unpleasant dining experience at the same restaurant.

Oh, I wouldn't say it was a &quot;bad experience&quot;--it just didn't live up to my expectations and it's not on one of my tops in Seattle list, but others seem to like it.

By &quot;bad experience&quot; I mean that I was sorry to discover that I could have been somewhere else having a better meal and a better time.