14 Best Restaurants in The Olympic Peninsula and Washington Coast, Washington

Since the early '90s, this cheerful art-filled spot has been a go-to on the peninsula for celebrating special occasions and simply enjoying stellar comfort food with locally sourced ingredients. Consider kicking off your meal with goat cheese fondue or a half pound of Willapa Bay clams steamed in white wine, before graduating to flash-fried razor clams with seasonal vegetables, or ravioli stuffed with wild mushrooms and topped with tomato sauce. Rich chocolate rum truffle cheesecake is a popular dessert.

Look to this easygoing, art-filled restaurant for inventive, locally sourced, and mostly organic dishes, including pizzas from the wood-fired oven with creative toppings like pesto, truffled goat cheese, and pickled onions. The menu's sustainably harvested seafood selections highlight whatever is in season and also get the wood-fire treatment. Even the bacon-wrapped meat loaf features local grass-fed beef, along with buttermilk mashed potatoes and greens.

Convivial, cozy, and a bit off-the-wall, this is one of Port Townsend's best sources of generous, unfussy breakfasts and lunches, like thick pancakes and decadent eggs Benedicts, plus hefty burgers and sandwiches. Long popular with sailors and shipwrights who work in the surrounding Port Townsend Boat Haven, this hole-in-the-wall fills up fast on weekends, but you can help yourself to a mug of drip coffee while you wait.

In an uncluttered, light-filled storefront space in Uptown, this hip neighborhood bistro opened by a husband-wife team with experience at some of New York City's and Seattle's top restaurants turns out some of the most flavorful locavore-driven cuisine on the peninsula. You might start with sunchoke soup with chives and truffle oil, before graduating to rabbit lasagna with sofrito and mustard greens, or seared scallops with romesco, cauliflower, and Meyer lemon.

Local artwork lines the walls of this cozy, eclectic bistro inside a historic clapboard building a block off the main drag, near the foot of the Taylor Street staircase. The delicious seafood- and pasta-intensive menu reveals Mediterranean and Pacific Northwest influences—think cioppino with local shellfish in a tomato-saffron broth, and roasted walnut and gorgonzola penne with wild boar. There's a notable list of regional and Italian wines, and several imported ports and sherries to accompany any of the rich desserts.

You'll find Hama Hama oysters, which are harvested from this Hood Canal shellfish operation that's been going strong since 1922, at some of the top restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. Here at the farm store and in the open-air (dress warmly on cool days) saloon, you can enjoy these fresh-shucked bivalves—along with clams and mussels raw or wood-roasted with chipotle-bourbon butter—and other tasty pub fare at lunch. Save room for the warm-chocolate fudge brownie.

A tiny gem set in a weathered-shingle cottage within walking distance of the beach, MyCovio's is one of the few dining options on the upper portion of the Long Beach Peninsula, and it's well worth the drive for sublime pastas and other Italian-inspired fare. The cioppino swimming with local seafood is stellar, as is spaghetti with matsutake mushrooms and slow-roasted seasonal vegetables. Next door, the owners run a cute waffle shack that's open for breakfast and lunch.

Pick up a baguette, loaf of fig-anise bread, chocolate-chip cookies, maple-pecan scones, or cinnamon buns at this top-notch bakery, tucked into a small storefront in the heart of the Uptown district. There's a selection of cheeses, jams, granola, kombucha, and other gourmet goods to go as well. Additional locations are on the Port Townsend waterfront, in Sequim, and on Bainbridge Island.

It's worth the half-hour drive around the harbor to historic downtown Aberdeen to dine at the region's most sophisticated restaurant, where seasonal, locally sourced ingredients appear in artfully plated creations like black cod with buttered oyster sauce, and braised rabbit with ricotta gnudi. Rediviva means renewed or revived, and much of the material—wood, metal, and glass—in the interior has been upcycled for a refined effect. There's also a great selection of Northwest wines and craft cocktails.

Local seafood—including prawns, scallops, crab, clams, and mussels—features prominently in the brightly flavored and fragrantly seasoned food at this relaxing Thai bistro on the quiet west side of town. Other delicious house specialties are spicy eggplant with red curry, and crispy half duck with bok choy and a smoky soy glaze.

This hip, counter-service seafood bar with a mod-industrial vibe serves Puget Sound oysters and clams on the half shell—either raw or baked with seasonal compound butters—and several beers and ciders on tap to wash them down. Oyster shooters are another favorite, and there's a short menu of other fish-centric dishes, from steamed Dungeness crab with clarified butter to chowder made with local clams, but nothing fried.

The dark-wood-paneled walls, floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, and marble café tables inside this venerable spot attest to its history of feeding locals and visitors for more than a century. Although it calls itself a pub, the Shelburne has a casually sophisticated look and vibe, and stellar yet reasonably priced Pacific Northwest fare to go with it—consider the miso-cured sablefish with bok choy and pickled shiitakes, or crispy braised pork with polenta and a blackberry gastrique (a sauce that's sweet and sour). Brunch is a popular affair on weekends. The restaurant is inside a small boutique hotel with comfy rooms.

From Westport, it's a scenic 20-mile drive down the coast to reach the much-buzzed-about eatery that is inside the historic and offbeat Tokeland Hotel and run by young restaurateurs who had operated the original Wandering Goose in Seattle before relocating here in 2018. Folks come from all over to sample the fluffy scratch-made biscuits and Japanese-style oyakodon omelets (eggs with chicken), but dinner is the star attraction—and duck confit slow-simmered for six hours is the most celebrated dish. In addition to a thoughtfully curated wine and cocktail list, the restaurant has interesting nonalcoholic drinks, from natural sodas to drinking vinegars. A team of cute resident cats and dogs often amble about the dining room visiting with patrons.

With tall windows overlooking Ilwaco's marina, a high timber-beam ceiling, and a friendly crowd of locals and visitors, this upbeat gastropub in At the Helm Hotel is perfect for a bite to eat before or after hiking and beachcombing at nearby Cape Disappointment State Park. Highlights from the seafood-intensive menu are a platter of house-pickled fish, rich Dungeness crab bisque, lingcod fish tacos, and a Reuben with pastrami-spiced albacore steak and beer-braised sauerkraut.