2 Best Restaurants in Washington Cascade Mountains and Valleys, Washington

Since 2000, connoisseurs of Northern Italian cuisine have made a pilgrimage to this chic, contemporary dining room helmed by James Beard Award–winning chef Holly Smith and offering four multicourse dinner menu options: omnivore, pescatarian, vegetarian, and vegan. Even meat lovers sometimes opt for one the plant-based menus, as everything Smith prepares is stunningly plated and delicious. By all accounts, the pescatarian option is often the most interesting—it frequently features sea urchin, as well as local crab and salmon.

Set in a rather ornately decorated country house beside the Willows Lodge, this nationally renowned dining destination helped usher in farm-to-table dining in the Pacific Northwest when it opened in 1986. The carefully choreographed, multicourse feasts here are quite the production and include discussions about the food with the kitchen team, tours of the surrounding gardens, and classical guitar music; thoughtfully curated drink pairings are included in the prix-fixe. The food on the seasonally changing menu is exquisite, with many ingredients sourced from the restaurant's 5-acre garden.