The Best Restaurants On Capitol Hill
Ah, the hill. Everyone’s clutching iced Americanos, smells of Dick’s fryer oil can be sniffed out from just about anywhere on Broadway, and if you took a shot for every cotton candy-colored hairstyle, cute dog, and brand-new apartment complex you passed, well, we don't recommend that. Capitol Hill is Seattle's playground. And as for the lineup of A+ places to eat? Those are our kind of monkey bars. Here’s where to play.
Looking for Capitol Hill bars? We have a guide for that.
This Piedmontese pasta specialist is not just the best Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. It’s the best restaurant in the city, full stop. Bold? Sure, but so is the mountain of silky sage butter tajarin or braised rabbit agnolotti you eat by candlelight after an early December sunset, or fried zucchini blossoms snacked between gulps of tangerine-tinted paper plane cocktails come summertime. Yes, your wallet will be three figures emptier at the end of it all, but in exchange, you’ll have a life-affirming meal in a dining room filled with lace curtains, fine art, and noodle sheets draped over the open kitchen.
This is the best Italian restaurant in Seattle, and such superlatives come with a tricky reservation process. They do have a patio now, which has made things better than they used to be, but good luck getting a table that isn’t at 9:30pm unless you book several weeks in advance. You can secure a table up to 60 days ahead of time, and thankfully, there’s usually nobody hovering at midnight ready to pounce on that 60th day. (Except for you, of course.)
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Nate Watters
After a move from its iconic Olive Way location, Glo’s is still the best brunch restaurant in town. They kept the mid-century modern charm via jagged paving stones and neon signage, and though the digs are technically larger, you can still expect to wait upwards of an hour or more on weekends. It’s all worth it for the most restorative diner breakfast you’ll eat all year. Slabs of hash browns are stacked with pristine layers of golden brown crusts and buttery fluff. Scrambles amplified with scallion and garlic make non-runny eggs exciting. And homemade corned beef hash has tangy-tender pink meat and potato seared to a lacy finish. Yeah, 60 minutes for that is a small price to pay.
Nate Watters
If the week has felt longer than The Iliad, and it’s time for a plate of cheese-blasted carbs, get to Cornelly immediately. This small Italian spot on Summit serves pizza and pasta that deserve a 24-book Homer-style epic written about them. The pies are thoroughly crunchy without being burnt, with excellent toppings like fennel sausage and globs of ricotta or smoked scamorza and a sh*tton of summer corn. Meanwhile, fresh pasta tossed in pesto or a spruced-up bolognese with mint and hints of vinegar proves that Cornelly nails any type of flour-based dough. The effortlessly chill dining room and sidewalk patio are walk-in-only, but swing by before 6pm, and you’ll be among the natural wine and lavender-buttered olive focaccia faster than you can say dactylic hexameter.
Maripili is a Galician-style Tapas spot that fully delivers on the concept of good things coming in small packages. Among the stellar bite-sized dishes here are phenomenal ling cod bacalao with nutty manchego gnocchi and peas soaked in a tangy fish broth, tender tortilla española filled with grassy olive oil-poached potatoes, and the star of the show: paella tahdig with smoky chorizo, spice-rubbed prawns, dollops of triple garlic aioli, and a brittle, barely-there socarrat crisp. With a friendly staff, Spanish-forward wine list, and all-around good energy, it's easy to order upwards of a dozen dishes here. It makes Maripili a no-brainer for something like a double date, or solo meal at the bar.
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At Taneda Sushi In Kaiseki, an omakase restaurant with only nine chairs, you’re often left with no choice but to book a seat for one—if you can even find a reservation to begin with. Conveniently, it’s actually better that way. Because when you’re shooting the breeze with a chef who becomes your confidante after tossing you 25 courses of quality fish, it never feels lonely. While the $195 menu changes every month, you can expect amazing bites like otoro hand rolls with pickled daikon, torched A5 miyazaki wagyu nigiri topped with caviar, sweet shrimp wrapped around custardy uni, and grilled eel placed directly into your open hand like a love note. This is the best kaiseki experience in the city, and much like running a marathon or traveling the world, you can enjoy it all by yourself.
The restaurant’s Instagram announces when reservations will go live, typically at 11am on the second to last Saturday of the month. It’s in your best interest to try to secure one at that time exactly. If you miss it, try again next time or sign up for the waitlist.
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It’s a meal dilemma we’ve encountered often—khao soi or a cheeseburger? Cut to Taurus Ox, the Lao spot that does both (and more). Taurus Ox’s crown jewel is undoubtedly their smashburger, a double-pattied stunner topped with taro stem, cilantro, pickled onion, and cured pork jowl, along with the genius addition of spicy pork skin-laced jaew bong and nutty provolone that cuts through the herbs and rendered fat. It’s a drippy, tangy, beautiful mess, but that isn’t to say that the other dishes play second fiddle. Thom khem loaded with caramelized pork belly and a brussels sprout hash brown would be an ideal under-the-covers dinner, and garlicky lemongrass sausage would rule a summer barbecue. Stumble in on a weeknight, or pack your friends in before bar-hopping.
D'La Santa is in a fun space complete with a replica tree, cheesy garlic-butter shrimp tacos, and margaritas served in clay bowls. This Mexican spot is owned by one big family, and you can expect to consume copious amounts of delicious things like phenomenal birria, cochinita pibil, and carne asada while you’re here. There are nine different kinds of steak on the menu, ranging from thin-sliced wagyu to a 44-ounce tomahawk (eat the whole thing if you need a win). Come with a group, split a molcajete of guacamole, and do not miss the aforementioned garlic butter shrimp tacos.
Jesse C. Rivera
Ltd Edition is another exclusive around-$150 sushi omakase in a city where those are not too hard to come by, but this one's worth it. Just wait till the uni cart comes out—there are few moments more exciting than receiving a buttery sea urchin hand roll as if it were a sidewalk snow cone. Whether you sit at the counter or high-top table, you’ll receive a history lesson on every piece of fish that comes out, and know exactly how to eat it—one bite or two? Chopsticks or hands? The Dungeness nigiri in particular is a standout way to experience the Miss Universe of the PNW crustacean world, with succulent crab meat and a gelatin topping made from its own juices. Be sure to enjoy it with someone who will equally appreciate crab-flavored Jell-O.
Ltd releases bookings at 11am on the 15th of every month for the following month, and we wish you the best of luck when the entire Seattle population clicks around the reservation platform at the same time. If you don't get in, add yourself to the waitlist and hope for cancellations.
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Nate Watters
Going out for Korean BBQ is always a great group dinner move, and Meet is our first choice within city limits, let alone the neighborhood. There's big-night-out energy aplenty thanks to sizzling griddles, mood lighting, and a great wine list. But Meet's menu is the main attraction. Every cut—be it pork jowl or bavette—is equal parts charred and melty. Excellent banchan complement and cut through the fat. And sides like soybean stew and kimchi fried rice are just as elevated as all that luxury beef. Sit back, let a server handle grilling, and proceed to make fun of your friend whose glasses keep getting fogged up from the steam.
Nate Watters
This vendor located in multiple spots near Pike and Broadway late at night serves the Seattle dog upon which all others shall be judged. It’s perfectly salty and smoky, grilled with the meat split down the middle so that flames touch every inch. The translucent onions offer a pleasantly sweet jamminess that complements the smear of Philly cream cheese. There’s nothing fancy here, but when you’re five cocktails deep into a Pike/Pine bar crawl, it feels like you’re tasting the sausage of the gods. One that’s only $8.
One of our go-to group dinner spots, this big basement—filled with Himalayan food instead of random boxes of tacky holiday decorations—is consistently our first choice for anything that can be swept up with a surplus of garlic-brushed naan. Annapurna Cafe houses the best Indian, Tibetan, and Nepalese food in town, and they belong among the stars for their Tibetan momo alone, rich with spiced chicken and paired with tomato, mint, and peanut chutneys. Annapurna also excels at Indian classics like tikka masala and palak paneer, as well as hall of fame-worthy stewed lamb and fish korma. It’s all just as excellent whether you’re hanging out in the basement clinking bottles of Kingfisher or taking home multiple plastic tubs of greatness.
The reimagining of this northern Capitol Hill classic is a home run simply based on the new pastries alone. And yeah, we’d eat sugar for breakfast on the daily if we lived in the neighborhood. We’re talking about things like savory tahini caramel bars, New York-style crumb cake muffins, and buckwheat chocolate chunk cookies with a salty, dulce de leche-like texture that softly crumbles like kinetic sand. But that would be ignoring their BEC, a majestic stack of paper-thin egg folds, bacon cooked just before it gets crispy, and yellow american that oozes between the layers and stretches like taffy, all on a homemade toasted poppy roll.
When we think about Mexican food in Seattle, La Cocina Oaxaqueña is like the best friend in a romantic comedy that turns out to be the protagonist’s true love—they’ve been there for us all along. The food is consistently delicious, and the good energy flows as freely as tequila. Speaking of, we’ve never been let down by the strong margaritas, delicious unlimited salsa, and snappy fried-to-order chips that are so fresh they burn your fingertips. It’s the kind of place where you could plan a meal two weeks in advance, or bust in simply when everywhere else on Capitol Hill is too packed. The cherry on top is their excellent Southern Mexican food, be it sour and spicy camarones al mojo de ajo, enchiladas topped with velvety mole, or al pastor tacos on homemade tortillas filled with saucy-sweet braised pork.
Erin Lodi
B-Side is a little corner cafe currently operating out of Analog Coffee. You can expect a sizable line that makes an otherwise sleepy sidewalk come to life on the weekends, but their takeout-friendly breakfast is well worth the wait. In particular, they serve the greatest breakfast sandwich in town, a.k.a. a toasty english muffin stuffed with scallion-folded egg, Beecher’s cheese, country ham, pickled daikon, and charred onion aioli which you can (and should) doctor up with hot sauce. There are other non-breakfast items like cashew butter-topped toast and grain bowls, but be real—you're here for this sandwich.
Nate Watters
It would take a natural disaster, restraining order, or an NSYNC reunion tour to keep us away from Kobuta & Ookami. This spot is dedicated to different types of katsu, and it’s so good that you’ll want to line up before they open. That is, unless you’d like to wait for over an hour while scaring other diners by looking sad through the windows at them.The iberico pork cutlet is tender, with breading that stays crisp even after swimming in rich, dark chocolate-spiked curry. But our favorite dish is the mozzarella pork katsu, a.k.a. thin slices of cutlet wrapped around chunks of melty cheese, topped with tangy tomato miso and a flurry of parmesan. Lactose intolerant people, this is your Everest. Make Kobuta & Ookami a frontrunner for a first (or twelfth) date—just make sure you bring Lactaid.
Nate Watters
Tamari Bar is our favorite spot for sashimi on Capitol Hill. From salmon belly chirashi topped with miso sauce and ikura to perfectly sweet scallops, the fish here is so great on its own that we almost forget about the many other delicious things under their roof (looking at you, pork dumplings, soft serve with matcha syrup, and marinated wagyu cooked on a hot rock). If you prefer your sushi in maki form, they also serve tasty rolls.
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Brooke Fitts
Single Shot is one of our favorite Capitol Hill date night spots—not just because it’s far removed from the noise and hot dog cart smells of Pike/Pine, but also because the dining room is attractive, there’s a big marble bar, and everything on the menu, from the cold potato and crab salad to the seared steak to the margherita flatbread with prosciutto, is excellent. Pull up a seat at the bar, order a bottle of sparkling wine, and know there’s no possible way to screw this up.
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Joining the ranks of awesome restaurants in quiet pockets of the neighborhood is Harry’s Fine Foods, a little corner spot that reminds us of a fancy parlor and a general store combined. This place just has the Feel Good Factor™, and it also happens to have very good negronis. Food ranges from pasta to crudo to one of our favorite cheeseburgers in the city. You would do well to get that burger, plus crispy herbed french fries with green “601” sauce.
8.0
Tacos Chukis isn’t a secret anymore, but it’s still great. Hit this Capitol Hill spot for fast, delicious Mexican food.
Fogon Cocina Mexicana is a go-to Mexican spot in Capitol Hill, thanks to homemade tortillas, upbeat vibe, and some of the city’s best al pastor tacos.
8.6
Deru Market is part farm-to-table restaurant, part classy deli in Kirkland, and you need their cake.
Dough Zone Dumpling House is the dumpling spot in Redmond where you can find less of a wait and better potstickers than anywhere else on the Eastside.
