For most of the nearly two decades I’ve been writing about food in the Seattle area, I’ve created something of a “wish list” at the beginning of the new year: the restaurants, cuisines, and changes I’d like to see before the calendar changes again. Some are realistic—after years of dreaming of a Ghanaian restaurant, I can consider that wish fulfilled by the superlatively excellent Gold Coast Ghal Kitchen. Others are pie-in-the-sky, like a complete moratorium on tipping in any form and conversion to European-style all-inclusive prices.
This year, when I sat down to write my list, the top item feels concerningly closer to the out-of-reach category: I want survival. I want our classic restaurants to reach their second (or third or fourth) decades. I want new restaurants to feel secure enough to experiment, to serve the city something original and different.
It sounds desperate and pathetic, and far from the kind of hopeful excitement this list is meant to express. So, for a moment, I’ll leave reality behind and tell you what I’d love to eat, where I’d love to dine, and how I’d like to do it in the year 2026.
A Real Georgian Restaurant
Seattle has an excellent khachapuri specialist in downtown’s Skalka, and I found the country’s famous soup dumplings at a Federal Way Korean spa (now a different restaurant, but with a similar menu). The Supra pop-up is high on my to-do list, too. But Georgian food is so much more than these: It’s pkhali, the colorful balls of vegetables and walnuts, and the velvety chicken soup, chikhirtma. It’s washed down with pear soda or amber wine. Something along the lines of Vancouver, WA’s Dediko, a top-notch stop on any trip south.
Bricks-and-Mortar Burmese Food
One of my culinary highlights of 2025 was the first Burmese food fair I attended at the monastery in Snohomish. Another was the second one I went to. Those kept my cravings for mohinga and tea leaf salad mostly at bay, but I’m greedy and I’d still love to get my fill of Shan tofu and ohn no khao swè on demand—the way Vancouverites (BC this time) can at Amay’s House and Laksa King. Portland has some half-dozen Burmese restaurants and carts. Surely one of them could open up here.
Find the Missing Middle
Restaurants facing increased labor costs went in one of two directions: adding to the consumer cost, through price hikes and service charges, or reducing the labor, moving toward counter-service and hybrid models. As this forking continues, what’s lost is the casual meal—it just won’t pencil out for most restaurants to offer full-service for entrées under $30. The space between a $20 takeout sandwich and a minimum $75 spend per person at a restaurant will continue to empty. Sadly, I don’t have the answer as to how we prevent this and refind that missing middle—this is a wish list, not a road map.
More Cooperation
As noted, I don’t have all the answers. But I do spend a lot of time watching restaurants and see how well it works when folks work together. De La Soil, the Seattle Met 2025 best new restaurant inside a distillery in Kenmore, is a prime example of how shared space can defray costs. But you can also look at how La Marea (another of last year’s best new restaurants) fills its space with pop-ups when its small team takes a break. And there’s cooperation in the more literal sense—the cooperative ownership model behind new spots Rosette and Pidgin. I don’t have a crystal ball that can predict if or how Seattle’s restaurant scene weathers the current mounting costs, but I know it’s going to require a lot of cooperation and collaboration.
Bigger and Better Solutions
We also need more than just cooperative boots on the ground. We need business accelerators and incubators, low-barrier-to-entry options to help new businesses get moving—and then moving into their own spaces. The short-lived Spice Bridge Global Food Hall from the Food Innovation Network demonstrated one model, graduating Seatango and Theary Cambodian Foods to their own spaces. Seattle Restored dipped its toes into restaurant waters with Lenox and Pan de la Selva. But we also need better solutions for older restaurants, too. As rents rise, older restaurants suffer on business plans designed for another era. Thai Siam and Irwin’s found ways to buy their buildings, and it sure seems like helping other spots do the same before things get dire would be nice, too.
Keep Food Fun
I am somewhat jaded and cynical, so when I first started chasing down the roots of the New Zealand–style ice cream trend, I was sure the pot of gold at the tip of my rainbow swirl cone was going to be a private equity or venture-funded company pushing machines in some sort of neo-franchise scheme. Instead, I found almost the exact opposite—it was a bunch of individual operators who simply loved ice cream and called up the brothers making the machines on the other side of the world and maybe added some googly eyes to their cones. Keeping on the dessert theme, everything about maximalist cakes makes me endlessly happy: It’s just a gaggle of frosting geeks nerding out about flowers and colors. I can’t predict what’s next, but I hope it follows a similar pattern. Food is fun! Let’s keep it that way!