Seattle’s 2024 Eater Award Winners

It was a nasty yr if you preferred complaining in regards to the state of Seattle eating. Each time you bemoaned the dearth of creativity on the scene you needed to confront yet one more sizzling new restaurant or bar that introduced us one thing thrilling — a savory Scandinavian cookie, a fried Lebanese taco, a Guamanian burger.

The Eater Award winners beneath have little in frequent, which is for the very best; every has a robust perspective, a novel fashion, one thing that makes them greater than only a place to get meals. They’re little worlds, and Seattle ought to rely itself fortunate that these worlds have landed right here.

Chona Kasinger

Greatest New Restaurant: Atoma

Introduced by SevenRooms

When Canlis alum Johnny Courtney and his spouse Sarah opened up their very own restaurant they left behind the advantageous eating environment that Canlis is known for. Atoma occupies a Wallingford Craftsman home. The eating room is crowded and cheerful. The cocktail menu is loaded with puns. However the deliberate casualness conceals the ambition of the kitchen: Courtney and his crew serve delicacies like radish cake topped with XO sauce constructed from dried geoduck, a mushroom katsu that miraculously has the toothsome texture of meat, a baked Alaska the place the ice cream and meringue are made out of seasonal substances like parsnip and corn. After which there’s the dish that has made Atoma well-known; the savory rosette cookie full of Walla Walla onion jam and white cheese — delicate however unfussy, straightforward to eat however stunning to have a look at, it’s nearly as good a illustration of Atoma as something. There are dozens of “new American” or “Pacific Northwest” eating places in Seattle that put native and seasonal substances on the forefront of what they do, however it appears like Atoma simply raised the bar. — Harry Cheadle, Eater Seattle editor

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Suzi Pratt

Elmer Dulla wasn’t making an attempt to create a viral smash burger — he simply wished to have one thing at his new Guamanian restaurant in Beacon Hill that youngsters might eat whereas their mother and father slurped creamy rosary soup and crunched on seafood tostadas. As a substitute, the Kewpie Burger grew to become an sudden hit, as a result of it’s as artfully assembled as the remainder of Familyfriend’s menu. Pickles and chopped uncooked onions present some chew on high of the Maillardized richness of the burger, and miso provides a hint of umami. What might have been an afterthought on the menu — simply one other smash burger in a city stuffed with them — has been changed into one thing particular by the love and a spotlight Dulla and his group lavish on it. — HC

When a pop-up strikes out of a residency and into its personal house, it’s somewhat like a singer from a profitable music group beginning a solo profession: What’s going to they do with the brand new creative freedom? For the full-fledged Ballard Avenue location of Situ Tacos, Lupe Flores doubled down on every part that made her residency in Belltown’s Jupiter Bar such a success. All the pieces from the Jupiter menu is undamaged and augmented. Now there’s a weekend brunch that includes breakfast burritos, chilaquiles, and huevos rancheros. Bodacious quesadillas be a part of the common menu, and there’s sufficient kitchen house to supply two every day soups — a meat choice and a vegetable choice. (That is necessary — Flores’s soups are destination-worthy themselves, and signatures like fideo con bistec and African groundnut usually promote out with breakneck velocity.) There’s additionally a full again bar dubbed Tilda’s Lounge, for infused mezcal cocktails and cheekily named pictures, with a classy violet-lit corridor that invitations selfies with out pandering for them.

And about that fashion: The outside is painted a pastel shade of Mexico-evoking pink with colourful floral touches all through the inside that’s infused with a contact of caprice (dig that animatronic parrot). It’s extra than simply an aesthetic, all of it provides as much as a totally realized sense of place that recontextualizes the meals as the primary occasion, not as a bar snack. Certain, it’s well-covered by now that “situ” means “grandmother,” and that the tacos listed below are based mostly upon the Lebanese Mexican tacos Flores’ grandmother taught her to make. A few of the best possible eating places draw inspiration from grandma’s cooking, however what’s commonest is for restauranteurs so as to add cheffy thrives and nouvelle delicacies strategies, making a barrier between familial cooking and capital-D eating. That’s not the case right here. There aren’t any spoon-swooped sauces or tangles of microgreens. There’s an indication studying “Don’t eat the f*cking toothpicks” as a result of there are, in truth, two toothpicks by the sting of the tacos, fastening the tortillas collectively through the fry. That’s how grandma did it, and that’s the way you’re getting it right here. That directness from household cooking to what you obtain at your desk makes for a novel intimacy that’s uncommon within the modern restaurant world.

Situ Tacos isn’t taco truck fare, it isn’t advantageous eating, and it’s not only a profitable conversion of pop-up to brick-and-mortar; it’s among the most singular meals within the metropolis. — Mark DeJoy, Eater Seattle contributor

Suzi Pratt

Suzi Pratt

Suzi Pratt

Greatest New Bar: Sophon

Since its opening in February 2024, Sophon’s been broadly hailed for its progressive menu that celebrates the Cambodian American diaspora, however an equal quantity of fuss must be remodeled its idiosyncratic, sui generis bar program. With Dakota Etley on the helm, its cocktail record elements in Khmer substances like kampot pepper, soursop, makrut lime leaf, guava, and fish sauce, as nicely North American flavors like delicata squash tincture and roasted cherry tomato. Talking of, the Khlang (“Energy” in Khmer) incorporates the aforesaid delicata squash tincture with Brie fat-infused rye, nocino, and Cocchi di Torino candy vermouth. “There’s a nod in there to the French colonization of Cambodia,” chef-owner Karuna Lengthy says of the cheese. Lengthy is well-known to Seattleites as the previous bar supervisor and now proprietor at neighboorhood-y cocktail spot Oliver’s Twist, just some blocks down the street, the place he debuted what would later develop into the crux of Sophon’s menu as a takeout particular through the pandemic lockdown.

One other Sophon unique is the Mekong, made with blended rum, coconut cream, roasted peanut orgeat, fish sauce, kroeung spices, and each inexperienced and ripe mango, all poured right into a Mae Ploy coconut milk can and garnished with kelp granules and an orchid. It’s a neat steadiness of Lengthy’s Khmerican heritage (because the employees refers to it) and Etley’s PNW upbringing foraging regionally scholarly information of rum demonstrated at bars like Miller’s Again Door in Bellingham and Rumba right here in Seattle.

Add to this a eating room stuffed with tropical vegetation and ikat textiles, a mural of the statue of King Jayavarman VII at Angkor Wat, and a menu of restyled Khmer dishes —the Japanese-adjacent Khmeraage fried rooster thighs, to be dipped in kroeung aioli, or the kha sach chrouk, a slab of caramelized Pure Nation pork stomach that’s been marinated in star anise, palm sugar, tamari, and coconut milk, then served alongside pickled shallots, julienned bamboo shoots, and a jammy egg — and it’s a hell of a bartop expertise. Sophon is on the cusp of worldwide recognition, so diners — and drinkers — ought to cease by whereas they’ll nonetheless get a res. Critically. — Meg van Huygen

Suzi Pratt

Suzi Pratt

What makes Cafe Suliman particular? It’s not the situation, because it’s tucked away in Capitol Hill’s Melrose Market mini-mall. It may very well be the meals, although proprietor Ahmed Suliman would be the first to let you know he’s not reinventing the wheel by serving consolation meals influenced by Arab cuisines. It most likely has one thing to do with the intensive and eclectic wine record, which is expertly curated by Marc Panineau of Cantina Sauvage. However actually what’s particular right here is the vibe — regulars come right here for some mussel toast and a glass of chilled crimson, to talk with Suli and Marc, to spend a while lounging in what appears like a vaguely pan-European wine store with good Wi-Fi. And in the event you aren’t a daily right here, you’ll wish to be. — HC