Lifestyle

Ancient Gate CoffeeThe University District is chock full of coffee shops but the actual coffee tends to be pretty blah — good enough for students who just need a jolt before midterms, but too dark, bitter, and bland for the true beanheads. That changed in 2024, when self-described “coffee nerd” Kegan Weatherford opened Ancient Gate. The space is clean and light-filled enough to accommodate study sessions, but you come here for the single-origin Makeworth roasts (no blends allowed here) that celebrate all the floral, fruity, surprising flavors of the coffee bean. The drink menu is short, but it’s worth getting the bicerin, which is sort of like a mocha that leans into the bitterness of dark chocolate.Harry Cheadle

Get your kelp Caesar salads while you can: Seabird, the Bainbridge Island seafood standout from local restaurateur Brendan McGill is closing after service on September 28, the Seattle Times reports.When it opened in 2022, Seabird snagged practically every award under the sun. It earned an Eater Seattle Award and Bon Appetit put it on its list of the best new restaurants in America. McGill’s restaurant dazzled diners with its artful preparations and creative use of seaweed — a yuzu-and-koji-marinated cut of salmon came wrapped in sugar kelp, the focaccia is paired with a briny algae butter.As time went on Seabird shed a little bit of its over-the-top presentations but maintained its high quality, serving dishes like mussels cooked with honey mead instead of white wine or wood-fired oysters sweetened with yuzu.But McGill told the Times that Seabird’s high-end style of dining was no longer profitable during the drizzly Seattle winters, when Bainbridge gets many fewer visitors than it does in the summer.“All our costs doubled and tripled, and the appetite to spend is just not there anymore,” the chef told the paper. “It worked great during summertime when everyone is visiting the island. But I know what will happen in November when it’s 42 degrees and rainy outside. We are just not going to see a lot of people.”Seabird’s closure may be a blow, but McGill’s Hitchcock restaurant group is still going strong. It operates Bruciato on Bainbridge and opened the impressive Oyster Cellar in downtown Seattle last year; the casual Cafe Hitchcock has locations on Bainbridge and in Seattle.And while Seabird is flying off into the sunset, McGill says that he’s keeping the space and will debut a new restaurant there sometime in the future.

Welcome to the Eater Seattle bar heatmap, highlighting the hottest new drinking destinations in and around Seattle. We’re using an inclusive definition of “bar” here: We’re talking breweries, taprooms, wine bars, dives, cocktail joints, speakeasies, pretty much any place you can get a stool and a glass.Know of a spot that should be on our radar? Send us a tip by emailing seattle@eater.com.

Years ago, Christina Wood hopped into her friend’s car and drove across the country from Gainesville, Florida, to Seattle, a city she knew almost nothing about. Wood had little more than a suitcase and an evangelical passion for pastry, which she parlayed into jobs at some of Seattle’s top bakeries (Bakery Nouveau, the now-defunct Besalu). In 2020, she opened her own bakery, Temple Pastries, a destination for pilgrims seeking flaky cruffins and chocolate-rye croissants, or whimsical black sesame macarons, or custom tins of intricate Christmas cookies.Now Wood is stepping into the cookbook game with Pastry Temple: Baking with Inspired Flavors (Sasquatch Books), a tome for the intermediate or advanced home baker who is looking to take their game to the next level. The book focuses on the three “pillars” of pastry, which Wood defines as brioche, croissant, and puff pastry. There are detailed instructions (with photos) on everything from making a butter block to proofing dough — which, Wood advises, you can do in a dishwasher if the rest of your house is too chilly during the persistent Seattle winter.You could read Pastry Temple and get a solid foundation in these techniques without even delving into the recipes. But the recipes are impressive concoctions that showcase Wood’s creativity, including things like cheese-crusted scallion French toast, gochujang babka, and ‘nduja doughnuts. This isn’t for baking novices or the faint of heart — this is for folks who, like Wood years ago, want to get really, seriously into baking.In advance of the book’s October 7 release, and Wood’s pub day event at Book Larder, Eater Seattle caught up with her to talk about the book’s trickiest recipe, the difference between working in a bakery and home baking, and more. This interview has been edited for clarity:Eater: In the introduction you talk about how this is a book that you wish you would have when you were starting up. Who is your ideal reader?Christina Wood: The ideal reader is someone who bakes at home a lot but doesn’t quite know how to level up as far as going beyond cakes and cookies. There’s a lot of technical information about that kind of stuff online that you can find. But there was nothing to guide me as far as, “How do I make a laminated dough? How do I make a brioche properly and understand why?”How different is it to dream up recipes for Temple where you have the facilities and the staff versus a home kitchen?Here at Temple, when I’m deciding on menu items, they have to be able to sit in a case for several hours without wilting or looking kind of gross or drying out. And they have to be reproducible on a grander scale. So when I was doing it at home, it was like, I only have to make like 12 of these, they can be as involved as I want them to be. So I got a little more involved and fanciful.I really wanted to make sure that it was actually doable at home, because at the bakery, we have so many special pieces of equipment. Doing it at home is so much harder. Yeah, it feels like I’m cheating sometimes, because we have proofers that have specific temperatures and humidity levels, and our ovens are specifically made to make pastry and the laminator, obviously, is a huge plus.Christina Wood. Christina WoodWas there a specific recipe that you found particularly hard to develop?The banh mi sausage roll was really hard. I’m not a savory cook by training or nature. So getting that one specifically was such a challenge — forming raw meat into a perfect cylinder and getting it to not burst apart in the oven.Are there any recipes in the book that are going to make their way to the Temple?Some of them have. I’ve probably done about four or five different menu changes since the writing was done, and I have definitely taken some things from myself. We did a gochujang cheddar brioche roll last fall, and we’re doing a banh mi sausage croissant right now.How do you feel about the book now that it’s about to come out?It’s a huge deal. It’s not something I ever even thought I would do. It’s not something I set out to accomplish. The fact that I was able to is like a dream. I mean, everything to do with Temple is like a dream. I am a little nervous, like I’m gonna go out into different cities and promote it, and public speaking is not like my super jam, I don’t love it. But I try to think of it as another challenge.Pre-order Pastry Temple: Baking with Inspired Flavors here, and get tickets to Wood’s October 7 talk at Book Larder in Fremont here.

Seattle’s got chicken wings covered, from grilled to deep-fried, Southern to Korean, saucy to crispy. They make for a pretty solid takeout or delivery dish, but many are so enticing right out of the fryer that you’ll want to eat them at the restaurant. Here are a few favorites around town, whether you’re looking for a supplier for your Super Bowl party or just need a lift on an average day.In August 2025 we updated this map to include Kilig and Can Bar.

Seattle’s Chinatown-International District is one of the city’s finest cultural and food destinations. The area comprising Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon has dozens of restaurants, so it can be daunting to determine the best places for noodles, dumplings, and other Asian foods. Here are recommendations highlighting some of the best cuisines and dishes the neighborhood has to offer.New to this map as of August 2025: relative newcomer Ringo Curry and the Vietnamese coffee shop Phin.As usual, this list is not ranked; it’s organized geographically. Know of a spot that should be on our radar? Send us a tip by emailing seattle@eater.com.

Seattle’s image as a metropolis of quarter-zipped nebbishes is belied any time you meet anyone who is actually from here — chances are, that person will have at least one item of clothing that references the Kingdome, the Sonics, Ichiro, Ken Griffey, or another icon of Seattle’s illustrious (if not all that successful in terms of wins) sporting past. The most popular local teams that play in Seattle rather than Oklahoma City are the Seahawks, Mariners, Storm, and Sounders, all of which have had some level of success in the past decade and maintain enthusiastic fan bases. In recent years, women’s sports bars have emerged for fans of the Storm and the Reign (the local women’s soccer team); there are now two in Seattle, Rough and Tumble and Pitch the Baby. Whatever team you root for though, you’ll be welcome at any of these fine sports bars, unless it’s the 49ers.

The further you drive around the winding, forested roads en route to Mount Rainier National Park, the better the views — but the scarcer the food options. Aside from a couple basic deli and snack shops and a few restaurants that I can’t recommend (and so won’t name), there are few places to dine inside the park’s boundaries. So, where do you satisfy your appetite after a day of hiking and glacier viewing?With four entrances to the park, where you’ll grub post-mountain depends on the region of Rainier you’re visiting. Packwood and Ashford are the two closest towns to the park — near the Stevens Canyon and Nisqually entrances, respectively. The Sunrise section of Rainier is the furthest away from any towns. Enumclaw and Buckley — still about an hour from the White River entrance — are the best towns to grab a bite to and from visiting Sunrise. Log cabin-style establishments are aplenty, where mountain meets Pacific Northwest pub fare is the cuisine of choice — the perfect refuel after a day in the mountains.Here are some of the best bets for food in the area around Mount Rainier:This is how you know you’re in the right place. Alicia EricksonAll through ski season, Snorting Elk at Crystal Mountain is the apres-ski place-to-be. The cozy chalet is packed with skiers, boarders, and snow sports spectators thawing in front of the fire over frosty beers. There’s even Snorting Elk Frost, a beer brewed specially for the Snorting Elk by Elysian. The menu is stacked with pizza, burgers, and nachos — and the servings are generous. For quick bites like sandwiches and cookies, head to the deli in the back. Though markedly less crowded, the Snorting Elk is a reliable spot to eat after a hike near Crystal during summer and fall.33723 Crystal Mountain Boulevard, in Enumclaw; hours vary by season but are generally 2 to 10 p.m. in summer.A cider flight at Mill Haus. Alicia EricksonFirst established as a cidery, Eatonville’s Mill Haus has attracted quite a following in the few years since it opened. Sip house-crafted ciders infused with regional inspiration like huckleberry and apricot on the expansive grounds that feature picnic tables and a water wheel. The food menu is small but solid: brie and apple flatbread, street tacos, smoked pork sliders, and a couple of salads if you prefer to keep it light. Live music frequently draws crowds of locals and visitors alike over the weekends.303 Center Street East, in Eatonville; open noon to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.A lively daytime through early evening spot in Ashford with a big outdoor section and frequent live music, Rainier BaseCamp’s wooden exterior and Himalayan prayer flags pay tribute to its mountain setting. The menu is more American, however, featuring bubbly pizzas, wraps and sandwiches, and burgers, including salmon and veg burgers. If you’ve forgotten any outdoor gear or necessities, in true PNW fashion, BaseCamp also sells and rents mountain gear, outdoor clothes, and guiding services.300027 State Route 706 E, in Ashford; open daily from noon to 7 p.m.Ashford’s Wild Berry specializes in mountain fare, but of a different kind. With an emphasis on Himalayan cuisine from Nepal and Tibet, it serves pork-stuffed momos (dumplings), thalis, sherpa stew, and samosas. If someone in your party is craving more traditionally PNW-y food, fish and chips and burgers are also on offer. Wild Berry’s inspiration can be attributed to its owner — Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa holds the fastest record for climbing Mount Everest.37718 State Route 706 E, in Ashford; open noon to 8 p.m. Friday through Tuesday and until 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday (closed Thursday)The interior of Copper Creek. Bryton Wilson PhotographyPart inn, part restaurant, this charming red wooden cabin sits among fir trees in Ashford. Copper Creek Inn’s dining room has been operating since 1946, which supposedly makes it the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Washington. It serves filling, home-style meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, from chili and chowder to burgers and salads. Save room for a slice (or two) of homemade blackberry pie — or come just for the pie. 35707 State Route 706 E, in Ashford; open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday to MondayTucked into Ashford’s Paradise Village, the aptly named restaurant serves Ukrainian fare in a log cabin beneath a thatched roof. Sweet and savory crepes for breakfast, and for dinner, Ukrainian specialties like pierogies stuffed with sour cherries, cheese, or potatoes, along with flaky piroshkies, cabbage salad, borsch, and meaty mains. Wash it all down with a glass of Ukrainian wine or beer.31811 State Route 706 E, in Ashford; open 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 10 a.m. to 9 p,m. on the weekendsCliff Droppers specializes in burgers in a very serious way. Salmon burgers, elk burgers, jalapeno burgers, Hawaiian burgers… take your pick, the options are plentiful. The famous Sasquatch burger — two patties, Canadian bacon, grilled onion, Swiss and cheddar, stacked high with lettuce, tomato, and pickles— is a challenge to bite into, but your hike-induced hanger will quickly fade.12968 Highway 12, in Packwood; open 11 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. Thursday to SundayA newcomer to Packwood’s small food scene in 2024, Saint Milagro specializes in hearty breakfasts (including breakfast burritos and home-baked goods) to fuel you up before a hike. Post-hike diners can chow down on meat lunch plates, tortas, homemade tamales, and single tacos.13807 Highway 12 in Packwood; opening hours vary but generally go from 7 a.m. to the afternoon (check Facebook for updates)While not a restaurant exactly, Wapiti Outdoors deserves a mention. About 20 miles from the White River entrance to Rainier, a log cabin pops up along a forested road. Wapiti Outdoors has long been a staple on this section of 410, stocked with gifts, snacks, and coffee. While its food options are limited, Wapiti’s huckleberry milkshakes are legendary (there are non-huckleberry frozen treats as well, if you fancy another flavor).58414 State Route 410 E, in Greenwater; open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday to Sunday.

 The main thing that you have to remember on this journey is just be nice to everyone and always smile. Refreshingly, what was expected of her was the same thing that was expected of Lara Stone:...

 The main thing that you have to remember on this journey is just be nice to everyone and always smile. Refreshingly, what was expected of her was the same thing that was expected of Lara Stone:...