Food
Welcome to Architectural Digesting, Our 2008 Dining Guide
The word restaurant comes from the French verb restaurer, "to refresh or restore," but restoring the body is hardly the primary mission of restaurants these days. They're full-on entertainment venues, or rather sets for us to play out some new scene in our personal dramas. Sure, we often choose to go to a particular restaurant because we love its food, but we're also hoping to feed off—and become part of—the ambience it creates: boisterous and scenester-y. Restrained and reverent. As familiar as Grandma's den.
Dining in the wrong atmosphere will sour any occasion, whether it's Thursday lunch with a co-worker or your 10th-anniversary blowout. By the same token, when your vision of the evening lines up with the mood of the place you're eating at, you'll be talking about your meal for months to come.
So that's the organizing principle for this year's Favorite Restaurants issue: an even 100 of our writers' best-loved places divvied up by atmosphere, from "laboratory" to "living room." Pick a setting and make the scene. JONATHAN KAUFFMAN
more by
- Review: Pop Start
Will “pop-up” restaurants prove enough of a force to forever alter the culinary landscape?
- Toulouse Petit’s Hardy Gras
Peso’s largely successful New Orleans-esque neighbor could stand to slim down its ambitious menu.
- The Top 10 Dishes of 2009
Our critic savors the highlights of a million-calorie year.
- Spice Like Us
Last week, we gave you the bland. This week, we give you the five spiciest dishes in Seattle.
- Leaders of the Bland
Edible proof that the ultimate critical kiss-off isn’t all bad.
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Restaurant Recommendations
Experience Music ProjectSeattle, WA |
The Pink DoorSeattle, WA |
Kells Irish Restaurant and PubSeattle, WA |
Peso's Kitchen and LoungeSeattle, WA |
Seattle CenterSeattle, WA |
The Triple DoorSeattle, WA |
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Authentic Mexican: Seattle's Best Kept Secret You don't have to look far—even in places like Issaquah—for a good tamale around here.
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Ocho Libre! Pretty tapas in an environment where you can lose yourself--and your hearing.
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The Maneki Adventure Blindsided by specials and bushwhacked by blue sprat at Seattle's oldest, most idiosyncratic sushi den.
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A Mighty Wind Mistral's Kitchen's short rib is the standard by which all other entrées will be measured.
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Steel Headed With all the attention on Kevin Davis' new Blueacre Seafood, how's his first son holding up?
Classifieds
Rentals
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Lake Forest Park Home for the Holidays!
Beautiful Apartment Village $869
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Shoreline Beautiful Holiday Home!
Shoreline Beautiful Holiday Home!
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Belltown - Windermere Apts. $700
Indoor parking available $75/ month. Cat ok.
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BEACON HILL $700
Large studios available
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Donna Crowder 05/06/2008 9:33:04 AM
I am trying to purchase a gift certificate to a good seafood restaurant on the waterfront for a friend who is traveling to Seattle this summer. I would like to know how to get a copy of the "Architectural Digesting 2008 Dining Guide"? Thanks.