Seattle’s Best Lunch Spots (2024)

The owners of Post Alley Pizza (one a partner in Saint Bread) have expanded their talents to a large, windowy spot on North 34th Street. The pizza—a little New York, a little bit Naples—comes as whole 16-inch pies or slices. Toppings are classic…ish: pesto, a white veggie pie, an Amatriciana-inspired version with chunks of rich guanciale. The seasonal salads and focaccia sandwich could hold their own at any high-end bistro, and yet they feel right at home next to a slice of pepperoni topped with hot honey.

What was once the town’s most sought-after food truck is now an immensely popular sandwich shop near Green Lake. These are sandwiches designed with all the care of a geometric proof, though none of the straight lines and restrained proportions. Favorites like the crispy pork belly, the meatball, or the tuna melt (with a layer of potato chips) sell out fast on weekends, so weekday lunch is a more sedate opportunity to grab a seat and appreciate how great the soups and salads are, too.

Melissa Miranda’s new fast-casual spot celebrates bulalo, the beef shank soup from the Philippines. Each bowl is a cornucopia—beef shank, corn cob, tender potatoes, and cabbage, bobbing in a clear, bright broth made excellent with a few cheffy techniques. There are lots of other things to celebrate on Kilig’s menu, like brisk sinigang chicken wings, Miranda's delicate lumpia, and a noodle dish that brings together the best qualities of kare kare and dan dan. The drink list (both alcoholic and non) is a fantastic companion to all of it.

A frenetically colorful fast-casual spot next to Uwajimaya serves delicate rice flour dumplings known as pak mor—a rarity outside Thailand because they’re so darn hard to make. These are assuredly worth investigating, but the non-dumpling options on the menu are just as exciting: spicy beef or sweet and sour noodle soups, marinated pork with rice noodles, khao mun gai, and a khao soi for the ages. Since it’s lunch, don’t miss the iced teas.

It’s a pathologically good Parisian bistro, but also a time-tested Seattle classic. Here classics spark with nonchalant finesse : a bibb lettuce and hazelnut salad, one of the best charcuterie boards in the city. Pichet’s hallowed roast chicken isn’t available at lunch, but the afternoon array of baguette sandwiches, gratins, bisque, and egg plates feels properly French, with a dash of Pike Place Market.

The dinghy-shaped building that once housed the original PhoBac is now an all-day restaurant that serves a single dish: Com ga mam toi is a garlic-crusted half chicken, fried crisp and sticky with fish sauce. It comes with rice or a sidecar of noodle soup and a great little salad. While the food menu is hyper-focused, the drinks menu is surprisingly broad, filled with co*cktails, Vietnamese iced coffee, and a memorable pandan iced tea. It’s also perfectly okay to come just for the pandan dessert waffles.

Now ensconced in a new location on 19^th Avenue East (the former Vios), Taurus Ox is bigger, more mellow, and open for lunch. The Lao dishes remain, thankfully, the same: nam khao crispy rice salad, bowls of curry, sticky rice and sausage that snaps with lemongrass. The burger, topped with house-cured pork jowl and the condiment jaew, is so good it spun off its own counter over on Madison.

Tom Douglas’s former Dahlia Lounge is now HQ for Serious Pie and its oval pizzas—crackling, puffed crusts topped with Northwest-friendly combos like potatoes, rosemary, and pecorino (even better if you add lardo). The other end of the room holds an enlarged Dahlia Bakery pastry counter for all your mochi doughnut and coconut cream pie needs.

This classic old-brick bar (aka no minors) is technically a co*cktail spot, but the food menu matches the drinks for care and intrigue. The menu reads like upscale bar fare—a fried chicken sandwich, a burger, duck fat frites—but housemade pasta (with garlic scapes, apples, and pimento cheese) and a salad of spicy pork and kale hint that the kitchen knows its stuff. Interbay sibling Champagne Diner also comes in handy for lunch.

It’s a local institution for a reason, tucked up on the second floor of Pike Place Market. And while chef Matt Fortner (his first name a happy coincidence) puts on a spectacular seasonal dinner, the daytime menu honors the restaurant’s lunch-counter origins. The cornmeal crusted catfish sandwich is a staple, but even the housemade chips with bacon and onion dip deliver the same level of care.

The large open grill drives a menu of impeccable meats by the pound. Diners can tailor their own platters with various sauces and house flatbread, then round things out with small plates that reinforce the broadly Mediterranean flavors, and the commitment to seasonal produce. It’s visceral, it’s elegant, it’s unlike any other place in Seattle.

Sure, the breakfast menu’s great, but Admiral’s all-day cafe shines just as bright when benedicts and bacon give way to trout salad, bacon sandwiches, and fried cheese curds. Okay, fine, this Australian-inspired spot also serves its breakfast menu all day, just another inducement to visit its white-tiled dining room filled with natural light and a nursery’s worth of plants.

The owners of Thai 65 Cafe in Redmond channeled their off-hours katsu fandom into a hangout that’s all about cutlets (pork, fancier pork, jidori chicken, even cheese). Expert frying delivers radio static crunch levels. Chef Don Tandavanitj drew from Tokyo tradition, Vancouver’s izakaya scene, and his own brain. The result: katsu in darkly chocolate curry or bubbling nabe, even just unadorned and glorious. The showstopper channels chicken parm, swathed in tomato miso sauce and hiding beneath a pile of grated parmesan that demands its own snow shovel. Both locations keep very, very busy.