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The Infatuation
The Touristy Waterfront Seafood Restaurant Power Rankings
By Aimee Rizzo, Gabe GuarenteKayla Sager-Riley,
6 days ago
Seattle is already packed with seafood restaurants, but there’s a special subspecies that tends to gather near popular piers and bays. You’ll know them by the rickety exposed beams, coconut-crusted prawns served with sweet chili sauce, and loose nautical themes. And they have a gravitational pull on out-of-towners only breakable by a Royal Caribbean sailing or a local who knows better. Get ready for a truckload of grilled salmon with some kind of buerre blanc—these are Seattle’s touristy waterfront seafood restaurants, ranked.
Every kingdom has a king. And in this case, go ahead and bow down to Ray’s Boathouse. This apex of touristy waterfront seafood in Ballard is unironically wonderful in both taste and location. They serve one of the best crab cakes in town, every brick of fish is seared with laser-sharp precision, and the interior design has no trace of aquatic kitsch. Get the grilled sablefish in sake kasu with a glass of ice-cold white wine and be thankful you’re nowhere near Pier 55.
Westward is the least touristy of the bunch, but that doesn't make it any less crowded. Be sure to plan ahead before heading to this slick, coastal-inspired place to slurp briny oysters with a view that reminds you where oysters come from. It's an A+ spot for sipping sparkling wine while crunching on potato chips with spicy clam dip, grilled gem lettuces with morita dressing, and baked oysters with 'nduja butter and melty beef lardo. Bonus points if you do all of your snacking in a water-facing Adirondack chair.
Ray’s Boathouse's second-story cafe is more casual than its sibling restaurant, a bit tackier, and there’s a 100% increase of fish and chips on tables. But the food is almost as great, and the balcony deck is a huge draw. Tables are strategically placed where the sunset should only scan the side of your face, they have heaters (and tasty chowder) if it gets blustery, and you might even see some sea lions.
Salty’s is where you go when excellent views are your priority. Chances are you’ve had a pleasant time on their Alki-adjacent patio for a Mother’s Day brunch or graduation dinner eating succulent lobster tail, fried calamari tossed with vinegary peppers, and their satisfying caesar salad. It has all the trappings of a fancy seafood restaurant with white tablecloths and nautical decor, but you’ll find fewer tourists looking for any copper river salmon they can get their hands on, and more locals looking for the same thing. Pick your poison.
Ah, Aqua. A classy Frasier-ish venue with patterned carpeting, wedding cocktail hour-style poke (prepared tableside!), and an in-house pianist. It’s a fine choice, though nothing will blow you out of your seat—and we’re not just saying that because they use constricting dining room chairs. Keep it in mind if you’re getting comped “a nice seafood meal” by a coworker who has a "C" as the first letter of their title and your eyeballs become flashing cartoon dollar signs. For that—or for some waterside drinks outside—Aqua is a decent power play.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to escape the waterfront chaos and head to a spot only reachable by folks who can drive there. Chinook’s At Salmon Bay is a standard seafood restaurant, but no significant menu disasters are going down in this big, brown-tiled room. Plus, you have the added benefits of a nice little Magnolia marina view, friendly staff who aren’t on the brink of resignation, and really f*cking good (and free) focaccia. Yeah, go nuts with anything marked “MP” or some battered halibut and chips. But we’d be perfectly happy here pounding fountain sodas and cleaning them out of table bread. Is that fraud?
If you stumble into Elliott’s for a full meal with a pack of visitors hopped up on the promise of omega-3 fatty acids, we cannot possibly guarantee success—just undercooked crab cakes and oil-saturated cod. But it’s not called Elliott’s Crab Cake And Cod House—treat this place like the mignonette-steeped bivalve temple it is. Slurp oysters. Drink Champagne. Repeat "I know, isn't it stunning?" when anyone mentions the swirly Chihuly sculpture you've seen a dozen times. What about chowder? Surely there must be chowder. Fine, get the acceptable spicy crab-corn version and leave us alone.
6.1
#8
Anthony's Pier 66
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Besides the promise of a peppermint schnapps-fueled open bar, nothing unites those heading out for an Alaskan cruise like Anthony’s. This tourist-filled restaurant at Pier 66 has a convention center-type atmosphere—and the food to match. The asparagus tempura is bland and the crab cakes trend mushy, but the New England clam chowder is okay, with a few chunks of bacon and a herby kick. It’s nice to slurp as you look out on the Sound. But there's better chowder elsewhere that you can eat without a blaring cruise ship horn rattling your spoon.
Expect a huge wait for a table in a South Lake Union space that feels like a stuffy landlocked boat—and expect to be pretty disappointed. If the seafood were great, we wouldn't mind the unadulterated humiliation that comes with using the goofy phrases written on their menu, like: "Rockin' Rockfish Tacos," "It's So Dreamy Parmesan Halibut," and our very least favorite, "Blessed By The Pope Seafood Cioppino." But we've found that most dishes are tremendously overcooked and unpleasant. If you're being dragged here, just get a basket of "Oh My Cod! Fish And Chips" and move on with your life.
This place located at the northern end of Pike Place is where you might be tempted to take a visiting relative whose eyes light up at anything that says “Crabhouse.” It’s an upscale dining room where they gallantly stretch out white tablecloths—but the food disappoints. You’ll need to send a search party out to find seafood in the crab melt topped with a sickening amount of cheese, and the clam chowder is a watery mess. Even the waterfront views are a let-down now that there’s so much construction next door. Bring your seafood-loving aunt elsewhere.
If TGI Fridays decided to do a hostile takeover of Red Lobster (RIP), it would look like this Miners Landing restaurant. Families in plastic bibs and rowdy groups of out-of-towners demanding off-menu appletinis jostle for space inside the wood-paneled dining room where they sell souvenir t-shirts that say “Got Crabs?” Totally cool if that’s your scene—just know that the “signature” crab cakes are bland and tiny, and that the whipped cream-topped colada sugar bomb might have you questioning various life choices.
At first glance, Ivar’s is like the rest of the lot—there’s the safety net of decent clam strips (virtually just globs of crispy dredge bits), limp caesar salads buried with matchstick parmesan shreds, and burnt blackened salmon that’s drier than any sign of life left in this establishment. But then you have the soul-penetrating emptiness that comes with walking through the dust-filled entrance of mahogany wood and framed memorabilia. It may just be a few yards, but boy, does it feel like miles. If you can get out on the patio and snack on fried stuff, have at it—but watch for the seagull flocks who are out for your oyster crackers.
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