If you’ve been to Vashon Island you probably at least walked by Snapdragon Bakery and Cafe and took note of its giant, primordial cinnamon rolls. Well, as of April those rolls have become sentient and taken the ferry to this permanent pop-up. The “rustic” (a.k.a. huge) pastries here are packed with flavor and sweetness — the berry Danishes are particularly good — but if you haven’t had the cinnamon roll that’s what you should get. They’re gooey, not overloaded with frosting, and have a strong taste of cinnamon, a flavor that a surprising number of cinnamon rolls lack.

If you’ve gone marauding in Belltown in the last few years, surely you’ve stopped for a late-night snack at Situ Tacos, Lupe Flores’s colorful stand inside the Jupiter Bar. Flores, whose ancestry is Mexican and Lebanese, makes tacos the way her grandmother Dolores did — sutured together with toothpicks and deep-fried, with fillings like hushwe (ground beef and browned butter), garlic mashed potato, and broiled harissa-kissed cauliflower with cilantro chickpea mash. Well, in May she moved out into her own spot in Ballard, taking over the old Bitterroot BBQ slot, and she’s added boozy slushies and rolled taquitos to the mix. Flores is also the undisputed queen of soup in this town, and you absolutely cannot go wrong with whatever soup she happens to be serving. There’s a meat option and a veggie option, they’re both different every day, and they’re always spectacular.

Biscuit and Bean used to be on nearby 15th Avenue, but after closing in 2022 it has reemerged on Leary doing what it does best: biscuits. Big, light, flavorful biscuits, the kind you don’t even need to put anything inside. But if you’re getting a sandwich, throw some tomato jam in there and improve any morning.

You know about Un Bien, surely — the famous, famously messy Caribbean sandwiches that have been winning Seattleite hearts and minds for years. Well, the mini-chain finally broke out of Ballard (where it has two locations) and opened a Queen Anne outpost in August. The big news? This is a restaurant you can go inside rather than having to walk up to an outdoor window. It’ll be perfect for those rainy season days when you want to warm up with a sandwich but don’t want to endure the weather.

Frelard Tamales used to be a walk-up window in Green Lake but as of August it’s a full-service restaurant inside Fremont’s El Sueñito Brewing (which owners Osbaldo Hernandez and husband Denny Ramey also run). You can still get the comforting tamales with plenty of veggie and vegan options that made this place famous, but do yourself a solid and check out the expanded menu. The carnitas tacos are meaty and rich but balanced by a sharply acidic salsa, but the real star are the corn tortillas, which are crisp but still pliable and so, so satisfying to bite into.

Backyard Bagel (formerly Aaron’s Bagel) opened up a brick-and-mortar shop in July, giving its bagels, long a farmers market favorite, a permanent home. In its new form, Backyard is offering some creative schmears, like capers and dill, blueberry, and hot honey. It also has a fun selection of rotating sandwich options. Will you be able to get one of those sandwiches? Maybe not, since this is one of those places that sells out FAST. Get here early enough in the day to get one of its fresh, hot, flavorful bagels — you don’t even need to put anything on them.

A year after he closed his popular White Center Afro-Caribbean food truck, Jhonny Reyes has at last moved Lenox into its permanent Belltown digs this summer. The space is airy and tropical, with tall houseplants and wicker accents, and cut flowers adorn the bar. Many beloved items from Lenox’s Nuyorican truck menu, including the crispy lechon sandwich, the rum-cured rockfish ceviche, and the tres hermanas salad (roasted corn, haricots verts, summer squash, farmer’s cheese, and green goddess vinaigrette), are still on the roster, along with some new and delicious faces. Adobo mussels and bistec encebollado are fresh additions, along with a very rummy cocktail list.

The owners of the legendary Shiro’s — namely executive chef Masaki Nishioka but not namesake Shiro Kashiba, who sold the restaurant a decade ago — opened ShoMon Kappo Sushi in early September in Belltown, somehow leveling up on their already-flawless omakase game in the process. The tiny 14-seat sushi-ya features an L-shaped counter and a hyper-intimate dining experience (“kappo” is when they prepare everything out in the open), with plenty of variety in the thoughtful courses. Recent plates included grilled miso butterfish, skipjack tuna sashimi with Walla Walla onions, and a 26-day dry-aged bluefin tuna nigiri. Go on a cold day and take advantage of the heated seats on the cool Japanese robot toilets. 

Serving coffee by day and cocktails by night, this South African cafe is in the historic and supposedly haunted Butterworth Building—the space was Seattle’s first funeral parlor, built in 1903, with the original choir balcony still extant. The Karoo is named for a vast semi-desert region in South Africa, and the decor reflects the name, with abundant zebra stripes and cheetah prints. Open since October, there’s EDM music happening on weekends, and the menu of drinks and bar bites includes some not-commonly-seen-around-here items—sausage rolls, boerewors sliders, South African wines, and several drinks made with Amarula, a cream liqueur made from marula fruit, or baobab fruit–infused gin. 

After five years in a cramped Queen Anne space, in June Bill Jeong’s celebrated contemporary Korean restaurant moved into new digs in South Lake Union (the former home of Vestal). The larger kitchen allows Jeong and his team to utilize more techniques and produce new dishes, like wood-roasted cauliflower served with a mint sauce and a dry-aged ribeye. But don’t worry, the famous fried rice — with kimchi, squid ink, and a quail egg on top — isn’t going anywhere.

This used to be Bar Solea, but presto chango — Brendan McGill’s Hitchcock Restaurant Group turned the pizzeria into an oyster bar in May. The focus here is on relative affordability, with $2 oyster happy hours and nearly all of the menu, including scallops and crab toast, clocking in under $30. The menu, by the way, is heavy on the crudo and tartare; if you’re squeamish about raw seafood, avert your eyes when you walk by.

Here’s a hotspot for all you budget-conscious diners who still want to have one of those “let’s eat a huge pile of food in the Chinatown–International District” moments. The simply named joint has a surprisingly expansive, sleek dining room where all the tables come with tablets. You tap the screen to send in the order, chefs prepare the sushi on the spot (so the rolls aren’t just lying around), and... voila! Unlimited sushi. The rolls are okay, but make sure you load up on nigiri and flamed-seared sushi, and don’t forget about the non-sushi items like karaage and tempura, which are included in the AYCE price ($24 for lunch, $32 for dinner).

This Chinese restaurant opened in August as part of a wave of new dim sum spots coming to the Seattle area. There’s a big banquet room here but it fills up fast — you’ll probably end up sharing a table with other parties — as people want to get their dim sum on before it switches over to dinner service at 3 p.m. Some of the go-to items here are the Golden Crispy Shrimp Rice Rollsand the Ube Salted Egg Yolk Lava Sesame Balls, which you gotta get for the gram. There’s also a next-door space called Jin Huang, a Cantonese cafe that serves roasted and barbecued meats, clay pots, and more. 

You probably already know about Melissa Miranda’s Beacon Hill Filipino restaurant, we’re just putting it here so everyone knows that Musang reopened in June after being closed for several months for repairs. Get back in here for your mushroom sisig, arroz valenciana, and short rib kare kare.

What’s old is new again! Resurrected through a partnership with the City of Seattle’s Business Community Fund, owner Donna Moodie’s culinary ode to her mom soft-reopened in late October in its third incarnation. (Longtime Seattleites will remember Marjorie‘s previous Belltown and Capitol Hill locations over the last two decades.) Now in the Central District, sandwiched between Jerk Shack and the Neighbor Lady in Midtown Square’s courtyard, the new Marjorie has a big, beautiful centerpiece bar to perch oneself at and even a few of its signature record players. Marjorie’s menu has always been a global party, and its reincarnation keeps the beat going with soulful dishes from North Africa, France, the Caribbean… or wherever else may strike Moodie’s and chef Aislinn McManigal-Quintana’s fancy. What a privilege to get to go there again and find out.

The Vietnamese cafe Coffeeholic House is known for its brightly colored, ‘Gram-friendly concoctions, so when owners Chen Dien and Trang Cao opened up their brunch restaurant MCozy in April, you knew it wasn’t going to exactly be subtle. We’re talking purple ube pancakes and green pandan waffles with fried chicken wings, a tiramisu coffee that comes with a ladyfinger you can dip into the egg cream. Bring your sweetest-toothed friend, just be careful when you park — you can’t use the University Village lot across the street.

Want some perfectly crispy tempura from this renowned Japanese chain? Be prepared to wait, because there are a lot of people who want to know what prawns and mushrooms taste like after they go through Tendon Kohaku’s proprietary deep fryers and a specially blended oil. This is the first U.S. location of the chain, so its June opening was a pretty big deal.