SEAReview
Included In
Updated November 17th, 2021
Even if you’re a local, you can’t avoid Pike Place Market, a.k.a. the hub for Seattle tourism, overpriced produce, and crowds of zombie people waiting in line to get a watery coffee at the first Starbucks (which isn’t actually the first Starbucks). Maybe you have some out-of-town visitors who read in some magazine that Pike Place is the toast of the city’s cultural existence. Maybe you’re trying to impress a second date with a one-two punch of the aquarium followed by a Moscow mule at Rachel’s Ginger Beer. Or maybe you’ve shelled out $14 to ride the waterfront ferris wheel by yourself because you only live once.
But there is one reason that we’d tell you to intentionally go to Pike Place. And that reason is The Pink Door.
The Pink Door has been around since 1981 as Seattle’s burlesque-ish white-tablecloth Italian restaurant kingpin. But in 2017, they underwent some renovations that made the space more modern—like the addition of a full bar decked out with stained glass, an elevated stage for string quartets to play their fiddles, and a very nice patio. We loved the old Pink Door, but the new version is even better.
Beyond the unmarked, literal pink door, you’ll find an elegant circus-restaurant mashup, with low lighting, mural of a court jester, thick curtains, and nightly acrobatic talent swinging on silks above you and your linguine with clams. It’s a place for you to leave everything behind and escape real life for a night.
And it’s also a place for you to eat consistently excellent Italian food. Share plates like crudo and prosciutto/mozzarella, pastas we want to eat on loop all day, a damn good caesar salad, and fettunta, which is grilled garlic bread fit for adults who spend money on tableside bread because they feel like it (and because it tastes like char marks and top-tier olive oil). And then there’s the lasagna, which makes us want to grab our server’s collar, pull them dangerously close, and ask “what sorcery is this?!” because of how f*cking delicious it is in all its layered, besciamella-stuffed glory.
There is no wrong way to do The Pink Door, but generally assume it should be your special occasion go-to. In the winter, eat that lasagna with Negronis and a date inside. In the summer, secure some real estate on the covered deck with a view of Elliott Bay and a mannequin dressed like it belongs in a disco. Don’t let the tourist hellzone location that is Pike Place deter you—The Pink Door is more than worth braving the crowds, lack of parking, and medley of raw fish smells.
Food Rundown
Pink Door Caesar
La Fettunta
photo credit: Stan Lee
Ahi Tuna Crudo
photo credit: Nate Watters
Pappardelle Al Ragu Bolognese
photo credit: Stan Lee
Spaghetti And Mama’s Meatballs
photo credit: Nate Watters
Lasagna Pink Door
photo credit: Stan Lee