The Best Restaurants on Mercer Island

A dining room filled with high-backed booths and wooden lanterns serves modern Cantonese dishes—like a squid ink rice baked with cheese—by chef Danna Hwang. The Forbidden Roast Duck platter forms the centerpiece of most meals here: A five-spiced bird with crackling skin arrives with a DIY array of herbs, radish, delicate lemon slices, and monogrammed bao buns.

The tavern food (burgers, BLTs, chili) is pleasant enough. But Mercer Island’s oldest business is adored for its historic charm, for its ready supply of beverages, and for a massive rear garden where each table essentially occupies its own gazebo.

A service station turned roadside burger joint serves uncomplicated, tasty burgers, fries, and shakes. Hap’s shares ownership with Homegrown, and its commitment to conscious sourcing; patties are grass-fed and ingredients skew local. The converted gas station setup means most seating is outdoors.

The name refers to Croatia’s traditional round flatbreads, baked in a wood-fired oven. At this casual grill, it surfaces everywhere from burger buns to lunchtime sandwiches and pogacha-based pizzas, which come topped with Adriatic-inspired combinations like mushroom lemon pesto. Housemade pasta stands out elsewhere on the menu.

The pizza restaurant (with three other locations in Seattle) has a knack for meeting the neighborhood’s needs, from lunchtime meatball sandwiches to brunch favorites (hash, shakshuka, and yes, bacon-and-egg pizza) served every morning. And of course, the pizza—puffy and flame-blistered, topped with potatoes and fontina and gorgonzola, or sausage, salami, and pepperoni. At dinner, parents order cocktails while kids get their own eight-inch pies.