For a city as resolutely non-Caribbean as Seattle—um, just look outside—we do cherish our Caribbean restaurants. And why on earth wouldn’t we, when they include such torrid treasures as Casuelita’s? At that rum-drenched junction of Belltown and Barbados, the ever-present happy-hour crowd is actually as interested in the callaloos, conch fritters, Jamaican patties, and curried goat as they are in the 75 rums behind the bar. (Well…almost as interested.) Co-owner and chef Richard Dwyer, British-born scion of a Guyanese father and a Jamaican mother, raided the family recipes to create piquant noshes aplenty: among them the eponymous casuelitas, little corn-bread cups spilling over with slow-burn black beans and chipotle-chili butter; and the Bahamian shrimp, all rum-glazed over glistening greens. The loud, lofted room is a balmy escape, with walls that are either the color of dark rum or just start to seem that way after a while.

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