Vancouver dim sum specialist Sun Sui Wah made its way south in April, continuing the trend from last year of popular restaurants from elsewhere expanding to Bellevue. Diners waited multiple hours for tables at Tendon Kohaku, the Singapore-based Japanese tempura chain that started its fryers back in June. (The suburb wouldn’t see lines like that again until this month, when Canadian grocery store T&T Supermarkets opened its doors).

While the trend has mostly involved casual or upscale casual restaurants, the long-awaited La Mar Cocina Peruana opened in October, bringing Bellevue a taste of Peruvian seafood-centric fine-dining, from acclaimed celebrity chef Gastón Acurio.

At the opposite end of the size scale from Acurio’s 70-some restaurants, some of Seattle’s brightest pop-up stars found their own space in which to shine. Both Lupe Flores of Lupe’s Situ Tacos and Jhonny Reyes of Lenox started their pop-ups early in the pandemic and, four years later, opened in their own space. The extended incubation period means that each opened (in May and June, respectively) firing on all cylinders, with a well-honed identity and practiced execution.

It seemed impossible that Jupiter Bar could find anything to fill the hole where Situ Tacos had been in residence without taking a disappointing step down. We learned how misguided that was when Good Shape Pizza started slinging its puffy crusted pies.

When Gold Coast Ghal opened toward the end of last year, it was Seattle’s only sit-down restaurant cooking West African Cuisine. Then in May, Jollof Hub quietly opened its doors on Greenwood, just inside the city’s northern border, serving Gambian and Nigerian cuisine. With the addition of U-District Nigerian ghost kitchen Pass D Jollof, which moved into the former Alstadt location in Pioneer Square in September, it seems the city is finally figuring out how much we need fufu in our lives.

Despite plenty of enthusiasm for Chinese food, Seattle’s selection of Chinese cuisines has always been a bit limited—mostly Cantonese, a bit of Sichuanese, and a smattering of other styles. We simply don’t have the diversity of restaurants found around Los Angeles or in Richmond, BC. But this year we made progress, gaining an excellent Hunan restaurant when Shaoshan Impression opened in March and a Xinjiang Uyghur spot when Wild Cumin lit its grill in August.

Perhaps because it is singularly remarkable, there’s no trend in which to attribute Ramie, which we called one of the year’s most promising restaurants back in May when it opened. The modern Vietnamese-influenced food from siblings Trinh and Thai Nguyen has absolutely lived up to that, with dishes like seven-day butter-aged steak served with garlic-lemongrass glaze and a béchamel made from Laughing Cow cheese.

The straw that broke the cougar’s back was the second fire in two years, this one on New Year’s Day. Though Vito’s and its sexy Cougar Room had been closed by water damage since the 2022 fire and Barbara, the cougar, later stolen, everyone held out hope that the nostalgic, campy, delightfully fun 70-year-old dive bar might reopen. Alas, the owners announced the end.

Capitol Hill took a one-two punch this month, with 36-year-old red-sauce Italian charmer Machiavelli calling it quits. Technically, there is a second, still open, location in Edmonds, but that tiny Capitol Hill space held much of the magic.

Up the hill, a few weeks later, Coastal Kitchen went dark, also after more than three decades in business. The pandemic, followed by a car crashing through the front in 2022, then rising costs, pushed the owners to pull the plug and focus on their other restaurants.

With the lease ending and no luck on negotiations, chef and co-owner David Nichols shuttered Eight Row. The two-time James Beard Award semifinalist did say that he hopes to resurrect the restaurant in a new location in the future. 

Beer and fries are the perfect combination, and for 19 years, Fremont’s Brouwer’s Café nailed the execution on both parts. But a much more sinister combination put an end to the fun: one of rising costs and dwindling customers for the bar’s extensive collection of brews.

Just over a year after taking them over, the new owners of sibling spots Norm’s Eatery & Alehouse, Roxy’s Diner, and the Backdoor suddenly closed the trio. Norm’s was mourned with a hearty “arooooo” from the many canine fans of the city’s most dog-friendly restaurant.

A regular on any list of the best breakfasts or brunches in town, The Fat Hen filled its tiny Ballard space with genuine warmth and the scent of tender eggs relaxing in skillets full of tomato sauce. The owners cited burnout and high costs for closing.

Though extremely close to the longtime heart of Seattle’s Ethiopian community in the Central District, Queen Sheba Ethiopian Cuisine stood out as the only Ethiopian restaurant on Capitol Hill. The more than 25-year-old restaurant was under new ownership as of last year and the (125-year-old) building was bought in 2021. It seems the two parties couldn’t come to an agreement on how to move forward.

This is the first holiday season in 37 years that the Chinatown–International District’s Ho Ho Seafood won’t dip into its tanks to serve shellfish. While it changed a bit under new ownership changes in recent years, it still hit the spot for a Cantonese feast and drew remarkably long lines on Christmas.

When Dustin Ronspies first opened Art of the Table in Fremont in 2007 he pioneered a daring, innovative style of restaurant: his “Supper Club” meals. The $55, five-course menus led the way into the near future of dining, prioritizing the best ingredients and the chef’s instincts on the ideal way to serve them. Ronspies stepped away, still packing the (now much larger) space most nights, citing vague plans to move away from the city and the industry.