It’s a pathologically good Parisian bistro, but also a time-tested Seattle classic. Here classics spark with nonchalant finesse : a bibb lettuce and hazelnut salad, one of the best charcuterie boards in the city. Pichet’s hallowed roast chicken isn’t available at lunch, but the afternoon array of baguette sandwiches, gratins, bisque, and egg plates feels properly French, with a dash of Pike Place Market.

Brendan McGill’s trattoria (previously Bar Taglio) combines the art deco grandeur of the Exchange Building with a lineup of antipasti and a lengthy pizza menu. Pies have a slightly fermented crust, puffed and blistered edges, and toppings that hew mostly to Italy—soppressata, house pesto and potatoes, or a pizza version of carbonara. McGill's Cafe Hitchcock across the hall also serves lunch.

The dinghy-shaped building that once housed the original Pho Bac has a new identity as an all-day restaurant that serves a single dish: Com ga mam toi is a garlic-crusted half chicken, fried crisp and sticky with fish sauce. It comes with rice or a sidecar of noodle soup and a great little salad. While the food menu is hyper-focused, the drinks menu is surprisingly broad, filled with cocktails, Vietnamese iced coffee, and a memorable pandan iced tea. It’s also perfectly okay to come just for the pandan dessert waffles.

Now ensconced in a new location on 19^th Avenue East (the former Vios), Taurus Ox is bigger, more mellow, and open for lunch. The Lao dishes remain, thankfully, the same: nam khao crispy rice salad, bowls of curry, sticky rice and sausage that snaps with lemongrass. The burger, topped with house-cured pork jowl and the condiment jaew, is so good it spun off its own counter over on Madison.

Tom Douglas’s former Dahlia Lounge is now HQ for Serious Pie and its oval pizzas—crackling, puffed crusts topped with Northwest-friendly combos like potatoes, rosemary, and pecorino (even better if you add lardo). The other end of the room holds an enlarged Dahlia Bakery pastry counter for all your mochi doughnut and coconut cream pie needs.

This classic old-brick bar (aka no minors) is technically a cocktail spot, but the food menu matches the drinks for care and intrigue. The menu reads like upscale bar fare—a fried chicken sandwich, a burger, duck fat frites—but housemade pasta (with garlic scapes, apples, and pimento cheese) and a salad of spicy pork and kale hint that the kitchen knows its stuff. Interbay sibling Champagne Diner also comes in handy for lunch.

In 1985, Bruce Naftaly opened Le Gourmand and edged the term “Northwest cuisine” into our lexicon. He’s still at it over in Chophouse Row, serving a lunch menu that’s far more casual, if no less careful. The seasonal soup, or house broths, unite Bruce’s knack for deep flavors and wife Sara’s elegantly sturdy bread. The rest of the menu is beautifully French and deeply vegetal.

It’s a local institution for a reason, tucked up on the second floor of Pike Place Market. And while chef Matt Fortner (his first name a happy coincidence) puts on a spectacular seasonal dinner, the daytime menu honors the restaurant’s lunch-counter origins. The cornmeal crusted catfish sandwich is a staple, but even the housemade chips with bacon and onion dip deliver the same level of care.

The large open grill drives a menu of impeccable meats by the pound. Diners can tailor their own platters with various sauces and house flatbread, then round things out with small plates that reinforce the broadly Mediterranean flavors, and the commitment to seasonal produce. It’s visceral, it’s elegant, it’s unlike any other place in Seattle.

Sure, the breakfast menu’s great, but Admiral’s all-day cafe shines just as bright when benedicts and bacon give way to trout salad, bacon sandwiches, and fried cheese curds. Okay, fine, this Australian-inspired spot also serves its breakfast menu all day, just another inducement to visit its white-tiled dining room filled with natural light and a nursery’s worth of plants.