I just got back from California, finishing up my own travel and leisure just in time to find Travel & Leisure’s new article on the “50 Best New U.S. Restaurants.”
When I see a lead-in like this, I know Seattle’s going to do well in the rankings:

“You know the American restaurant paradigm is shifting when communal benches become more desirable than leather banquettes. When humble kimchi is suddenly chic, and the words local and seasonal are recited as routinely as fried or sautéed.”

Indeed, we’ve got seven of the top 50, and the editorial commentary that “You don’t need a crystal ball to divine that American restaurants of the future will probably resemble Seattle’s new crop: quirky spots defined by chefs’ personalities and the region’s agricultural bounty.” The winners are:

Quinn’s, where “the beer list reads like a novel,” Pike Street Fish Fry, where ” sustainable seasonal catches are the order of the day,” the “delicious, design-y” Spring Hill, along with Joule, rated “one of the city’s most disarmingly personal spots,” How To Cook A Wolf, “a hyper-curated Italian wine bar that’s part of the mini restaurant empire of gifted chef Ethan Stowell,” Poppy, where they say “Michael Pollan would applaud (Jerry) Traunfeld’s tasting platter,” and The Corson Building, where the cooking is “simple, local, and seasonal—but of course, you guessed that already.”

And, am I missing something, or did the magazine really only include one restaurant from Portland, Naomi Pomeroy’s Beast? I’ve been wanting to hear more about Tanuki, about the same age as Joule, which friends have raved about, and which Matthew Amster-Burton called one of the best restaurant meals of his life. Guess its absence from the list gives me more time to score a table and try it out myself.

Here’s the slideshow of the entire T&L top 50.

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