Between Pike Place and Seattle Center, a strip of cocktail bars, Macrina's flagship, Tilikum Place Dutch babies and Shaker + Spear at the Palladian.
Shaker + Spear in Seattle's Belltown is the Kimpton Palladian seafood room: a kitchen working off the Pike Place fishmongers and Hood Canal shellfish growers.
Signature: Whole rockfish, Dungeness crab, Oysters Rockefeller
Order: The whole roasted rockfish with brown butter and capers, deboned tableside.
Tip: The two top by the kitchen pass is the best seat for solos; happy hour runs 16:00-18:00 with $2 oysters.
Shaker + Spear in Seattle's Belltown is the Kimpton Palladian seafood room: a kitchen working off the Pike Place fishmongers and Hood Canal growers down.
Signature: Whole rockfish, Dungeness crab, Oysters Rockefeller
Order: The whole roasted rockfish with brown butter and capers, deboned tableside.
Tip: The two top by the kitchen pass is the best seat for solos; happy hour 16:00-18:00 with $2 oysters.
The Crocodile on 1st and Wall opened April 1991 and launched Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Mudhoney. The 2021 rebuild added a 750 capacity showroom plus Hotel Crocodile upstairs.
Tip: Showroom typically opens 19:00 with show at 20:00. Use the Wall Street side entrance; tickets via Ticketweb.
Bathtub Gin tucks into the alley off 2nd Avenue, inside the boiler room of the 1928 Humphrey Building. A multi level Belltown speakeasy with a real bathtub in the window seat.
Tip: Open nightly 17:00-02:00. Look for the unmarked alley door off 2nd Avenue between Bell and Blanchard; no reservations, walk in.
The 5 Point Cafe on Cedar Street has poured since 1929 and runs 24 hour diner service in Belltown, the oldest drinking establishment in the neighborhood with bar service from 06:00-02:00.
Tip: Cafe open 24 hours, bar 06:00-02:00 daily. First come, first served, no reservations. 21 plus at the bar; minors okay in the cafe or patio.
Shorty's on 2nd Avenue is the Coney Island themed Belltown carny dive with hot dogs at the bar, two rooms of pinball through the back and boozy slushees up front.
Tip: Daily noon to 02:00. Cash bar, pinball back room with no cover, hot dogs and corn dogs run all hours.
Screwdriver on 1st Avenue is the basement rock and roll dive in the historic Barnes Building, a former grunge era recording studio, with Belltown Yacht Club's live music room next door in the alley.
Tip: Daily 16:00-02:00. Go down the staircase between the photo walls to find the bar. Belltown Yacht Club next door for ticketed live music.