The Puget Sound clam with a foot-long siphon that locals pronounce gooey-duck. Sliced sashimi-thin at Maneki and Sushi Kashiba; cracked into chowder at Pike Place.
Geoduck is the world's largest burrowing clam, native to the tidal flats of Puget Sound, Hood Canal and British Columbia. The Coast Salish dug it at low tide for millennia. The first state commercial harvest opened in 1970, sold to Japan and Hong Kong where the siphon is prized for raw and hot-pot cookery; the Washington fishery is now worth $80 million a year, with strict quotas managed by the state and the tribes. The clam can live 165 years and weighs 1 to 3 kilograms. In Seattle, sushi bars like Maneki and Sushi Kashiba slice the siphon paper-thin for nigiri called mirugai. Pike Place fishmongers display them whole in ice tanks for the photo opportunity; the body meat goes into chowder and the siphon into sashimi.
3 editor picks for Geoduck in Seattle, ranked by editorial score. All Seattle signature dishes · Geoduck across every city.
Sushi Kashiba ★ 4.7
pike-place-market · 86 Pine St, Ste 1, Seattle, WA 98101
Sushi Kashiba in Seattle's Pike Place Market is Shiro Kashiba's bar: the chef who opened Seattle's first sushi counter in 1970, now back behind glass at 86 Pine since 2015.
Maneki ★ 4.5
international-district · 304 6th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104
Maneki in Seattle's International District is the oldest Japanese restaurant on the West Coast: opened in 1904, surviving wartime internment, tatami rooms still running.
Taylor Shellfish Oyster Bar Pioneer Square ★ 4.5
pioneer-square · 410 Occidental Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104
Taylor Shellfish Oyster Bar in Seattle's Pioneer Square is the on-counter outpost of the 135-year Samish Bay farm: half-shells, geoduck crudo, manila clams, all from one supplier.