The American version of grilled-then-glazed chicken on rice that Toshi Kasahara invented at his Lower Queen Anne counter in 1976. Sugar, soy, char and shredded cabbage.
On 2 March 1976 Toshihiro Kasahara opened a 30-seat shop at 372 Roy Street called Toshi's Teriyaki. His sauce broke with the Japanese ryori he had grown up around: he swapped mirin for granulated sugar, basted the marinade on yakitori-style chicken thighs over charcoal, and finished the plate with a scoop of rice and a pile of shredded iceberg. The Seattle Times credited the move with launching a city-wide format that now numbers more than 200 teriyaki shops, more than any other US city. Toshi sold the original room in 1980 and now runs Toshi's Teriyaki Grill in Mill Creek. The format spread fastest through the 1980s as Korean and Japanese-American operators opened cheap, fast counters from Lake City to Federal Way. The dish is the only American food invented in Seattle that the city eats without irony.
2 editor picks for Seattle teriyaki in Seattle, ranked by editorial score. All Seattle signature dishes · Seattle teriyaki across every city.
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.
Ba Bar Capitol Hill ★ 4.3
capitol-hill · 550 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
Ba Bar in Seattle's Capitol Hill is Eric Banh's 2011 Vietnamese street-food room running pho until 02:00 weeknights and 03:30 on weekends, the city's only true late-night kitchen.