Updated April 1, 2023
There isn’t any town or city in this county that can boast more restaurants, more upscale eateries, or more ethnic diversity in its culinary scene. Edmonds is all over it! Just show up downtown, ask your grumbling tummy what it desires, and walk a block and you’ll find it. Caribbean? Mexican? Thai? Asian? Fusion anything? Hand-thrown pizza? Fresh-made pasta? Fresh fish? Chinese? Vegan? Surf 'n Turf?
It’s all here. In fact, foodies delight in the fact that Edmonds is continually opening new eateries — even during the pandemic!
Edmonds is fast becoming a worldly culinary destination.
Maybe it’s the environment. So many Edmonds artists speak to the beautiful, surrounding environs as inspiration for their work.
Mountain views, idyllic beach scenes, and tree-lined streets. There’s no doubt that culinary artists can be very inspired to create wonderful things using the bounty around them. If nothing else, it makes sitting at a sidewalk eatery enjoying a fine meal all the more enjoyable.
That’s just in downtown Edmonds, which plays host to boutique shopping by day and a hopping happy hour and dinner scene by night. The town is reminiscent of small seaside communities in Europe, where the food is focused on bringing in fresh, local ingredients. Chefs are willing to play with oysters, wild-foraged mushrooms, nettles, local Manila clams and Dungeness Crab, It’s not just what kind of food is being made that’s astonishing, it’s the level of quality that it rises to that can be unexpected. Edmonds delivers.
Up on the Highway 99 corridor in the International District, the tight community of Chinese and Korean neighbors come together to cook and eat, and they open restaurants reflective of their authentic selves and palates. Expore Edmonds shares some of them with you here. The foodie experience in Edmonds is a cultural tour. You can visit Asia, Latin America, the American Northwest, even California's fresh cuisine. Edmonds welcomes diversity, bringing, in turn, a diversity of food.
Edmonds is “the best-kept secret on the West Coast,” opines one of Edmonds' busiest, most talented restaurateurs in town, Shubert Ho. He says Seattle is in the top 10 culinary scenes in the nation, and Edmonds is keeping up in its diversity and quality of cuisine.
Ho is co-owner of Feedme Hospitality, which owns Bar Dojo, Salt & Iron, The Mar-Ket, SanKai, Fire & the Feast, and Shorepine Coffee. Ho opened Bar Dojo to introduce upscale Asian fusion; Salt & Iron was created to bring a destination-worthy steak and oyster house to Edmonds; and The Mar•Ket brought the fishmonger service with a sidewalk-fronting take-out window for ordering up the best lobster roll you’ll find in the state.
“Downtown Edmonds has really grown in the culinary arts sector, as more and more restaurants have opened in the last five years,” Ho says. “I would say no fewer than 10 restaurants have opened in that time-frame.”
It’s deep in the culture of the place.
Edmonds Community College feeds up-and-coming cooks and restaurateurs into the community via its culinary arts program, which “has grown leaps and bounds,” Ho continues.
“I think the Edmonds culinary scene ranks up in the top 10 in all of Washington."
