Gavin's guide, on SPOT
14 spots · Seattle, United States
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives reached Seattle early and has kept coming back across multiple episodes since. The list runs on the city's older immigrant kitchens and the places that feed people late: house chili at a Ballard parlor open since the 1920s, Trinidadian curried goat roti and dhalpuri, garlic beef asado piroshki, elk bolognese at Bizzarro. A Central District pit handles the brisket and spare ribs, and a Georgetown chili shack handles the rest of the night.

#1
Wallingford, Seattle · Italian · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed in this upside-down Wallingford room in season 6, episode 1, ordering the elk bolognese and the clam linguini, and came back years later for a second look. Oregon elk and pork shoulder over hand-rolled pappardelle is still the dish to reckon with.
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#2
Ballard, Seattle · Sandwiches · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives came to this Leary Way counter in 2025, though the episode numbering has never been confirmed. The sandwiches are the whole reason for the visit: griddled corned beef with house yellow mustard, pickled red cabbage and fresh mint, with Skins and Ins alongside.
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#3
Downtown, now Capitol Hill, Seattle · Café · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed here in season 28, episode 17, ordering the garlic beef asado piroshki and the pelmeni soup. Alyssa Anderson took over a 1994 bakery and started folding adobo, sisig and asado into Eastern European dough, which turns out to carry them well.
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#4
Wallingford, Seattle · Caribbean · $$
Season 7, episode 3 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives put Pam Jacob's kitchen on camera with curried goat roti, dhalpuri flatbread and pelau, and the show came back for a second visit. Dhalpuri is layered with seasoned ground split peas, which is exactly what makes it the right wrapper for goat.
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#5
Georgetown, Seattle · New American · $$
Season 6, episode 4 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives sat down at this Georgetown chili shack for the chili verde and the turkey white bean. Both stages are still running, and the kitchen still shuts well before the music does, so eat before the room fills.
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#6
Ballard, Seattle · Diner · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives first came to Ballard in season 2, episode 4, working through a bowl of the house chili, a chili burger and chili over pasta, and returned a decade later. Four generations of the Semandiris family have declined to revise the recipe, and the beans still go in the bowl rather than the pot.
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#7
Central District, Seattle · BBQ · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed on Jackson Street in season 28, episode 11, and the plate came out as beef brisket, pork spare ribs and the brisket chili Frito pie. Kansas City sweetness and Texas restraint split the difference in this smokehouse, and the Frito pie is the part people describe to friends afterward.
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#8
Winslow, Seattle · Diner · $$
The 1948 dining car near the Bainbridge dock made season 10, episode 10 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, where the plates were corn pancakes with bacon cooked into the batter, a chorizo scramble and salmon hash. It is a genuine New Jersey prefab, shipped west by rail and still doing the griddle work it was built for.
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#9
Fremont, Seattle · Japanese · $$$
Kamonegi turns up in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, though the season and episode have never been pinned down, so treat the show as context rather than as a date. What held on camera and holds now is the ni-hachi soba cut by hand every morning and the tempura that follows the season.
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#10
Lake City, Seattle · Greek · $
Season 6, episode 10 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives caught Georgia's while it still had a storefront, with a lamb gyro platter and keftedes baked in red sauce carrying the segment, and the show returned later. The family works a truck now, so find out where it is parked before planning the meal around it.
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#11
Georgetown, Seattle · Fried Chicken · $$
Season 28, episode 16 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives came to Georgetown for the Nashville hot chicken and the smoked gouda bacon mac and cheese. The heat scale runs one through eleven and is meant literally, so pick a number you are willing to defend at the table.
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#12
Ballard, Seattle · Mexican · $
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives found the Ballard walk-up in season 56, episode 7, and ate the hushwe tacos and the carnitas burrito. Hushwe is Lebanese browned butter beef, and it shares a menu with carnitas because Delores Flores was half Lebanese and half Mexican and taught her grandson both.
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#13
Portage Bay / U-District, Seattle · Diner · $$
Voula's made season 1, episode 8 of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, with a Greek Hobo scramble, a smoked salmon scramble and a Chinese pancake coming off the griddle, and the show came back for another round. Doors open at six on weekdays, to a room of people already several hours into the workday.
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#14
Fremont, Seattle · Seafood · $$
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives got to this pocket-sized Fremont counter in 2026, with the episode number still unsettled. What came across the pass was seafood off a menu that moves with the season, which is the only way this kitchen has ever worked.
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