Where Anthony Bourdain Ate in Seattle

Salumi, Armandino Batali's cured meat counter in Pioneer Square, is where Seattle learned what a salumeria could be, and that original room is finished. What survived is the product: the line continues as Coro by Salumi, and DeLaurenti stocks it. Open at Pike Place since 1946, it is the city's Italian grocery of record, a deli counter and a cheese case with a wine wall behind them.

The Pacific Northwest hour of No Reservations, season three, episode three, put Bourdain in the Pike Place doorway for a meat piroshki and a bowl of borscht. It is food built to be eaten walking, which is most of what the market asks of anyone.

Bourdain pulled up to this Ballard bar on The Layover, season two, episode ten, with Tom Douglas, and they went through raw and fried oysters, coonstripe prawn crudo and steamed clams with bacon. His read on the raw ones was that a kitchen would have to work at ruining them.

Bourdain gave Canlis the full sit-down on The Layover, season two, episode ten, running from artichoke tortellini through dry aged Muscovy duck, ribeye and Iberico pork cheeks. The Pappy Van Winkle came out alongside chefs Matt Dillon and Renee Erickson, which tells you what kind of night it turned into.

The Layover, season two, episode ten, ended at this Belltown bar over green Chartreuse on the rocks, the pour bartenders use to see who is serious. Bourdain worked through it with Matt Dillon and Renee Erickson and came out respecting the monks more than he expected to.

Bo la lot is beef wrapped in wild betel leaf and grilled, and the leaf is the entire point: it turns smoky and almost medicinal in a way no other green does. Rainier Valley is where much of Seattle's Vietnamese community settled, and this room cooks for the neighborhood rather than for visitors. Bring people, so the fried quail and the sour seafood soup can both reach the table.

The Layover, second season, episode ten, allowed exactly one thing in this room: a pint of Manny's Pale Ale among the pinball machines. The bar has since moved two doors down and brought the machines with it, so the order still stands.

Bourdain used this bar as his holdout in Parts Unknown season ten, episode seven, sitting down to fish and chips with members of the band The Gods Themselves. The conversation was about a city pricing out the people who gave it a reason to film here in the first place.

In Parts Unknown season ten, episode seven, Bourdain sat with longtime Seattleites over oysters, flash fried smelt and chilled Dungeness crab. He filmed at the Pioneer Square room; this is the Capitol Hill one, fed off the same Puget Sound beds.

Parts Unknown reached Seattle in season ten, episode seven, and this was the counter where Bourdain ordered the crab, bacon and melted cheese sandwich. The drinks came from the Shanghai Room side of the building, which is how the place has always worked.

The last stop of Parts Unknown season ten, episode seven, was these eight seats, where Bourdain drank and picked at tapas while Mark Lanegan talked about the city that existed before the money. Lanegan died in 2022, and the segment has carried a different weight since.

Parts Unknown season ten, episode seven, sat Bourdain down here for cilantro noodles with flatiron steak, kimchi pancakes and a short rib rice bowl. The room in that footage is gone; the kitchen moved away and came back two doors from where it started, so the cooking outlasted the address.

During The Layover's second season, episode ten, Bourdain took mortadella off the butcher counter at Melrose Market and ate it standing there. Praising a butcher case by eating out of it is the highest form that compliment comes in.

No Reservations worked through the Pacific Northwest in its third season, episode three, and Bourdain took the Pike Place counter for fresh curds and a run of aged cheese. Watching milk turn to curd through the window is the pitch; eating it warm ten feet later is the payoff.

No Reservations season three, episode three, asked Armandino Batali's counter for more than a sandwich, and out came a salumi platter, gnocchi, coda alla vaccinara and roast suckling pig. The shop has since moved a few blocks and changed hands, and the cure is still why the line forms at eleven.