How to Eat (and Drink) Your Way Through Washington

Bounty Hunters

How to eat (and drink) your way through Washington

written by Sheila G. Miller

ALL YEAR LONG, Washington’s farms, restaurants, breweries, distilleries and others work hard to bring their bounty to locals, visitors and those who can’t see the glory of this state for themselves.

No matter the time of year, there are ways to eat—and drink—your way through Washington. Maybe cheese is your choice. Perhaps beer makes you blush. It’s all here.

Here, some suggestions for how to find the bounty and libations that will make you even more proud to live in Washington. Of course, COVID-19 has changed a lot around visiting these places. Be sure to call ahead to check whether locations are open, and follow protocols like wearing a mask. Many places are open but have limited capacities. Be patient and support our local business owners.

Head for the Hills

Sometimes it’s just best to go to the source, and no one knows this better than those who have hit the farm stands—and the accompanying orchards and farms—throughout the state.

An easy way to connect with these farms is by making a little fruit loop through the Yakima Valley. All that summer sun makes for a bounty of peaches, apples, pears and more, and at certain times of year, it can all be yours. Just make sure to have an empty trunk, because you’re going to fill it.

Picking pumpkins is just the start of the bounty in Washington.

Yakima Valley Tourism

Barrett Orchards, opened in 2004, operates the Washington Fruit Place, which has different offerings depending on the season. Think donut peaches and pluots, Walla Walla sweet onions and all kinds of apples, plus all the spreads and other treats you can conjure. The farm shop also sells home decor and Chukar Cherries.

The Precision Fruit stand is a famous site in Yakima. The giant sign highlighting the antiques and fruit for sale is the first sign of something great. Here you’ll find, yes, seasonal fresh fruit, as well as antiques. You’ll also find Yakima Valley wine, jams and pickles, among other things.

Other farms in the region, like Krueger Pepper Gardens, Bill’s Berry Farm and Imperial’s Garden, offer U-pick during harvest season. Johnson Orchards sells fresh pies made from its fruit, which means you don’t even have to do the hard work of picking, chopping and baking.

Imperial’s Garden has a wide variety of produce to pick from.

Yakima Valley Tourism

Hit the Trough

If you’re the kind of person who likes local Washington bounty but haven’t yet mastered the art of turning it into a spectacular meal, leave the meals to the professionals. Many farms and other organizations offer dinners and events throughout the year (or at least, during normal years when a pandemic hasn’t forced us into social distancing and away from crowds). Make sure to check with the farms to see what the protocol is, and whether dinners are happening or have been delayed or canceled.

At Red Rabbit Farm on Orcas Island, farm-to-table dinners traditionally take place every Sunday. The dinners, run by chef Christina Orchid, featured in Fodor’s Travel as one of the world’s most unique dining experiences. Meals are served family style, and private dinners are still an option.

Heyday Farm House on Bainbridge Island hosts community dinners, as well as other pop-up chef and wine dinners, throughout the year. The community dinners started back up in July, and feature fresh ingredients—many grown at the family-owned, 25-acre historic farm.

Or go truly in-depth with a three-day, immersive education project at Farmstead Meatsmith in Vashon. The Family Pig is a workshop that teaches you to slaughter, butcher and cure pork. It’s an investment, but if you truly want to learn the ins and outs of raising and harvesting animals, this is your spot. You’ll learn to slaughter pigs on Thursday, then butcher and cure on Friday, with sausagemaking and charcuterie on Saturday. Each afternoon, guests indulge in a meal made from their hard work, and take home 3 pounds of their handmade sausage.

While not a local company, Outstanding in the Field is an Instagram-ready event planning group that brings an incredibly long table full of farm-fresh delights to picturesque farms and ranches. It was founded in 1999, and now hosts dinners at farms in all fifty states and many countries around the world, connecting diners with the chefs and others who make the food a reality. Typically, the company hosts Washington events in the summer and fall—2021’s planned locations include Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center in Carnation, Flint Beach Ohana Farm on Lopez Island and Monteillet Fromagerie in Walla Walla.

Outstanding in the Field organizes farm dinners all over the world, including Washington.

Outstanding in the Field

Head of the Table

Restaurants throughout Washington are always on best-of lists, receiving accolades from the James Beard Foundation and others.

If your idea of scooping up the best that Washington has to offer is hopping from restaurant to restaurant, make a weekend out of it in Seattle. There are, of course, other hotspots—Orcas Island and Spokane, among others, have plenty of forward-thinking chefs who could fill your weekend with bites of bliss. But Seattle offers the best bang for your buck in terms of square mileage.

For an ultimate James Beard-approved foodie weekend, start in the Fremont area. Well, technically you’ll start on the Queen Anne side of the bridge, at Canlis. The restaurant’s chef, Brady Williams, was named Best Chef Northwest by the foundation in 2019, and was up for best service award in 2020. In March, the longstanding fine-dining establishment shut its dining room to help the city weather the CO- VID-19 storm. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy Canlis’ excellent food—it just looks different right now, with family meals delivered to your door and an outdoor crab shack featuring, literally, buckets of crab ready for you to dig into.

Canlis converted its dining offerings to a crab shack and a Canlis at Home program (pictured).

Scott Heimendinger

Canlis converted its dining offerings to a crab shack (pictured) and a Canlis at Home program.

Jeremy Beasley

Then you’ll swing up to Fremont, where you can enjoy the Asian fusion of your dreams at Joule—think short rib steak and spicy rice cakes—and the tiny Kamonegi’s hand-pulled soba noodles that will fill your stomach and your memories.

On day two, rev up your appetite with a morning stroll (or marathon, because remember, you’re eating your way through some of Seattle’s finest restaurants). Today you’ll spread your wings a bit more. Start in Ballard at Sawyer, one of those gorgeous, bright locations that lead you to believe the food will be an afterthought. It’s not, though. The converted 1920s sawmill interior does nothing to diminish the excellent food served here— family-style delights like pork belly steam buns and squash blossom pupusas, or a breakfast banh mi and cinnamon roll monkey bread for brunch. Up the street is the Rupee Bar, another ode to restaurant design, with Sri Lankan and Indian-inspired fare that will fill you up.

Sawyer makes farm-fresh meals in Seattle.

Sawyer

Still hungry? Head to Il Nido at Alki Beach. This log cabin spot features handmade pasta. No need for further explanation, but if you require it, cheese-filled raviolis and charcoal-activated spaghetti are just the start.

Have a Drink

It’s not fair to leave all the fun to the food. Washington is well-known for its beer and wine too, and for good reason.

Is it beer you seek? Washington’s breweries have won awards both national and local, with winners from Olympia (Headless Mumby Brewing’s top lagers) to Spokane (TT’s Old Iron Brewery makes a Scotch ale that will blow your hair back) to Bellingham (Kulshan Brewing Company keeps on winning). You’ll have to decide what you want, or you can pick a region and start your own tour.

In Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, there are so many breweries you can work on your Ballard Brewery Passport. The brewery district features eleven stops in just a 1-mile radius, including the excellent Reuben’s Brews. Earn a glass for visiting all the pubs, or belly up to one for a range of flavors—the Jolly Roger Taproom at Maritime Brewing is the perfect dark spot to spend a day practicing up on your pirate flair.

A Tesla will ferry you to wine in Walla Walla.

Greg Lehman

Spokane created an ale trail map designed to help beer lovers find all their favorites. It has thirty-five stops, ranging from Pastime Brewery in Oroville—3 hours northwest of Spokane—to Paradise Creek Brewing Company in Pullman, more than an hour south. Pick them off one at a time, or focus on a few.

When it comes to wine, you’ve got a lot to choose from. The state has fourteen recognized American Viticultural Areas, and five more seeking approval. Because there’s no shortage of delicious wine to taste, sometimes it’s about the experience.

Chelan Electric Bikes offers a guided wine tour—throw on your helmet and zoom through vines for four hours, stopping at a secret beach and three wineries.

Visit vineyards by horse at Cherry Wood Bed Breakfast & Barn.

Yakima Valley Tourism

Or try Cherry Wood Bed Breakfast & Barn’s wine tours by horseback or hay wagon— picnic lunches, cheese and fruit samples, and stops at up to four of the Yakima Valley’s best wineries make a perfect day.

In Walla Walla, you can be ferried from winery to winery in a Tesla. In Woodinville, the tasting rooms are so close together you can walk door to door, almost like Halloween for grownups. Truly, the list goes on. But however you choose to get there, you’ll be trying some of the best wine in the world.