CITY GUIDES | WASHINGTON
The Best Restaurants in Tacoma Right Now
A working port town ended up with the South Sound's most interesting dining scene. Here's where to eat in Tacoma.
By Mei Chen
Updated Oct. 23, 2026
En Rama
AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
Tacoma is a port, a rail town, a place where people build things and fix things. For a long time, dinner was just what happened between shifts. That has quietly changed. Drive down Sixth Avenue now and you pass one chef-run restaurant after another, kitchens that don't explain themselves, just cook. The same thing has happened in Proctor, downtown, and the Lincoln District. Sure, Seattle has the skyline; Tacoma has the dining scene that feels lived in. If you're looking for the best restaurants in Tacoma—where to eat, and where the locals actually go—these are the tables I'd send you to.
Asado
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This Argentine grill knows restraint is its own seasoning. The ribeye arrives with a blackened edge and the kind of char that insists on a second glass of Malbec. The chimichurri is bright, the dining room low-lit, and nobody here is counting protein grams.
Best for: When a well-charred steak is necessary to end the day
Corbeau
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Owner and sommelier Trevor Hamilton runs this Proctor bistro, and the wine list alone is worth the trip. The steak frites is the order—dry-aged Washington beef, six-peppercorn au poivre, and fries cooked in beef fat—though the pork chop and the scallops make the choice harder than it should be. Save room for dessert: a blood orange crème brûlée that ignores the modern trend toward minimalism.
Best for: Dinner that's unabashedly French-inspired
Cuerno Bravo Steakhouse
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Owner-chef David Orozco's downtown steakhouse cooks over wood fire, its Josper oven turning out steaks in the Mexican tradition—his family also runs the Asadero steakhouses in Kent and Ballard. The table-side A5 ribeye, cooked on a sizzling hot stone, is half performance, half indulgence, and the 38-ounce dry-aged porterhouse could feed two if you're the generous type. It's a place that celebrates big appetites.
Best for: A steakhouse that feels like a celebration
En Rama
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Chef Jesus Garibay runs the kitchen at this downtown restaurant, where nearly everything is made in house, including the fresh pasta. The menu is built on local, seasonal ingredients and rotates often, the cocktails are the other half of the draw, and the lights stay low. Dinner here tends to last a little longer than planned, and nobody seems to mind.
Best for: A date night where the pasta steals the show
Field Bar & Bottle Shop
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Owner Brian Hibbard treats this Sixth Avenue spot like an ongoing experiment in hospitality. The wine list leans natural without preaching, chef Ike Hippensteel's menu changes with whatever the farms are bringing in, and every seat feels like you're part of the action. Recent menus have run from a zabuton steak to corn risotto with crab to a chocolate Basque cheesecake.
Best for: Letting someone else pour and decide
Howdy Bagel
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Daniel Blagovich runs this South Tacoma bakery, the storefront he and his husband, Jake Carter, opened in May 2023 after years of farmers-market lines. Carter died in January 2024; Blagovich closed the shop, then reopened it a month later to a neighborhood that had raised more than $300,000 to keep it going. The bagels are hand-rolled, boiled, and baked, glossy and dense; the Cowgirl tops one with kimchi, the bacon, egg, and cheese is the sandwich to beat, and the coffee holds up its end.
Best for: Mind-blowing bagel sandwiches and coffee drinks
Le Sel Bistro
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This small, family-owned bistro doesn't chase trends. Brunch is served daily and built for lingering, with a banana French toast that arrives under spiced rum caramel, caramelized bananas, candied hazelnuts, and mascarpone. Dinner, Wednesday through Sunday, is the proper punctuation to a day exploring downtown—get the pear gastrique pork chop if it's on.
Best for: Turning brunch into your main event
Manuscript & Dialogue
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Owner Eda Johnson's Stadium District restaurant cooks with ferocity: handmade pasta, housemade biscuits under Korean pork belly gravy, and a kitchen that scrapped the typical brigade system for a more collaborative approach, meaning your new favorite dish might have been made by a line cook with great ideas. Weekends bring a vinyl-DJ brunch.
Best for: Dinner that's in the hands of a creative kitchen staff
Over the Moon Café
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Opera Alley’s candle-lit standard is where the short ribs have their own fan base. The new owners, Daniel and Jennifer Espinosa, kept the grace notes—slow pacing, forgiving lighting, and a menu that reads like a love letter to the concept of not chasing trends.
Best for: A quiet table and well executed, familiar dishes
Tacoma Pie
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The pies here mash up Sicilian, Grandma, and Detroit styles—thick, square, and crammed with toppings, with crispy cheese edges worth fighting over. There's a thin tavern-style pie, too, plus manicotti in a house vodka sauce and a chicken pot pie for anyone who wandered in not wanting pizza. Finish with the bread pudding and stay on theme.
Best for: A pie, a beer, and what else do you need?
Tho Tuong BBQ
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In the Lincoln District, a father-and-daughter team run a Vietnamese shop doing Cantonese-style roast meats—char siu, roast duck, and roast pork with a stripe of blistered skin. Every plate runs $15 to $17: pick a meat and take it over rice, in egg-noodle soup, or straight. Go early—there are no set hours, and when the kitchen's empty, they're done for the day.
Best for: Roast meats that need no introduction
The Snug Family Pub
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Paul and Andrea Evans spent nearly two years turning a Proctor house into this Irish-American pub, in a building with family history—Paul's late father remodeled the same house, where his parents once ran the Old House Café. Downstairs there's a dining room and a snug, the small private room tucked off a traditional Irish bar; upstairs are a lounge and the Lookout, with a heated patio out back. The menu runs to shepherd's pie, and the Guinness is on tap.
Best for: A pint and a shepherd's pie in a house with history
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