Revel – Our Favorite Restaurant in Seattle?

Revel – Our Favorite Seattle Restaurant

Recommended by: Nobody. After visiting Trove recently we decided to revisit our favorite in the Relay Restaurant Group.

Description on the Revel’s website: Revel—a lively, casual space filled with bright art and music—has been attracting crowds with its menu of street food-style comfort food including dumplings, savory pancakes, noodles, and rice bowls, since 2010. Now located in South Lake Union, Revel features unique lunch, happy hour, and dinner specials to cater to our new neighborhood. Stay tuned for more information and updates regarding our move back to Fremont in Fall 2019 for the opening of Revel 2.0!

Neighborhood/Type:  Currently: South Lake Union.  Soon: Fremont

Address:513 Westlake Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109

What we ate/drank:  Albacore tuna, fennel kimchi, escarole $17, Caesar Pancake – White anchovy, spinach and bonito flakes, Lemongrass beef, cilantro noodle, yu choy, pickled tomato $18, Kalbi Beef Dumplings w/pickled shallot, scallion

Comments: Update 9/22/19: Revel just made Seattle Met’s 100 Best Restaurant

Revel is part of the Relay Restaurant Group created by Chef couple, Rachel Yang and Seif Chirichi. In addition to Revel, Relay Restaurant Group includes Joule right down the street and Trove in Capitol Hill . They also have a restaurant in Portland. Rachel Yang and Seif Chirichi actually appeared on Iron Chef on the Food Network, so that should tell you something about their popularity and skill. 

Revel is currently in their temporary space in South Lake Union, but will be moving back to their original location in Fremont later this year once construction is completed.  Although in their temporary space, two things remained from the old location. The huge pop art of Randy “Macho Man” Savage and an open kitchen where you can get a seat at the chef counter, so you can watch the chefs do their thing. Since you get to see them prep all the dishes if you sit here, it gives you an opportunity to see what dishes look interesting and what to order.

The thing we love about Revel is that they have a very simple concentrated menu, but it’s always changing menu so on each visit there are new dishes to try.  They have four house made sauces you can add to your dishes- a soy sauce, a spicy fish sauce, miso sauce and sweet chile sauce.

Here are just a few of the dishes we’ve had on our visits

No matter how many times we come to Revel or how many dishes we order, we are never disappointed.  This isn’t the cheapest place, but we don’t feel the prices are out of whack for the quality of food received. As we were writing this, I’m just reminded of the occasions in which we visited Revel-Dinner with visiting friends from out of town, it was the last meal we had prior to the birth of our first born, we just went here for our anniversary. So you could say Revel holds a special place in our hearts, but not only is it about the memories and occasions, but more importantly the food. Oh my god, the food!

Ratings:

Atmosphere: 5.00

Service: 5.00

Food/Drinks: 5.00

Bang for the Buck: 4.50

Overall: 4.85

Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.

• • Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
  • Most locals know about it
  • Locals “in the know” know about it
  • Only those who live close by know about it.
  • You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!

Related Articles:

• Our Top 15 Best Seattle Dishes of 2018 (Part 1)
• Our Top 15 Best Seattle Dishes of 2018 (Part 2)
• Kokkaku
• D’La Santa
• Kamonegi – Best Soba in Seattle