Our Seattle Doughnut Awards

You already know Seattle is the coffee capital of the world. We have close to 100 coffee shop reviews on our website and 6 separate posts about our Seattle Coffee Awards. And we believe there is nothing that goes better with a coffee than a doughnut. Doughnuts and coffee make one of the tastiest and formidable combinations on the face of the planet.

If there is a food that all four members of our family clamour for, its doughnuts. When we make at the spontaneous decision to get doughnuts, you can hear cheers along with feet jumping up and down echoing through the house.  And as parents, we’ve discovered the extreme power of doughnuts that can be used to bribe our daughters to do their chores, eat their vegetables and to get dressed quickly or else, “no doughnuts”.

Doughnuts are an affordable luxury where each member of the family can window shop and choose their own.  We’ve pretty much visited every single doughnut shop in Seattle multiple times, so I guess you can say we are a family of authorized Seattle doughnut connoisseurs

Best Variety –  The Donut Factory

Look at the picture above. That says it all. I never thought I’d say it, but they have more choices than Top Pot. From what I can tell the doughnuts on the right side of their display case are your standards like your old fashioned, raised glazed, sprinkle, etc and the doughnuts on the left are your fancy doughnuts.  If the Donut Factory doesn’t have the donut you’re looking for then it probably doesn’t exist. As you can tell from the various pictures in our Donut Factory blog post, we go there quite often.

Best One of a Kind Doughnuts- Half N Half Doughnut Co

Get a load of these doughnuts — Banana Foster Filled, Pineapple Fritter, Apple Caramel Fritter, Georgette Cinnamon Twist, Sweet Potato Casserole Filled, Cherry Cola Old Fashioned, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Almond Joy Old Fashioned. You will not find these types of doughnuts anywhere else.  These doughnuts have “special treat” written all over them. They have so many one-of-a-kind doughnuts and interesting combination of flavors that it’s difficult to choose. But damn, they good.

Best Mochi Doughnuts – Dochi

Located in the Uwajimaya food court, Dochi specializes in mochi doughnuts. The main differences between the dochi and your regular doughnut is the texture and its unique shape. It’s crispy on the outside and very chewy like mochi on the inside. We really love the shape of the dochi. It’s like 8 doughnut balls that are connected together.  You can either eat it as a regular doughnut or tear it apart and divide the 8 little doughnut balls to share. The Strawberry Shortcake is our favorite.

Best Cream Filled Doughnuts – General Porpoise Doughnuts

General Porpoise Doughnuts is the overlord of Seattle cream filled doughnuts. They don’t have much variety at any one time, but they are very well executed. Here are some of the current fillings -Vanilla Custard, Chocolate Marshmallow, Lemon Curd, Raspberry Jam, Gingerbread Cream. They also have seasonal fillings like Rainier Cherry Jam and Peaches and Cream. It’s part of James Beard Award Winner Renee Erickson’s restaurant empire, so you know you’re in for a quality treat.

Best Small Batch Doughnuts – Raised Doughnuts

Best Local Chain- Mighty O

Most Popular Doughnut Shop – Top Pot

These two Seattle doughnut chains are the most well known in Seattle by far. They are joined at the hip when comparing Seattle doughnuts, so much so that we had a Food War blog post comparing their doughnuts one by one, side by side.  We agreed that the vegan doughnuts of Mighty O were the better doughnuts, but not by much.  The most popular chain is Top Pot which was visited by President Obama on a Seattle visit and also is known for former Seattle Seahawk Golden Tate breaking into a branch because he couldn’t control his urge for a Top Pot doughnut. Top Pot has 18 locations around Seattle compared to Mighty O’s five locations.

Biggest Loss in 2020 – Tempesta Coffee

What a blow to find out that Tempesta Coffee is closing permanently. When I first stumbled upon this coffee shop, I was presently surprised that they also sold doughnuts. And these doughnuts were not your standard doughnuts. It was one of the best kept secrets in Seattle. I never heard anybody ever mention Tempesta for their doughnuts though. I remember bringing a batch into work and people absolutely raved about them. Damn you, Covid 19!!!

Best Overall – Family Donut Shop

When you talk about solid, cost efficient and consistent doughnuts, Family Donut Shop is the standard.  As their name states, they are family owned and you can feel it in their customer service.  Their apple turnover made it into our Top 2020 Seattle Dishes of the Year. It is that damn good. They have a few out of the ordinary doughnuts, but they really excel in your standard doughnuts- old fashioned, cinnamon rolls, vanilla sprinkle, maple bars, Bavarian cream, apple fritter, chocolate glazed, jelly filled, etc. They have a wide variety and their popularity is evidenced by normally having a line out the door. This is our favorite doughnut shop in Seattle.

Thanks for reading Our Seattle Doughnut blog post.

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• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Seattle Coffee Shops
• Seattle Food Wars
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