Best Restaurants for a Crowd: Seattle

You’re a movie star. You live with a movie star. And you have six kids. Where do you go for dinner in Seattle?

Top Picks from Seattle Weekly’s Jonathan Kauffman

After running the kids ragged around tree-covered Volunteer Park, Brad and Angelina can roll the twins’ strollers a few blocks down the hill to join the other new parents who frequent sunny Volunteer Park Cafe. The owners’ take on casual Americana includes both paninis with steak and caramelized onions and killer chocolate chip cookies.

Cafe Presse, Capitol Hill’s newest all-day restaurant, has three things to recommend it to the Jolie-Pitts: enough style to satisfy a design geek like Brad; a menu of croques monsieurs and steak-frites for the Francophile Jolie; and a back room big enough for six children, two parents, and a half-dozen assistants.

If Brangelina want to leave the kids with their nannies and take the papparazzi out for an intimate dinner en couple, they should drive over to the West Seattle neighborhood to hit Seattle’s newest bright spot: Spring Hill. In Mark Fuller’s intricate, savory take on Northwest cuisine, the fresh oysters come with a hops mignonette, and the chef’s sensuous wood-grilled prawns with creamy grits, morels, and a perfectly poached egg may occasion a Mr. & Mrs. Smith moment, only without the guns.

After a quick trip to Barney’s, or even a pilgrimage to the Rem Koolhaas library downtown—de rigeur for any patron of architecture—the family can drive a few blocks northeast of the shopping district to Habesha, a gorgeous Ethiopian restaurant with exposed brick walls and handmade paper lamps. Not only can the Jolie-Pitts share Zahara’s heritage with the entire family, Habesha offers a practical meal for a family of eight: a lunchtime buffet.

Yes, Maddox and Shiloh might take issue with the Pike Street Fish Fry’s grilled octopus tentacles and parsley-caper salsa verde. But this tiny stand, which recently opened for lunch as well as late-night snacks, has the one food that all kids crave, regardless of star power: fries.

Plus:

• Where to Go Next: Seattle
  The city’s best new restaurants range from an unapologetically meat-driven spot to a hotel dining room with a menu inspired by the chef’s garden.