Rockcreek

If Seattle were to be categorized by food it would be synonymous with Seafood (well after Starbucks). Seattle is home to some of the freshest fish that is abundantly available throughout the city. Surprisingly though there are not a ton of Seafood forward restaurants. Sure, you have delicious sushi spots and most places you can find at least one seafood dish on it, but there are only a handful of restaurants where their menu is 100% fish (or you know, mostly fish). Enter: Rockcreek. Located in the Fremont neighborhood is a very fish forward find. If you love fish, this is the spot for you. If you think you love fish, but really you just like shrimp and salmon (looking at myself) – this may not be the best place for you to enjoy and indulge. But before we get too far in – 2 things to note. 1) make reservations, you can try to walk in and grab a spot, but you will probably be turned away and 2) go in knowing you are going to spend $75-$100/person (yeah you could probably eat here for cheaper if you just grab and entree and a drink, but this is a place to splurge!).

Rockcreek’s menu features a large selection of fish from around the world. Interestingly though in the salmon capital of the world, they do not have a salmon dish (at least not on the current menu when we went). One of their highlights are their Oysters. They have a variety from all over WA that are served on the halfshell. If you are going there for oysters, go during Happy Hour where they are $2 instead of $4 – that’s a steal! We over indulged when we went and grabbed enough dishes for a table of 4-6 even though there were only the 2 of us. Nonetheless I wouldn’t have ordered less. To start, I ordered a mocktail – it was light and refreshing with notes of grapefruit. They offer 3 nonalcoholic cocktails that are anything but boring. Sidenote: but I love that it is becoming more common and popular to have mocktails at places that are not just sparkling water with a lime or a soda.

Now let’s move on to the food. For appetizers, we grabbed the Baby Heirloom Tomato and Burrata Salad and the Grilled Norwegian Mackerel Salad. They also had a cauliflower with pine nuts and pecorino that sounded divine and we were told it was one of the most popular dishes. For small plates we ordered 3 (there’s a funny story behind one of them, but i’ll get to that below): Sea Pink Scallops, Wild Carolina Prawns with Grits, and the Hawaiian Tuna Tartare with Quail Egg. The prawns were my favorite and had a bit of heat to them, so watch out! Story time: so I ordered the scallops originally…our waiter mentioned they are served on the shell and in my foodie mine I immediately went to the shells being used for presentation. When they were delivered to the table I was very confused because these looked nothing like the scallops I have eaten before. Apparently scallops come in shells and the “traditional” scallop dishes I was used to seeing/eating were actually jumbo scallops that had been cleaned. Needless to say, I ordered the prawns instead – the scallops were still enjoyed and delicious, just not my cup of tea. I hope if you’re reading this you either get a good laugh, or you learn a new fact. A fact that at 30 years old, you would assume I should know, especially as someone who cooks often and who eats and loves scallops…anyways lesson learned on that! For our entrees, I ordered the Branzino that is fileted tableside and served on a bed of muhammara (red pepper and walnut paste). We also got the Casco Bay Monkfish – very interesting fish that I actually very much enjoyed. As if we hadn’t eaten enough – we finished the dinner off on a sweet note with their S’mores. It is a parfait layered with graham tuile, chocolate mousse, and smoked meringue. It was a unique and very tasty take on a s’more!

As if this post isn’t long enough, I can’t say enough good things about this spot and I highly recommend checking it out for a special occasion. Like I mentioned above, if fish is not your forte, I would probably skip this spot, unless you are going with someone that loves fish. For what you are getting, the prices are very reasonable and the flavors are phenomenal!

Check out their full menu here.