Pike’s Market Food Tour
Seattle, Washington is home to many incredible things: whether it be the gorgeous stadium that the Seattle Seahawks football team plays in or the crystal clear waters that hundreds of boats and ships pass through every day, to the ever-iconic Seattle Space Needle.
Seattle is also well known for its amazing food scene, with many restaurants where the seafood is so fresh that they say it fills the Seattle air. With so many restaurants, it can be hard to know which serves the best bites; that is where the Pike’s Market food tour comes in.
Pike’s Market is a world-famous market located along the stunning coast of Seattle and has been serving up a vast abundance of locally grown produce, meat, jewelry, and much more since 1907.
The Pike’s Market food tour is led and guided by local Seattle chef Sylas Carbine-Panchot, as you sample food and drinks from 9 vendors found in and around the market that are all well worth sampling.
I recently went on this tour with my loving mother, and I am ready to tell you about it!
The tour meets at a local souvenir shop, Simply Seattle, where we meet and get to know Chef Sylas and get on our way to the tour.
The first three stops were practically within arm’s reach of each other as they were all located along an alleyway just North of Pike’s Market, the Post Alley. Post Alley seems to be the place to be in Seattle as there is a good range of food shops and other vendors for the eyes and tongue to see.
The first sampling came from Pike’s Place Chowder, a local vendor serving award-winning traditional New England-style clam chowder since 2003.
Before I move on, I have a question: Do you know the difference between a chowder and a regular stew? I’ll tell you about it at the end of this article. (You’re going to scroll down to the bottom anyway, aren’t you?)
We got a small sampling of their classic chowder that was all it was hyped up to be! A thick, creamy base loaded with the sweet flavor of the clams and the vegetables were a perfect way to warm up on a cold winter’s day.
The next bite came from another Seattle gift shop, Made in Washington, positioned right in front of Pike’s Place Chowder. We were served a pea-sized portion of a smoked salmon dip with a cracker bursting with flavor!
Tender, flaky, smoky salmon mixed with locally grown Mama Lil peppers and a locally made mustard that melded together for a perfect blend of vinegary, smoky, sweet, and a little heat; it’s something that any cracker would happily be dipped into.
Bite #3 came to us from a local Italian joint: Pizza and Pasta bar, who clearly know their way around a pie.
We were served a small sliver of their classic Margherita pizza, but the flavor that it packed was incredible! Crispy, chewy homemade crust, slightly spiced tomato sauce, gooey mozzarella cheese, and enough flavor to transport you to Italy with one bite!
Moving back across the street but still in front of Pike’s Market, our 4th stop took us to a local market based on a black fungus that is one of the world's most expensive ingredients in the world, Truffle Queen.
Not to be confused with spheres of chocolate, truffles are a fungus that grows deep underground in France, Italy, and some parts of the Pacific Northwest. Commonly, they’d use specialty-trained dogs to sniff them out in the wilderness.
The Truffle Queen is a shop that produces house-made truffle products and other locally made goods that anyone would get a kick out of.
We were given a few house-made ingredients and spreads, starting with their classic but powerful truffle salt, which packed the earthy flavor of truffles into only a pinch of salt.
We were then given a sauce on a cracker that was made with truffles, mushrooms, and olives; usually, I wouldn’t say I like olives, but that spread that I tasted provided a hint of truffle flavor that, mixed with the salty olives, gave the spread a tapenade consistency and flavor.
We were then given a truffled red pepper pesto with as much roasted red pepper flavor packed into a tiny bite as possible; it is excellent to toss with pasta.
Next, not part of the truffle world but worth mentioning, we got a sample of their house-made apple curd, which had the classic tart, creaminess of a lemon curd plus the floral, sweet flavor of apples that would be amazing when drizzled on pound cake.
As if things couldn’t improve, we were treated to a beautiful peach bellini, a cocktail made with peach juice and champagne perfect for sipping on as we walked through Pike’s Market to our next stop.
To get to that next stop, we had to walk through the main area of Pike’s and out the back where Seattle’s beautiful harbor can be viewed, and was taken downstairs to what was, in my opinion, the best bite of that entire tour.
The stop was at Indi Chocolate, a local chocolatier, and coffee store that handcrafts artisanal-style bean-to-bar chocolate that will make any chocoholic at heart, such as myself, go straight into chocolate heaven.
Would you believe me if I said that a cacao pod this size is used to make a chocolate bar that size?
We were given a corner of their chocolate chip cookie, which, in my opinion…IS THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE IN THE WORLD!!!!
Large pockets of rich, decadent 72% chocolate topped with crunchy cocoa nibs and a sprinkle of flaked sea salt, all encased in a perfectly made brown butter dough…it is the kind of cookie that chocolate lovers and cookie lovers dream about.
Moving away from the insanely good cookie and back into the savory world, stop number…what is it now? 6, takes us back into the central area of Pike’s market to a local seafood and sandwich shop that really knows its way around a fish, Market Grill.
There we were served a small piece of blackened salmon; I know that might not sound very glamorous, but the fact is that it was a well-made piece of salmon.
Tender, flaky, perfectly-cooked salmon with the right amount of blackening spice to give it a tinge of heat that was extinguished by the rich, fatty flavor of the salmon, it is the kind of salmon that fish lovers desire for.
Interestingly enough, Stop #7 happened to be at a stand that myself and my mother had already eaten from on a previous visit to Pike’s Pike’s Pit bar-b-que.
Opened in 1980, Pike’s Pit offers a wide selection of tender, mouthwatering meat for which any barbecue fanatic would go nuts.
We were treated to a small sample of their 12-hour smoked pulled pork tossed in their house-made BBQ sauce and served on a bed of their tangy, sweet coleslaw, which took me back to living in heat-filled Texas in one bite.
While waiting for said porky sample, we were treated to an amusing fish tossing show from Pike Place Fish Co., which happens every few minutes and is worth swinging by the market to watch.
Moving into the beverage side of things, the next stop was at a local spice and tea shop that has been serving a world’s worth of spices and tea since 1911, MarketSpice.
It was from them that we were treated to their house-made caramel apple tea, which had the subtle sweet flavors of apple and was hot enough that it flowed through our bodies like blood through our veins.
Finally, to finish things off with something sweet and something to take home, our last stop took us south of the market and to the famous Seattle Four Seasons hotel, where we were given a small gift from a local chocolate shop, Fran’s.
Connected to the Four Seasons and available to any passing customers, Fran’s has been cranking out a stunning array of chocolates, salted caramels, bars, and chocolate-covered fruit since 1982.
As a small take-home gift, we were given an assortment of their small but powerful chocolate truffles, which included two that were filled with sea-salted caramel (one milk and one dark), Once milk chocolate covered espresso, and one dark chocolate truffle, all of which were the perfect way to end such a stunning tour.
(To answer my question from earlier, the difference between a chowder and a regular stew is the size of how the vegetables are cut. In a stew, the vegetables are usually small-diced, while a chowder’s vegetables are medium-diced.)
Pike’s Market Food tour is a great 2-hour activity for any food lover and anyone who lives in or is planning on visiting the Seattle area anytime soon.
