Blackboard Bistro

My wife and I love this local neighborhood restaurant. I appreciate the rotating menu while using local and seasonal ingredients. If there is fish on the menu make sure to order it. The chef is very creative in my opinion and most of the dishes that we have had have been absolutely outstanding.
Blackboard has a very reasonably priced wine selection and a bartender that knows what he is doing. You can expect a very friendly staff and attentive staff. My wife has a habit of spilling drinks on occasion and last night her cocktail was replaced right away without request. If you are pondering which restaurant to go to for dinner tonight make sure you venture out to West Seattle and treat yourself to a wonderful and reasonably priced evening.

The food, service and drinks were amazing! The brown butter with pumpkin seeds and oregano is so tasty! We started with grilled octopus and then my husband had the lamb and I had the pork belly. All were excellent, seasoned well and we had to restrain ourselves from licking the plates. Definitely coming back again!

I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon this place! It’s super cute and quaint. The food is just AMAZING. The attention to detail in the dishes and the mixing of flavors is literal perfection. The staff is also very attentive and friendly. The dishes were quite large. My friend and I shared everything and ate tapas style. We had three main dishes with two desserts and felt very satisfied. While I am sad that the Chef will eventually change the menu (so I won’t be able to enjoy these specific dishes for much longer), I am really excited to see what the new combinations will be like. I have zero complaints about the meal and will definitely become a regular here.

The food was excellent. And in general the service was as well.
However, the glitch was to set my party (a 2 top) next to another 2 top when there were open 2 tops available. In fact when that party left another duce was sat next to us despite there still being open 2 tops.

AMAZING, TASTY, MOUTH WATERING food experience last night! Their food was beyond any 5Star rating hands down, and we’ve eaten at plenty of expensive and prestigious restaurant in North and South Americas as well as Europe. Apple manchego salad was «orgasmic», so were the scallops and gnocchi. Please check out this place — very reasonably priced for an amazing dinner!

I just don’t understand this place– the prices are steep, the food is just okay and the service is weird!!!

My favorite restaurant in West Seattle. Great tapas style menu changes all the time. Lots of great stuff to choose from. Anything with pork belly is as good as you might expect. Veg dishes are surprisingly good.

This was by far the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in America. We went to this restaurant last night, myself, my husband and two friends on a Saturday night. We had reservations. The place is tiny and it was packed. The first thing that happened was, after maybe 1 – 2 rounds of the small bread plates, one of our party asked for another round, because the appetizers were taking a really long time, and they were told «no.» They gave some weak rationale but I was not listening because I was too shocked.
I have never heard of this in my life. Even casual restaurants have unlimited bread. Even if this restaurant had recently been a victim of a spree of bread-​eating freeloaders, we were obviously not those people. We were all nicely dressed and were deep in our wine and martinis.
It was bad and embarrassing and not a good start to say the least. We were hoping it was a really bad fluke and everything else would be normal. It wasn’t a fluke; it was a portent of things to come.
A similar thing happened when we tried to all order an entrée. They said «no.» They said the food was family style, and that we could only order one thing per couple. So even though I wanted the scallops and my husband wanted the pork chop, for example, we were only allowed to get the pork chop. My friends wanted the beef cheeks and the gnocchi but were only allowed to get the gnocchi.
i will now add that this was not because they were serving massive, Buca de Beppo size entrees and so getting more than a few things would be absurd. I knew this because they also suggested going family style on the appetizers, so we got two things. Well, we should have gotten about 12 things. The appetizers were Thumbelina sized, and in those strange hipster arrangements designed to torture eaters. So we had been there for about an hour, had maybe three bites of food total, and we were all really wanting a normal sized entrée, but this was not allowed.
Lastly, I know you are thinking, is this one of these places where the service is terrible, but the food is so outstanding it makes it worth it? Sorry, no. I have been to those places. i regularly put up with the bizarre customer experience in order to get Fiddlehead’s delicious biscuits, and I faithfully brought my first breakfast in a ziplock bag in order to withstand the two hour wait at Meanders, may it rest in peace.
The food was terrible. Every single thing.
The owner came out and explained to our table that the reason everything was bad was because the restaurant was «very busy» and they «have a small kitchen» and there was «nothing she could do about it.» In case you aren’t understanding my meaning, she did not apologize in any way.
I really don’t have sympathy for business owners that don’t know that a Saturday night is going to be busy, especially in a place where everyone makes reservations. If the kitchen is too small, then the only move with any integrity would be to reduce your seatings by one half or one third, so you could at least give the customers you do have good service, instead of giving atrocious service because you have more demand then you can supply. Ludicrous.
So, anyway, this experience was so bad, it makes me not only question Blackboard Bistro, but question Unilocal.Why did all of these Unilocalers say this was a good place? We don’t have that many hipsters, do we? This is definitely not the kind of business that would care enough to pay the Unilocal Advertising Mafia, so I am very unclear on where all these good reviews are coming from.
Bottom line, don’t listen to them, listen to me. If you are a giant hipster who is obsessed with convincing yourself that things that are horrible and awkward are charming and authentic, maybe you could like it. If you are like anyone else who lives in West Seattle who is a normal adult and doesn’t like things that are pretentious to the point of nonsensical, don’t go here.

Great food in a cute little setting! We had an excellent meal including a honey crisp apple salad, roasted cauliflower and mushrooms, a rabbit ragu and veal with mashed potatoes. Everything was delicious!
Food is a little slow to come out, but the staff is friendly and attentive so they totally made up for it.
Great neighborhood establishment. We will definitely be back.

My favorite in West Seattle. Always fresh and creative new dishes
We generally go with our kids and order a wide variety of dishes to explore family style. The food is unique, high quality. Been here multiple times, never had a disappointing experience, family friendly.

This charming, neighborhood eatery is one of our favorites in West Seattle. Ordering off of their large handwritten blackboard is fun, however, they’re happy to provide a nice paper version for half-​blind people like me.
We generally go with our kids and order a wide variety of dishes to explore family style. The food is unique and high quality, and if something is not my favorite, it generally will be for someone else at the table. Been here multiple times and never had a disappointing experience.

Blackboard Bistro is our favorite restaurant and as a Seattle native, there are some really good restaurants here but what makes Blackboard unique is chef Jacob’s ever changing amazing menu. We love the fact they use organic locally sustained ingredients and what Jacob thinks to put together is amazing. Our personal favorite are the celery root fries but the unique offerings combined with a cozy friendly neighborhood restaurant feel makes this place our favorite. We held my husbands 50^th birthday party here and the food and service were both above and beyond, I have never had a bad experience at Blackboard. We will continue to go here as long as they’re open. :)
Tami M

It’s a very friendly and nice place to eat and chat with friends or family. Food and taste… excellent!!! I enjoyed there.

The food & service from the wait staff here was just amazing! Everything we had was full of flavor. Our favorite was the ricotta cake with summer squash, oven roasted tomatoe (I hate tomatoes by the way) olive caramel & pine nuts. It was full of flavor. No where near what I would have expected, but so yummy! Our other favorite was the corn on the cob with jalapeño & hush puppies. The hush puppies were so moist & yummy. Best I’ve ever had. The corn had some spice but not too overbearing. The gnocchi was great. It wasnt a huge plate, but just enough for 3 to share w/​the other plates we had. The skirt steak was done medium rare, just as we requested.
We’re definitely coming back the next time we’re back in Seattle, especially since it was only a mile walk from Beer Junction.

I got three scallops in my scallop dish. I’m aware scallops aren’t cheap, but 3? That’s $ 8/​scallop… This place encourages family style eating (though it’s not tapas) be careful ordering scallop dishes if you’ve got 4 people in your party.
The cauliflower we ordered was fantastic. The (3) scallops were okay, and the roasted Brussels sprouts were good except they had an extra-​bitter aftertaste.
It’s overpriced. The food is good. Small portions. The service is slow and not much flow to it.
I get it’s a small place with just a few chefs, but we were at a place last week (Brass Tacks) with just two chefs and about triple the amount of customers, and service was much faster. The food was better, too.

The food is amazing!
The menu was a little difficult to read a bit overwhelming to distinguish what was with what plate.
The customer service was the best I’ve ever experienced in my life, my family grew up in the food service industry, my housemates are local bartenders. I dine out almost once or twice a week. Never have I had such attentive and extremely well informed waiters. I was there this past Friday night March 6^th, didn’t have reservations and yet they still were able to accommodate me and my friend.
Highly recommended this place.

Hidden gem in Seattle
Big portions
Delicious food
With lots of surprise flavors
Drinks are pricey though
Weird music on the background — it’s all the easy listening stuff you hear at the dentist’s office

Awesome experience here
All dishes were tasty
Romaine salad with fried cannolini beans was refreshing. But tasty
Wild boar parpadelle was the epitome of comfort food with fresh pasta
The oxtail and pork belly was amazing
too!
Too bad I was so stuffed because the food was great and portions were big!

I’d give this place a 9.5÷10 so I rounded up to 5 stars. A hidden gem, quite honestly and you need to go here like NOW.
Must have driven by it at least a dozen times since it opened four years ago, but never noticed it. Unilocal helped me find it though. Came here the first time for Thursday night dinner. Seahawks game night, so maybe it’s normally busier than it was tonight. Restaurant seats maybe 40 (?) total but was only 25% full while we were there (which was surprising given how great the food/​place was).
Even the damn bread (that they bring you before your food comes out) is worth gossiping about. It was like a good first kiss — it gets you more excited about what’s coming later :) They even make their own bread for goodness’ sake. Perfectly crunchy crust, fluffy on the inside, and it comes with browned butter and pumpkin seeds (like as an alternative to olive oil or plain butter).
We ordered the grilled romaine salad ($ 12), which had tomato, olives, avocado, red wine vinaigrette and crispy cannelinni beans. Very clean, nothing too overpowering but still very flavorful.
First entrée out was the seared scallops with fig, crispy quinoa, almonds, arugula and burnt chili oil ($ 25). This was really great — 3 perfectly cooked, big fresh scallops, great textures all around.
Second shared entrée was the beef slider on house-​made brioche with cheddar, pork belly, oven roast tomato and lettuce ($ 14 for 3 large sliders and fries). Came with a side of garlic aioli. Best bang for your buck I think.
Last entrée was the NY Strip steak ($ 25) with lobster mushroom, butternut squash, lentils and chard. Solid 4 stars. There was a hefty portion of steak, cooked perfectly. Nice mushrooms and chard. Wasn’t 100% in love love with the lentils, but the plate was still pretty good.
Also, service was 5 stars, very attentive and all professional and pleasant. Ambiance is nice, minimalist. Dark tables with some black and white striped benches. Food = bomb. The house wine was good too. You should come give this place a try.
They recommended doing it family-​style, so we shared all of our entrées. That was a good suggestion I think. Like 90% of the menu is a rotating menu, so I will be back soon, to see what has changed. The kitchen was «on point», so kudos.

I may be over-​rating here, but I certainly wouldn’t go less than four stars. But four stars or five, this is a place you want to visit!
NOTE: THIS REVIEW CONCERNS DINNER SERVICE; I’VE ALREADY REVIEWED BRUNCH.
I did visit and review BB a year ago for their dinner service. At the time, I found the food innovative, but the servers were harried, and the whole thing had the borderline chaotic feel of a French farce.
But what a difference a year makes; just a one makes the transition from gawky adolescent to self-​assured adult, BB has really settled into a groove (NOT a rut), and is providing great food and a lovely dining experience!
THE ROSES: As before, BB has a rapidly rotating menu of a mix of small and large plates that feature whatever’s fresh, local, and has caught the chef’s fancy. The server advised us that even the small plates are big enough to share — and she was right! For our dinner, we shared a veal Scotch egg, which was moist and full of interesting flavors, and some delightful fried green tomatoes, that were expertly paired with a house-​made aioli and a tomato chutney that was so good, I’d buy it by the jar! Everything is made in-​house here, right down to the maraschino cherries in the cocktails!
THE THORNS: Not a lot; the prices are very fair, with the exception of the wines, which are almost all $ 10+ a glass. This is the same price as the cocktails, and twice as much as the beers. I suggest a few more offerings south of the $ 10 price point; some folks just want wine with their food, and offering some ‘vin ordinaire’ is no disgrace. Delivery of food from the kitchen is, shall we say, a bit leisurely, but this isn’t a thorn if you’re not in a hurry. Dishes DO come out at the point of perfection; you know they haven’t been languishing under a heat lamp.
SO WHY THE 5^th STAR: These days, everyone’s trying to ‘upsell’ you. BB is more interested in taking care of the diner. We weren’t sure how much to order (2 small plates & 1 large, or just start with the 2 small plates?). The server was refreshingly candid, and suggested we start small and order more if we felt like it. She could’ve increased their bottom line by talking us into ordering more food up front, and we’d ended up overeating or taking a lot home. This sort of honesty and ‘put the customer first’ attitude is wonderful. BB is betting their food will bring people back rather than try to get as much $$$ as they can in a ‘one shot’ visit. This earns them a 5^th star.
CONCLUSION: A cozy neighborhood bistro in a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ location, Blackboard bistro has the culinary chops to also attract destination diners looking for a true ‘top chef’ foodie experience; by all means go!