The Whale Wins

Fantastic restaurant. The food is creative and delicious. The service is warm, welcoming, and down-​to-​earth. A great dining experience.
We had the sardines on toast with shaved fennel, salt beef on toast (similar to pastrami), the halibut, house-​made pickles, and desserts. The bread they use is phenomenal, and they toast it perfectly.

We’re a fan of this spot, but only when we order correctly… the salt chicken is one of the best things that I’ve ever eaten, but the kielbasa plate was one of the worst (soooo dry, the kielbasa was not at all enjoyable). The Carrots with harissa and yogurt was super yummy, but we would not order the smoked potatoes again. We will return, but will order our tried and true favorites only.

Renee Erickson’s brilliance in a watered down form.
Finally got to try one of Renee Erickson’s restaurants a few months back, but I wasn’t impressed. It seems since I’ve been, the menu format has changed a little. I might be willing to give it another try. I left hungry, but paid like I shouldn’t have been.
Nothing wowed me, maybe I was coming in with too high of expectations, but from what I hear about Renee Erickson’s restaurants it sounds like they should be able to live up to it. The Whale Wins seemed like a standard new American restaurant, which Seattle has plenty of already.
The highlight of the meal was young 20-​something sitting next to our table who was reading alone. She ordered white wine, a plate of pickles and ate the complimentary bread. She left after being there for 25 minutes, what an odd dining experience.

Very interesting and innovative combinations. We had several small plates and loved the sauce on each one (liked loved the sauce so much we cleaned the plates with our bread!). Sliced sirloin on toast, fabulous bread, chicken wings, smoked potatoes and an asparagus dish with feta-​like cheese and a butter sauce that almost tasted like butterscotch and was very wonderful. Dates for dessert. Everything was wonderful.
Server wasn’t too friendly and I guess she was grossed out by our behavior of eating the leftover sauce with the bread. She kept trying to take the plates away while we were still eating. Yes, I guess it’s bad manners to wipe up the sauce but when I asked her to leave them several times, she should have given up on us with our terrible manners instead of just taking them away. That seemed rude of her.

The restaurant is very small, and the tables are close together. The food was very good overall… but the lamb dish was fairly salty.

Delicious food, great service, amazing desserts and a beautiful place!
It was easy to find parking, our table was ready as soon as we arrived, our server had great knowledge of the menu and wonderful recommendations.
We truly enjoyed our evening here!

Wow, we were blown away! It’s a fairly casual restaurant with a delectable menu. There is also a happy hour menu FYI. The décor is so gorgeous, I would love for the designer to decorate my home. We ordered a couple small plates, a couple main dishes, champagne, dessert. Everything was fabulous, including the service. I will definitely be back. The only thing I did not enjoy was how close the tables were to each other, there is NO space between tables so don’t plan to have a private conversation.
Bön appétit!

Clean & fresh flavors, cute atmosphere, but overpriced.
The patio is ADORABLE — with the tree growing up through the middle, the cool steel planters and beautiful wisteria. A perfect date spot or drinks/​apps with friends after work.
We got the halibut tonnato (puréed halibut — like a mayo consistency, with pea vines, artichokes, and paprika), the smoked shad (on rye, with rhubarb, ricotta, and horseradish), and cocktails. The food was good — clean, crisp flavors and amazing ingredients. But we were like «where’s the halibut?» — we didn’t know tonnato meant puréed.
It was super busy, and the service was a bit slow (had to remind the server about a drink twice), but or server was very friendly and sweet.
All in all, I would say it was a good visit but a little pricey.

What made Whale Wins standout before 2016 was the good value and fast service, compared to other Seattle restaurants. Thanks to the 2016 price increases, now it’s just fast service and solid food. I can go somewhere else for good value.
It’s no longer on my go-​to or recommend list. I’d recommend either Revel in Fremont or Porkchop in Ballard instead for a similar vibe, better food execution, and reasonable value.

Absolutely perfect! Food, Ambiance, Service, just everything! It was a nice day so we sat outside on the patio but they have heaters for when the sun goes down. Our waiter (wish i remembered his name) was friendly and extremely helpful. Inspired a lot of confidence so we basically ordered what he suggested. Everything was delish but the bone marrow, sardine toast, and roasted zucchini bread dessert were phenomenal!!! I seriously cannot wait to go back.

This place was an absolute treasure of an accidental find. I love to cook, discovered the cookbook at the Amazon bookstore, and decided to check out the restaurant shortly after. Though prices aren’t the at the cheap eats level where you could eat here everyday (unless you make a ton of expendable money), I still try to come once every month or so.
This place has excellent service, cute décor, and great food. My favorites have been the carrot salad and the sardine toast. They have a steak option for two that I’ve been saving for a special occasion but I’ve seen it and it makes my mouth water every time. Flavors of the food are on the delicate side but portions are generous. If you go through the cookbook (same title as the restaurant), you’ll get a sense of the chef’s style.
I also recommend going between 4−6pm for happy hour — $ 1 off double asterisked items, drinks and small plates mostly. My friend commented that their cocktails are the best he’s had in Seattle so far so it’s worth checking out once. And if you’re a bread lover, I’d buy a loaf to bring home ($ 7). It’s not like any loaf. It’s artisanally made, with a nice crispy crust and a very moist crumb. If you’ve had Bread from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, they are comparable.

First impression: Aww, cute.
Second impression: Wait, I’m confused.
My boyfriend and I made an impulsive stop while we were exploring and were lucky to be squeezed in before someone’s reservation, which might tell you something about the place’s popularity.
What I was confused about was their concept. I finally decided on «elevated farm-​to-​table that’s not exactly all local.»
But squeezing a restaurant into a concept may not do it justice, so moving on.
It seemed like an ideal place for a date. We were seated between two other couples (too close in my opinion, but it is a small space.)
Food takes its time getting out, so there’s lots of time to dig into your date’s head. If you’re not prepared for that, you’re in for pretty long and awkward stretches of time.
My boyfriend and I enjoyed guessing what stage in the relationship couples were at. :)
The food itself: Since we only stopped for light food, I don’t claim to know jack squat about their fare. The few small dishes we did get weren’t terribly memorable in flavor, but I do remember how clean, wholesome, and fresh everything was. I also appreciated the creativity I saw on the menu, and it was also very apparent that each dish was made with the utmost care.
Service was on point and friendly, even a bit polished. Gratuity is included in the bill, which I never feel great about, but the service justified it enough.
Conclusion: The food was good, but not what would keep me coming back, and it’s spendy especially if you’re going to have a full course meal for two. What redeems it is the service and more notably the ambience that sets a slow pace for a quality date night. However, some of the seating is a little cramped and may impede on a good conversation.
I would give The Whale Wins 4 or 5 stars if the food could catch up with the ambience.

I hadn’t been to The Whale Wins for a couple years and while there are still many positives, I don’t think the food is quite what it used to be when it opened.
The ambience and service are still fantastic. Cocktails and wine are stellar, and there are stand-​outs on the menu like the roast chicken and the famed pickled veggies. However, the other dishes just didn’t have the flavor I’ve come to expect from Renee Erickson. The clams were a little chewy and the broth was just average. Veggies like the shaved Brussel sprouts and the radishes were good, but lacking some seasoning. Even the chicken was not as delicious as I remember it the first time. Perhaps it was an off night, or perhaps Renee is not as personally involved as she used to be. I would still return to give The Whale Wins another try, but there are other similar restaurants calling my name like Brimmer & Heeltap and Terra Plata.

This is the first place of Renee Erickson’s that I’ve visited and after coming to Whale Wins, I am even more psyched to try the others! My friend and I came in to have a light dinner so we primarily ordered the small plates. While I don’t usually order bread at restaurants, theirs is top notch and is really nice to start with. I really liked how creative their menu is… I think it’s really great that their offerings are not something you could get at any other restaurant. Many of their dishes offer new flavor and ingredient combinations to discover.
We had the bread, the burrata with shaved jicama, one of the daily cheeses (a valentine cheese, which I’d never had before), the roasted carrots, and the zucchini bread. Everything was delicious, and I am now dying to figure out how to make carrots like that. You might wonder why on earth you’d order a completely carrot dish at a restaurant until you have these ones. We also had some drinks there, and while their tap list isn’t extensive, what they do have is great. This place is definitely on the pricier side, but is a really nice place for a treat.
Service is wonderful, and the bartender even went through the whole menu for my vegetarian friend and let her know what was safe to eat, which non-​vegetarian dishes could be modified to be vegetarian, etc. Overall, great experience here and when I’m in the mood to treat myself this will definitely be on the roster.

I love the space and open kitchen concept.
The food could be more consistent. The house pickles were great. The braised greens were awful. I wasn’t prepared for them to be cold. This gave a bad texture and off flavor. The roast carrots were good. The yogurt they use has a wonderfully luxurious mouth feel. The raclette was not ideal for sharing based on the presentation, but still tasted good. The roast chicken was outstanding. It was perfectly cooked and seasoned, but it is a little hard to carve if you are sharing. The sardine was better than expected, but sloppy. It was too thick and you couldn’t make that balanced bite of topping and toast. The meringue was outstanding, but the cake was average.
Our service was great.

My palate was definitely challenged, but not in a good way. We either ordered the wrong dishes or they had a guest chef that night. None of the 5 dishes (4 small plates and the bone marrow) hit the spot.
The triviso destroyed my palate for the entire night. It is one of the most bitter vegetables to begin with but compared to the bitter melon, the method that they cooked it (which was none) did not help the natural bitter taste at all. Triviso should be best cooked grilled, pickled, or served in very small quantity but they gave us a big plate like the servings of a normal salad and it was served raw, like a salad. When we mentioned it to the server, she agreed and said the decision was purely by the chef and the dish is different at Walrus and Carpenter. Luckily she took the dish off our check.
The beef belly tartine had really good ingredients but the combo flavor was off. It wasn’t even a tartine, more like an open faced sandwich. I thought they would make it more like a Reuben sandwich but they didn’t go that way which was surprising.
The escarole was like a rip off Korean kimchi and had a sardine after taste.
The carrots were surprising. I thought it was be a warm dish but it was cold. Would be nicer to have a warm dish after all the weird taste we had earlier. Overall they did a good job making fennel not taste bitter in this case.
The bone marrow was disappointing. I felt like I was drinking fat. They could’ve spend more time defattening the marrow. I felt so sick after the meal. It was not necessary to serve 3 large marrows. The execution would be better if they served 1 or 2 marrows but cut open so everything is cooked. My marrow were all pink in the inside.
Overall, the service was great, location and ambiance were good. They had good ideas but the food execution was terrible.

I was so excited for this place based on all of the reviews. Maybe I’m not old enough for it yet. I have no intentions of going back anytime soon.
As everyone says, atmosphere is 5 stars. It’s cozy and energetic. I walk by it all the time and love the vibes coming out of Whale Wins.
Unfortunately, we ordered 3 things off the menu and were not satisfied with any of them.
Braised Greens & Buckwheat. This is cold. Just as an FYI. At least ours was. Which I was very taken aback by since when I hear the word «braised» I just assume it will be warm. The world «chilled» wasn’t in the description for this anywhere and it honestly was cold… like had been sitting in the fridge for quite a while. My boyfriend liked this dish okay but I couldn’t eat it.
Cauliflower and pickled mushrooms. I was excited for this dish, but it came out luke warm. Which was weird and unexpected also. I felt like the cauliflower should have been hot (or at least not luke warm) since it was roasted. It honestly seemed like it had been sitting out for a while and someone just threw some sauce on it and called it good. It also came out within 5 minutes of being ordered so I would not be surprised if this was in fact the case.
Crawfish. This is really our fault. But… we didn’t really know how to eat crawfish. We laughed about it and it was fine, but the waitress was pretty awkward when we asked her about how to handle the situation. She just said, «We just encourage our customers to really get their hands dirty.»
Overall… I was really unhappy with the experience for how much it costed. I won’t be going back again.

I’m sorry The Whale Wins, we had such high hopes for you (OK my hubs was skeptical from the beginning but my expectations were out of the window high).
10 stars for the: look, feel, how they prepare the plates (artistic, worth the $ since it’s done in a fabulous, intentional way), the fun yet simple bathrooms, the location)
We ordered the following:
5 stars ~ Roasted Squash, Feta, Sunflower Seeds, Ancho Chili, Pickled Pepper $ 14
rich, but light, great flavor from the ancho chili, the sunflower seeds great, feta added to this dish in perfect ways.
3 stars ~ Painted Hills Cote De Bouefu, Tomato, Radish, Onions 32oz $ 80
my hubby ate this entire dish (menu says it is for two, but he only had that with 3 slices of bread). He is pretty high maintenance with steak since we’ve been to Daniel’s Broiler twice and left with only amazing things to say about the meat’s flavor, and this piece of meat came in pretty good but average at the same time. Waaaayyyy over salted, and the oil from the tomato/​radish mix was over-​done.
2 stars ~ Smoked Roasted Potatoes, Butter, Salt $ 5.5
Way too much salt and we aren’t fans of butter, apparently. Good flavor though from the smoked way of cooking them.
5 stars ~ Beet, Apple, Beat Greens, Yogurt, a whole lotta oil and some sesame seeds. Delicious, wonderful flavors. Everything seriously danced together on the plate and into my mouth.
In the end, we unfortunately won’t be returning, but I do wish I could try a couple more of the small plates since I personally felt they were very well done. Really though I was turned off from the amount of oil on the steak’s veg (which I ate on their own, and I think it ruined my whole experience). I don’t mind the $$ of the dishes, but hubby and I were both bothered by the 20% gratuity — understood, though (still crazy to be charged $ 23 on top of our meal, but nice to not be asked to tip on top of that or anything).
Final word: we made reservations for a Saturday night but it was Halloween so they didn’t seem necessary since it wasn’t that busy. Recommend reservations, anyway ;)

Having heard a massive amount of hype about The Whale Wins, I was expecting spectacular things from their menu, but to my fault I actually did not look at their menu prior to coming here. I completely understand the hype as the restaurant is modern, simple, clean-​cut and located in a great area by the water next to Joule. The food is very fresh, the dishes are beautiful and light. With that said, here are some items we ordered:
Scallop Crudo
Fermin Jamon Serrano Ham and Butter
Marinated Squid
Pickled Ramps
Hama Hama Roasted Clams
Roasted Half Chicken
It wasn’t that the food wasn’t great, but my group felt the menu selection was small (in terms of meat items). Sorry we’re big-​time «meatarians». It seems the menu is geared towards light eaters because the serving sizes were very small too. The highlight of the menu for us was absolutely the Roasted Half Chicken! You can guess why, but the chicken was roasted very well and it had lots of flavor to it. At least they got the 1 item we were looking forward to eating right!
The menu selection was a big disappointment and so were the serving sizes, but the food was undoubtedly fresh, well-​made and you can see the results. It’s probably a hit or miss for many and I can see it’s more hit than miss for Unilocal reviewers here, which is great, but for myself and my group this wasn’t our cup of tea.

Old fav!
Who hasn’t been to the whale wins by now? It was the hot new thing when it first opened,(2013) and it is still the best new kid on the block. Still notable, swoon worthy and worth waiting for.
The chef knows her stuff :) The décor is still my favorite. Beautiful open kitchen. Bright white counter tops, stunning flowers, wine bottles and small patio fits this one story foodie heaven just right. It also happens to be next to my other favorite spot: Joule. Coming here is always a treat. The décor is quite charming and stunning with massive floral arrangements, beautiful marble counters, open kitchen, pretty wine bottles! All of it.
Food
Try everything. It is such a simple and small menu with seasonal items. You must try them all.
Love —
Every toasts — sardines on toast! These are my favorite. Such a beautiful, clean and tasty dish!
Oh and Pork rillettes on toast! Another fresh ingredients mixed perfectly well on baked bread. Hmmm.
Roasted chicken! I know it is a simple dish. But it is surprisingly good. I get this dish almost every time I dine here. Chef Erickson knows her bird!
Painted hill cote de bouef — 32 ozs of happiness on a plate. It is a massive, juicy, buttery perfection! I have yet to finish it on my own. And at the price point, it’s quite a deal and a steal.
The drinks also are quite beautifully done. Whether you want a nice glass of rose or a cold glass of tasty something cocktail, they can deliver it. With an ambiance like theirs, it’s hard not to swoon over everything. Dare I say it is even romantic. I’ve also done their whale happy hour (weeee), where my favorite things like sardines on toast is on the menu for a steal! Attentive service, simple food and stunning décor. That’s enough for me to love!

Superbe! Notre meilleur repas jusqu’à maintenant dans notre voyage à Seattle. Très bon service, et les saveurs sont magique!