Seattle's Top 5 Hidden Restaurants

As Maggie Savarino writes in her column this week, the "speakeasy" trend (quotes intentional) is in full force right now, with bars advertising their secret rooms and exclusivity policies. Some restaurants don't have to put all that work into hiding themselves -- they're either tucked away inside other businesses, in improbable locations with no signage, or once-a-week nights open to the public. Some of these places are packed. Others seem to scrape by based solely on word-of-mouth. But they're all worth searching out.

First up, two runners up:

• The U.S. Courthouse Cafe, accessed through a grim door around the corner from the main entrance of the Federal Courthouse on 7th and Stewart, serves much-better-than-cafeteria-food burgers, hot sandwiches, and salads.
  
• The Elliott Bay Cafe, Tamara Murphy's cafe in the basement of Elliott Bay Book Co. -- it's only sort of hidden, which is why it's a runner-up -- is great for smoked trout and eggs, Argentinian steak salad, and chile verde, made with pork from Murphy's own farm.

5. The taqueria and pupusa stand in the ABC Market, 2500 Beacon Ave. S. Never let it be said that the ABC Market's owners don't get their neighborhood. Half of the products are Chinese and Southeast Asian, the other half Latin American, with decent Asian produce and cheap seafood. But when you've packed up your bags with piloncillo, yam leaves, and sesame oil, stop at the little counter on the southern end of the store. The sign above the cash register mostly advertises tacos, empanadas, and tortas, but most of the tables are covered in pupusas, the cornmeal cakes stuffed with your choice of fillings (ignore the sign, which only mentions beans, meat, and cheese), patted out and fried to order. Each costs $1.89, and they come with a hefty dose of oregano-spiked, tart cabbage slaw. The only downside is that you have to cut them apart with plastic knives and sporks.

​4. Alexa's Garden Cafe, 9701 15th Ave. N.W., 783-0777, www.swansonsnursery.com/Info/Cafe.shtml. Not only is Alexa's Garden Cafe located in a greenhouse tucked back in one corner of Swanson's Nursery, if you enter the greenhouse from the wrong door it's almost invisible, ringed in high palms and tropical trees, not to mention the pond stocked with koi big enough to devour your baby. On weekdays the cafe is filled with women of a certain age nibbling at croissants stuffed with curry chicken salad, or mixed greens bedecked with chunks of Thai-spiced chicken breast. The food's tinged with a 1980s Silver Palate sensibility, but it's fresh and good -- especially the meatloaf sandwich with caramelized onions and mushrooms on griddle-browned bread.