SEATTLE —

If Portland seems to have eclipsed Seattle as the hub of creative fine dining in the Pacific Northwest, it may be that the region’s largest metropolitan city is only flying under the radar.

Consider that self-taught celebrity chefs such as Tom Douglas and Ethan Stowell have built culinary empires that continue to grow with each passing year.

Douglas opened the Dahlia Lounge in 1989; his website (www.tomdouglas.com) now lists 18 Seattle restaurants, including his newest, Tanakasan, which opened in 2013.

Stowell (www.ethanstowellretaurants.com) has moved even more rapidly. His first foray into the local food scene came with Union (since closed) in 2006, but he’s been busy with Anchovies & Olives, How to Cook a Wolf, Staple & Fancy Mercantile and Tavolata, among others. His 11th restaurant, the Goldfinch Tavern, was scheduled to open this week at the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle.

Other exceptional regional chefs, including Thierry Rautureau and John Sundstrom, have opened new restaurants or expanded into new locations with plans for further growth.

“The economy is looking up these days,” Sundstrom told me just last week at his classy new restaurant, Lark, near Seattle University. “We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot.”

Canlis sees no need for major change. A Seattle institution since 1950, it overlooks Lake Union and the Cascade Range from the south end of the Aurora Bridge. Still in the hands of the grandsons of its founder, Peter Canlis, it continues to receive national acclaim.

Douglas, Stowell, Rautureau and Sundstrom are all past winners of the James Beard Award as the best chef in the Pacific Northwest.

While this mantle has been stolen in recent years by Oregon chefs, it returned to Washington this year when young Blaine Wetzel of The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, near Bellingham, took top honors.

Three Seattle neighborhoods seem to have the lion’s share of fine-dining options: Downtown (from Belltown to Pioneer Square), Fremont (and adjacent Ballard) and Capitol Hill (with bordering First Hill). These are some of my favorites, new and old.

Downtown Seattle

•  Damn the Weather: You may as well also say, damn the menu. Where else can you get an escargot sandwich? Or an FG&J (foie gras and jelly)? Or beef heart tartare with sea beans? This may be bar food, but it’s unlike any bar food you’ve had anywhere else, thanks to chef Eli Dahlin. The uber-casual designer cocktail lounge and café fills a brick-and-wood studio in historic Pioneer Square.

Details: The restaurant at 116 First Ave. S. is open every day for dinner and late night. Prices are moderate. Find more information at www.damntheweather.com; or call 206-946-1283.

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•  Girin: “High end” and “Korean” don’t usually go hand-in-hand. This steakhouse is different. At the restaurant adjacent to the north entrance of the Seattle Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field, traditional dishes are given the royal treatment. Chef Brandon Kirksey’s specialty dish is ssam. A choice of these lettuce wraps (priced $24 and up at dinner) are offered for only $8 to $10 during late-afternoon happy hour.

Details: The restaurant at 501 Stadium Place is open every day for dinner until late night. Prices are moderate to expensive. More information can be found at www.girinseattle.com, or call 206-257-4259.

•  Loulay: French chef Rautureau, nicknamed “The Chef in the Hat” for his omnipresent fedora, operated the acclaimed Rover’s restaurant for 25 years beginning in 1987. Today, he owns two other restaurants — Luc, in the Madison Park neighborhood, and the new Loulay in downtown Seattle. Loulay is a casual three-meals-a-day bistro that balances French cuisine with fresh-to-the-table Northwest produce.

Details: The restaurant at 600 Union St. is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.Prices are moderate to expensive. More information can be found at www.thechefinthehat.com/loulay-kitchen-seattle.com, or call 206-402-4588.

•  Matt’s in the Market: For nearly 20 years, this rustic restaurant has been lodged on the second floor of a historic Pike Place Market building. It overlooks the main market entrance and fish stall — where Dan Bugge, now Matt’s owner, once entertained Anthony Bourdain, Jay Leno and scores of other celebrities with his salmon-throwing skills. Since purchasing Matt’s, he has expanded in size and installed a new, seafood-rich menu executed by chef Shane Ryan and his staff.

Details: The restaurant at 94 Pike St., Suite 32, is open for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.mattsinthemarket.com, or call 206-467-7909.

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•  Miller’s Guild: You don’t have to have a steak when you visit this restaurant at hip Hotel Max, although ordering anything else is hard to imagine. A custom-made, 9-foot Infierno wood-fired grill is the restaurant’s centerpiece, and the menu’s 90-day dry-aged steaks are already legend. Just 1½ years old, the restaurant is the creation of executive chef Jason Wilson, another former Beard honoree, and a veteran management team led by master sommelier Jake Kosseff.

Details: The restaurant at 612 Stewart St. is open for three meals daily. Prices are moderate to expensive. More information can be found at www.millersguild.com, or call 206-443-3663.

•  Vespolina: Named after a grape from Italy’s Piedmont region, this restaurant overlooks the Seattle waterfront from opposite the elegant Four Seasons hotel. Established at the start of 2014 as a highly acclaimed Spanish restaurant, Aragona, it reinvented itself less than a year ago. The menu now features pasta dishes such as squid-ink spaghetti and nettle gnocchi, along with a variety of salads and seafood dishes.

Details: The restaurant at 96 Union St. is open for lunch Monday to Friday and dinner every day. Prices are moderate to expensive. More information can be found at www.vespolinaseattle.com, or call 206-682-3590.

•  Wild Ginger: It could be said that Pacific Rim cuisine in the Northwest germinated from the seed planted by Wild Ginger founders Rick and Ann Yoder after a 1989 trip through Southeast Asia. The restaurant has been going strong ever since, including a relocation and expansion that includes a live music venue, The Triple Door.

This month, Wild Ginger has added its “Tiffin” lunch window, offering budget-priced gourmet takeout meals from chef Jacky Lo.

Details: The restaurant at 1401 Third Ave. is open for lunch Monday through Saturday, and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.wildginger.net, or call 206-623-4450.

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Capitol Hill

•  Altura: Chef Nathan Lockwood offers a tasting menu of 10 to 15 courses paired with wines selected by a team of sommeliers. Service is impeccable. The seasonal Italian cuisine is amazing — from the imported Osetra caviar to the Perigord black truffles. You can go for the full meal deal, or settle for a lighter three-course menu.

Details: The restaurant located at 617 Broadway E. is open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Meals are expensive. More infromation is available at www.alturarestaurant.com, or call 206-402-6749.

•  Lark: Sundstrom has elevated his game in new digs, a 1917 car dealership-turned-warehouse with giant two-story windows. When he moved in, in December, from a lodge-like former premises, he added an array of local farm-produced entrees to supplement a long list of small plates, and installed a discreet raw bar in the loft. Bitter/Raw serves oysters and crudo as daily specials. Around the corner, Slab Sandwiches offers gourmet sandwiches.

Details: Slab Sandwiches is open for weekday lunches. Lark is open for dinner every night. Both are located at 952 E. Seneca. Prices are moderate. More information is available at www.larkseattle.com, or call 206-323-5275.

•  Mamnoon: This is a Middle Eastern restaurant, but it’s not what you might expect. The seasonal cuisines of Lebanon and Syria do include mezze (small plates) such as hummus and dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), but you’ll also be treated to roasted black cod and minced meats with unique seasonings.

The owners tithe a portion of proceeds to support communities in need in their homelands.

Details: The restaurant located at 1508 Melrose Ave. is open for lunch and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information is available at www.mamnoonrestaurant.com, or call 206-906-9606.

•  Poppy: The longtime former chef at Woodinville’s esteemed Herbfarm, Jerry Traunfeld, stepped back from the stress of nightly tasting menus to open something very different. At Poppy, he delivers Indian-style thalis — that is, a choice of Northwest fish, meat, poultry or vegetarian-based entrees that are served, according to South Asian tradition, as single-plate meals. The results are delicious.

Details: The restaurant located at 622 Broadway E. is open for dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.poppyseattle.com, or call 206-324-1108.

•  Single Shot Kitchen & Saloon: Once a photographer’s gallery on an inconspicuous back street of Capitol Hill, this tiny but well-appointed room squeezes a bar into one side, a row of tables into the other, with the kitchen behind. Veteran chef James Sherrill has limited the menu to a few changing selections, but his black rice porridge with pork belly, fennel, mussels and uni is hard to top.

Details: The restaurant at 611 Summit Ave. E. is open for brunch on weekends, and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.singleshotseattle.com, or call 206-420-2238.

•  Sitka & Spruce: Located at the back of the Melrose Market — a foodies’ paradise with a sandwich counter, a shellfish bar, butcher, cheesemaker, wine bar and flower and produce shop — is this hidden treat. The ever-changing menu focuses on small plates of seasonal ingredients for diners with adventurous palates. Don’t be surprised to wait for a table, even with a reservation.

Details: The restaurant at 1531 Melrose Ave. is open for brunch on weekends, lunch Monday to Friday and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.sitkaandspruce.com, or call 206-324-0662.

•  Trove: If you like Fremont’s Joule (see later), as I do, you may want to try this fun, casual café from the same owner-chefs, Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi. Up front, there’s a budget-priced noodle bar, flanked by an indoor food-truck window with parfaits and frozen custard sundaes for dessert. In the rear are a cocktail bar and a Korean-style barbecue with great food at reasonable cost.

Details: The restaurant at 500 E. Pike St. is open for lunch and dinner every day. Prices are budget to moderate. More information can be found at www.troveseattle.com, or call 206-457-4622.

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Fremont area

•  Art of the Table: Chef Dustin Ronspies offers this advice on how diners should enjoy the meals he prepares: “Put away your phone, eat your fish skin, slurp your broth, gnaw your bone, eat your microgreens, lick your plate, eat your cheese rind, use your fingers when applicable, enjoy your time here.” The menu, for the bold culinarian, changes from night to night. The rustic cafe is located steps away from Fremont, in adjacent Wallingford.

Details: The restauarant at 1054 N. 39th St. is open for dinner Wednesday-Sunday. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.artofthetable.net, or call 206-282-0942.

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•  Bourbon and Bones: Owner-chef Mike Law was born and raised in North Carolina, and his no-frills roadhouse reflects no-nonsense Southern roots. But if you like great barbecue, this is the place to come — for “sweet heat” ribs, crispy fried oysters, house-made andouille sausage or Southern fried chicken. Wash it all down with a beer or bourbon. Come as you are and be ready to share a table.

Details: The restaurant at 4350 Leary Way NW is open for dinner every day. Prices are budget and moderate. More information can be found at www.facebook.com/bourbonandbones, or call 206-582-2241.

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•  Joule: Yang and Chirchi’s lead restaurant shares a converted warehouse with The Whale Wins (see below) and a snow-sports shop. But Joule has little in common with either of its neighbors, offering wildly original versions of contemporary cuisine that is not quite Korean, not quite American, but falling somewhere between. Short ribs come with grilled kimchi, gai lan (a form of broccoli) with walnut pesto, mackerel with cilantro green curry.

Details: The restaurant at 3506 Stone Way N. is open for weekend brunch and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.joulerestaurant.com, or call 206-632-5685.

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•  Manolin: At this low-key, neighborhood hangout, seafood rules the roost. Dishes like halibut with chestnut honey, and white prawns with turnip and turmeric, are prepared on a wood-fired grill. Scallop ceviche is wonderful with coconut, cashews and nori seaweed, and Italian anchovy sauce adds a new dimension in a steak sauce. A bonus: Service is always superb.

Details: The restaurant at 3621 Stone Way N. is open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.manolinseattle.com, or call 206-294-3331.

•  Paseo: Famed nationwide for its impossibly sloppy Caribbean roast pork sandwiches slathered in a “secret” sauce, Paseo almost disappeared from the Seattle dining scene last November after 21 years. It survived when a new owner purchased the tin-shed café in an auction sale, vowing to keep the menu (try the sea scallops in garlic tapenade) the same as before. A second outlet is on Seaview Avenue in Ballard.

Details: The restaurant at 4225 Fremont Ave. N. is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Prices are budget to moderate. More information is available at www.paseoseattle.com, or call 206-545-7440.

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•  Restaurant Roux: Owner Matt Lewis and chef Michael Robertshaw know the Cajun-Creole cuisine of the New Orleans area. At sophisticated Roux, they stretch it beyond Seattle’s city limits, with meats like rabbit, gator and crawfish, along with crispy pig ear and fried chicken gizzards. Perhaps the most popular dish is blackened catfish with authentic white grits.

Details: The restaurant at 4201 Fremont Ave. N is open for dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.restaurantroux.com, or call 206-547-5420.

•  RockCreek Seafood & Spirits: Chef-owner Eric Donnelly named this restaurant after his favorite trout-fishing stream in Montana. So there’s no surprise that, while there are a few meats on the daily-changing menu here, it’s all about the seafood in this two-story urban-industrial take on a fishing lodge. Look for monkfish bourguignon, barbecued Alaskan octopus and Icelandic char, along with a fine selection of oyster shooters and oysters on the half shell.

Details: The restaurant at 4300 Fremont Ave. N is open for weekend brunch and dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.rockcreekseattle.com, or call 206-557-7532.

•  The Walrus and the Carpenter: Named for Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” poem (“O oysters, come and walk with us!”), this old Ballard haunt shares an inner window, but not a menu, with Ethan Stowell’s Staple & Fancy Mercantile. Chef Renée Erickson’s 5-year-old oyster bar specializes in shellfish raw and cooked, along with a handful of cheeses and sweets.

Details: The restaurant at 4743 Ballard Ave. NW is open for dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.thewalrusbar.com, or call 206-395-9227.

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•  The Whale Wins: Another winner from owner-chef Renée Erickson (The Boat Street Café, The Walrus and the Carpenter), this tidy, market-like restaurant specializes in vegetable dishes cooked in a wood-burning oven. Unlike Joule, just across the hallway, the menu is 100 percent American; the marrow bones are particularly good. The name comes from a painting by modern American folk artist Mary Maguire.

Details: The restaurant at 3506 Stone Way N. is open for dinner every day. Prices are moderate. More information can be found at www.thewhalewins.com, or call 206-632-9425.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com.

Editor’s note: The original story had an incorrect location for Canlis restuarant. The error has been corrected. The Bulletin regrets the error.