Seattle is full of seafood restaurants, for good reason—the water’s right there, and the city is home to several marine-focused culinary cultures—but sometimes eating yet another piece of salmon or black cod can feel stale, no matter how fresh the fish is. So why have I been seeing Sea’d Inn, a new seafood restaurant inside Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row, all over my social media timeline?
One answer is that Sea’d Inn has a notable pedigree: It’s the newest spot from Heong Soon Park, the longtime restaurateur who owns several places around town, including the Pike Place Market–adjacent Bacco Cafe, Gol Mok Korean Market Bar (near Sea’d Inn), and West Seattle’s famed Luna Park Cafe, which he bought in 2024. He also used to own Meet Korean BBQ and the Cheese Room, according to Puget Sound Business Journal, but recently sold those Capitol Hill concepts as he tries to simplify his business—he told PSBJ that Sea’d Inn will be the final restaurant he opens. “ I want to go back and master my basic cooking skills, and hopefully this can be the last of my career,” he said.
By “basic cooking skills,” Park means dry-aging and wood-fired cooking, the two techniques that Sea’d Inn specializes in and that make it stand out in an ocean of seafood joints. The fish served here—from small whole mackerel to slabs of fatty tuna—spend anywhere from days to weeks drying out in a walk-in dry-aging refrigerator, then get cooked (and often charred) by an open flame. “ We have stripped the modern kitchen back to its two most honest foundations: Time and Fire,” the restaurant somewhat grandiosely announced to Capitol Hill Seattle Blog a while back.
Sea’d Inn’s intimate dining room, where large windows let in sunlight on warm days. Courtesy of Sea’d Inn
Dry-aged fish became trendy several years ago, with fans of the practice saying that it makes fish more tender, less fishy, and more loaded with umami flavor. Liwei Liao, a Los Angeles–based fishmonger who goes by “Dry Aged Fish Guy” and who is as responsible as anyone for the trend, has a slightly rude motto: “fresh is boring.” In the Seattle area, there’s plenty of dry-aged fish scattered across menus, especially at higher-end places like Bellevue’s Takai by Kashiba, where dry-aging typically plays a major role in its omakase menu…