Palisade — Restaurant in Seattle

PALISADE RESTAURANT: We had a fantastic Easter Sunday brunch. The restaurant is fairly easy to find with google maps. There is indeed free, onsite parking. Our table reservation was for 6:00pm on Easter Sunday. Traffic was light and parking was easy to find.

SERVICE: My two kiddos we're dining as well and when I asked if the Easter Bunny would be making an appearance, our waiter said that we had just missed him as 6:00 was his last visit which was a bit of a let down to the kiddos.

However, to my surprise not 10 mins later, our waiter came to me and whispered that the man whom wore the "EB" suit had to go home for the night but there was a lady on the staff that can fit into the suit and is willing put it on and come out for photos with the kids, so "the Easter Bunny will be coming back of we were patient". This really made an already great night even better for the kiddos! They we're so happy!!

I could tell that our waiter takes pride in his job. He was very helpful with our food and just a joy! My 9 year old said he was such a cool man and gave him a hand shake on the way out. He even helped my son out with his fondue dip strawberries. My son had been waiting for the chocolate on his fondue strawberry to harden. Our waiter said that might take a little while so he offered to put it inside the blast freezer for a few moments. He did and my son was so happy! Honestly the best service at a restaurant I'd ever had anywhere! Palisade Restaurant should be proud to have him on staff.

I didn't catch our server's name but we did happen to catch a photo of him in the background of one of our photos (last photo I'll post with this review) 😉. A great guy with superb service. He went above and beyond. :)

FOOD: The food buffet was amazing. A wide range of of fresh food with super friendly staff that clearly cares for their customers. Each time we visited the buffet we were asked if we were enjoying our meal and if there was anything that we may need. Of course there wasn't because it was a fabulous spread. My favorites were: the hash brown casserole at the breakfast section, as well as the French toast with toasted coconut. I also loved the mushroom ravioli and the prime rib was excellent! The mashed potatoes with green beans were amazing as well.

They had everything from a sushi bar and clam and oyster bar to shrimp, lamb and prime rib. There was great selection of tasty salads. Breakfast included: pancakes, an egg dish, biscuits and gravy (which were fabulous) and the meats, bacon & two kinds of sausage. Everything was so wonderful we had an amazing evening.

THE VIEW: The restaurant is located near a yacht club so the view of the water was beautiful. Elegant wall of windows show to the outside where the yachts are docked.

We dinned in the evening while the sun was slowly setting and you would get the miraculous clouds changing colors as well as the reflection on the water with the view of Seattle and the Space Needle off in the distance. Very peaceful. Marvelous view.

We love that they were kid friendly and the kids loved walking across the bridge inside the restaurant to our table and seeing down to the salt water underneath with the amazing sea creatures inside. We saw a lobster crawling around on the rocks as well as many fish and there was even a starfish or two!

BOTTOM LINE: We are so glad that we chose this restaurant for Easter brunch even though it was in the evening the food was fresh and the staff was bright cheerful and ever so helpful and such a joy to be around! I highly suggest this restaurant. Go with your family or by yourself for the amazing views and amazing service you will have a fabulous time! If the opportunity arises, we will...

Our son and his wife were in town visiting and we decided to celebrate his birthday at the Palisades and show off our beautiful city on a stellar Seattle evening. When we arrived we were seated with a wonderful view. As we watched other tables being attended to, after 15 minutes I asked a staff member if we could have some menus. He responded that usually your waiter brings these but he quickly provided them to us. We waited another 15 minutes or so and finally our waiter appeared and apologized that he had "just heard" he was assigned our table. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and ordered our drinks and 2 appetizers. The drinks and appetizers arrived shortly after. The sushi and bone marrow were very disappointing. Sushi was meh and there was barely any bone marrow on the bones. And then we sat. No one removed our plates, our waiter was no where to be found and we repeatedly had to ask for water, clean utensils and plates. At this point we should have gotten up and left as the evening proceeded to go south. Finally I asked the "server" if we could order. After another long wait, our waiter appeared. No apologies, just I hear you are ready to order. When we asked to clarify some of the items on the menu he had no knowledge of the preparation or differences in type of salmon etc. We placed our order and waited. And waited. Finally the food arrived minus a side order. We again had to ask the server for the beechers mac and cheese side. The waiter finally came by and said "oh yeah, sorry about that...do you still want it?" We said yes and it arrived, watery and tasteless.. At this point we had been here for 3 hours and not by choice, so I went up to the hostess and asked to speak to the manager. She asked if I would like him to come to our table. I did not want to further ruin the evening so asked to speak with him in private at the hostess desk. He arrived and I explained our experience in a calm manner and expressed our extreme disappointment in our service. I was met with a blank stare and then "What would you like me to do about it?" No, I am so sorry for your experience, what can I do to make this right etc. I responded, well you might want to speak with our waiter about how to serve a customer. His response was "well of course. What else do you want?" What a terrible response as a manager to a customer that had received horrendous service, let alone mediocre food. He did appear at our table and showed me that he had comped 2 dinners and the appetizers.This was appreciated but sadly, despite a stellar location and memories of past dinning I will never go back. Perhaps they feel given the view they can command these prices, lack of quality and terrible service but not from me.

Follow up to this. Never got a response from corporate even though I provided my email and contact as requested and I received a message from the hostess requesting my contact info which I called back and provided with no follow through....

Palisade has really gone downhill since the start of the Pandemic. This used to be one of my top three restaurants in the city. But my most recent visit was downright appalling.

I attended Palisade's Christmas dinner service. Perhaps my first mistake. As a solo diner, I opted to sit in the bar rather than reserve a table that could be used for a larger group. Mistake #2.

The bartop was quite sticky. And it was not the lacquer finish, as the front of the bartop was not. However, I decided to stick it out as I was already seated and quite hungry.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, I had to ask a bartender for the menu. There were maybe five or six other guests at the bar at the time, though a handful of others were seated at tables in the bar area. For two bartenders, this did not seem like it should be overwhelming.

After another fifteen minutes or so, I placed my order. I stated very plainly. "I'll have the lobster bisque, and for the main, the prime rib, with the shrimp. The 10 oz." I also asked for a water.

Around 10 minutes later, my soup arrived, sans silverware. After sitting for a couple minutes without eating, a manager standing by the bar asked how my night was going. I said, "I don't seem to have a spoon!" The bartender looks over from the far side of the bar and says "oh! It got there before I did!" And rushes over to hand me a spoon.

The soup was lukewarm. Very disappointing, as it was previously a favorite of mine. Mediocre soup finished and so was my water, I waited for my prime rib. Instead I was presented with the 7oz Filet and prawns. I told them, "that's not what I ordered." "Did you order the prime rib?" "Yep." When checking my receipt after the bill, it appears I was actually rung up for the Filet.

Fortunately, the correction arrived quickly. When it did, I was warned that the plate was hot. The plate was quite warm - warmer, in fact, than the steak and potatoes (which, like my soup, was also lukewarm) which leads me to believe it was cooked to order in the microwave. It too arrived without silverware.

Impatient now, but still trying not to show it, I got the bartender's attention and asked for silverware. But apparently the bar was out of steak knives, as this took around 5 or 10 minutes to acquire. Lastly, I'm pretty sure the horse radish sauce was just sour cream. There was zero heat to it whatsoever.

Lastly came the dessert. "We're out of creme brulee, but anything else you want we can do." I ordered the chocolate cake, expecting a slice of chocolate cake. What I got was reminiscent of a dominos or jack in the box cake. I'm attaching a picture.

All in all, this episode of Kitchen Nightmares cost me $88 and around 1.5 hours. I was not impressed. I probably. Could have gotten a better meal for $59 at a place in Leschi. I am embarrassed to have recommended people here...