Seattle’s Acclaimed Restaurant Tomo Is Getting More Casual | Eater Seattle
"Opened in 2021 by chef Brady Williams (who had run the kitchen at Canlis and won a James Beard Award in 2019), the restaurant arrived with heavy hype—Seattle Met reported it had an online waitlist of 15,000 before it opened. Williams didn’t want to open a destination restaurant; he told Eater Seattle that “we’re not interested in being a special occasion restaurant,” but the spot nevertheless became a hot-ticket. It launched with a set tasting menu (originally $68), a pricing choice Williams says was partially inspired by affordable tasting menu restaurants “that came out of the European bistro scene.” Though the tasting menu helped establish the restaurant, it shifted away: after experimenting with an a la carte menu in 2023 and seeing customers return to dine more communally—“a lot of people would come in for the set menu first and then come back to the a la carte menu and bring their friends and have, like, a little bit more of a communal style of dining,” Williams says—management dropped the tasting menu and moved fully a la carte this year, and expanded service (previously open four days a week; now closed only on Tuesday). Williams explains practical reasons: the set menu meant serving about 75 people a night—“75 portions of the same thing”—which strained sourcing from small farms and meant changing one dish could have a “domino effect” on the rest of it. The a la carte model offers flexibility and approachability: “Someone can come in and spend $30 on a snack and a drink, or they can sit for hours and order a couple bottles of wine and spend far more than that.” The food remains “fine-dining-ish, Japanese-ish” (per the restaurant’s Instagram), with seasonal changes; standouts include cacio e pepe rice cakes, a dry-aged wagyu rib-eye, and a Dungeness crab rice with brown butter dashi that used to be a tasting-menu supplement. The team has teased an upcoming kids menu and plans to offer takeout—both unusual for a high-end spot—reinforcing Williams’s aim: “We want to be your favorite restaurant,” says Williams, “not just a destination restaurant.”" - Harry Cheadle
