Archipelago offers an intimate dining experience featuring Pacific Northwest-inspired Filipino dishes, artfully combining creativity with local ingredients and warm, attentive service.
"In 2021, Hillman City’s nationally acclaimed Filipino American fine dining restaurant restarted its intimate tasting menu dinners, known for their ingenuity, storytelling, and passion. Husband-and-wife team Aaron Verzosa and Amber Manuguid create inventive dishes that weave in their personal journeys growing up in the area and those of Filipino immigrants to the Pacific Northwest, creating a compelling history lesson through each seating. The 12-seat restaurant is normally booked out months ahead, so uhhh good luck with the waiting list. The price of a meal here fluctuates a bit but is currently around $250, all of which is paid when you book your reservation." - Harry Cheadle
"A Filipino fine dining restaurant co-owned by Aaron Verzosa, recognized for Outstanding Hospitality." - Harry Cheadle
"Taking a date to Seattle’s premier Filipino fine dining destination demonstrates you have several noble qualities. First, that you can plan ahead, since it’s tough to score a reservation in the small, two-seatings-a-night dining room, where the price of a meal is $250. Second, that you care about not just food but culture and community — chef Aaron Verzosa and his team are known for interweaving lessons about history and Filipino cuisine between courses. Third, that you know your food. The menu changes seasonally, but there are always highlights, like the anak ni bat, a soup that combines winter squash and bagoong (fish sauce) for a rich, umami experience." - Jade Yamazaki Stewart, Harry Cheadle
"Hillman City’s nationally acclaimed Filipino American fine dining restaurant hosts intimate tasting-menu experiences that showcase the ingenuity, storytelling ability, and passion of husband-and-wife team Aaron Verzosa and Amber Manuguid. Inventive takes on anything from pandesal to sinigang and banana ketchup weave local ingredients together with the duo’s personal journeys in the area as well as those of Filipino immigrants to the Pacific Northwest, creating a unique history lesson with each dinner. The tiny restaurant’s 12 seats are normally booked out months ahead, but you can sign up for a waiting list on the website." - Eater Staff
"This small counter in Hillman City is more than a 10-course dinner inspired by the owners’ Filipino heritage. It’s a billboard for the Pacific Northwest and a meal that should be required by law for every resident. Each dish represents a part of history that connects our city to Filipino culture, and Archipelago only uses ingredients exclusively sourced throughout the region. That means you'll get plates like tart vinegar-cured kinilaw with local ginger served on a sardine tin to shout out the cannery workers from Seattle, and the vibrant halo halo topped with “pineapple ice.” Pineapple doesn’t grow here, so it’s pine plus apple—which is just one example of how intentional the entire production is. After two hours, you’ll walk away from Archipelago with a belly full of outstanding lechon (crispy skin and all) and a newfound appreciation for both Filipino food and the surrounding PNW." - aimee rizzo, kayla sager riley
