This tasting menu–only restaurant from a 2023 and 2024 James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific offers a parade of 10-12 exquisite Japanese-influenced courses, mostly showcasing seafood. “I’m so humbled by the support this community has given me,” says Josh Dorcak, a native of Cupertino in the Bay Area, who says seeing Tokyo’s micro-restaurants and bars was a life-changing experience that inspired him to open MÄS in 2018 in a small alley. Called one of the 50 best restaurants in the country in 2022 by The New York Times, it serves “Cascadian” cuisine, sourced from Oregon and California, at a six-seat counter and in a tiny dining room and private library room.
Uni (sea urchin) custard with corn dashi topped by shaved truffles and trout roe is a standout. So are halibut flavored with Meyer lemon juice, fermented blueberries, aonori seaweed (which lent a grassy green tea-like taste), and crispy dried fig leaves (which taste a bit coconutty) infused with Thai basil, and a savory macaron infused with black Hojicha tea and filled with foie gras and shiro plum gel. “I like an elevated surf and turf,” says Dorcak of the bite of guinea fowl stuffed with scallop and truffle, topped with fava beans and chanterelles in a sherry sauce, on my 11-course menu.
