GQ names Rupee Bar one of best new restaurants in the country

It’s been a big week for Ballard’s Rupee Bar: they were just named one of the 16 best new restaurants in the country by GQ, and have been nominated* for a national award for their restaurant design.

Earlier this week, GQ listed Rupee Bar in an article about the 20 best new restaurants in America. The author Brett Martin visited 23 cities and 93 restaurants to narrow down the best in the country. Another Seattle restaurant also made the list; Japanese lunch spot By Tae in Capitol Hill was also in the top 16, and Korean restaurant Paju was an honorable mention.

“What a strange time to receive any publicity, especially something so grand,” the owners wrote on social media. “Humbled, grateful, thrilled to read such praise.”

Here’s the blurb about Rupee, in GQ:

Or if you want to move up the ladder of formality, the future lies in two little vest-pocket restaurants that are 2,700 miles apart but unmistakably twinned in my mind for their small, tight, soulful menus and genre-bending cocktails. At Rupee Bar, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, you can sip a Last Night in Negombo—a vegetal concoction of turmeric, coconut, and gin topped with a stripe of black pepper—while making a meal of executive chef Elisabeth Kenyon’s Sri Lankan and Indian bar food: dusty, finger-singeing Kerala fried chicken; a deep-fried and unapologetically muttony mutton roll; black cod in a vibrant turmeric curry that may be the best thing to happen to that silky fish since Nobu glazed it in miso.

Rupee’s second surprise of the week came in the form of a 2020 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurant Design nomination*. Heliotrope Architects were behind the transformation of their narrow bar on 24th Ave NW, which was redesigned last summer before they opened.

While restaurant closures are still in effect, Rupee is open for takeout; here’s a link to their menu and current hours.

*Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that Rupee was awarded best restaurant design.