Ivar's Salmon House on Lake Union Review

Fantastic crab appetizers, salads and tacos in mid-afternoon today when we pulled up in our boat. (Great dock!). Always great seafood and sides, nice presentation, at dinner, too. And the view!!!!!!

Delicious food. Great wait staff. Beautiful views of Lake Union.

Excellent food, great environment and friendly guest service. A must for guests from out of town.

This one must be on your list to visit. Shall the weather permit, grab a table outside to enjoy the view. Food is simple but representative of the city. Salmon and chowder in multiple variants to make anyone happy. Good choice of drinks and blackberry ice cream really sealed the deal. It's not fancy and works equally well for casual outing or business lunch.

Really good for seafood, staff is always accommodating and environment is lively.

Great seafood, well-prepared. All types of salmon, halibut, dungeness crab, prawns, not much else (one steak).

Thoroughly enjoyed my lunch of crab bisque and an appetizer of buratta on an arugula salad. Beautiful sunny day, we got a window over the water. Such a great spot for a restaurant! Service was excellent. Four people, three separate checks, no problem, no mix-ups. Would have given 5 stars but the gluten free options were few and hard to find.

One of our favorite places year round. In the summer beer or cocktails out on the patio with a variety of tasty appetizers is always so very nice. In the winery, sit inside at bar, hot cocktails and a wonderful selection of seafood. The salmon sampler is excellent. Deserts are good too :)

Views are great and food is pretty good. Prices a bit high

More like 2.5 stars. We came here on a recommendation and it's a nice location but the service was just average and the food is way overpriced for the quality. Wish I could rate it higher. I just can't.

Spectacular service!!! The food was good. Had some great drink recommendations from the waiter. Got there during happy hour, very good deal!

Did you know? This is a Great place to have a big meeting, catered breakfast/ lunch!!

Perfectly cooked salmon in a really nice atmosphere with beautiful views of Seattle and lake Union

I love this bar! Best drinks and food! The bartender little miss Amanda W is onenod the absolute bartenders. She's very sweet and patient with the customers, and my absolutely best cook goes to (drum roll please) Jessica and Gene! They know how to cook your food the way you would cook it at home!

You can sit outside and watch the local widlife (college bros on their little boats) and listen to I5. You can also enjoy fish n chips. Doesn't come with buttered bread or rolls but.

I was in WA for work and was really looking to get my hands on some amazing seafood- oysters in particular. This place hit every mark with perfect precision. A little crowded (but what delicious place in WA isn't) I sat at a packed bar and put down a family of oysters, crab and some clam chowder. Nothing was left wanting for anything. Fantastic food, I will definitely be back... many times.

This place is a true northwest icon, the best Alaskan seafood infused with a true northwest log cabin, and full of northwest history and totem poles. I highly recommend taking guests here who are from out of town.

Great local place in a great location. Food was excellent- suggest sharing

the first bite was soooooo good
but after a while the flavor options got a bit few and far between. great salmon tho...

Very pleasant setting at the edge of the water with the space needle in front.
Excellent service.

Lovely cozy place with so many history, and beautiful view over the lake. The food was so good, and survice is great. The place is a must with no doubt

Great views of the needle and the waterfront. Food is top-notch: the salmon is fresh and the cornbread is tasty.

As expected food.
Service is okay.
Clean place.
Clean washroom.
Great location!

Our server was really helpful and pointed us to the happy hour menu, which was awesome. The atmosphere was great, friendly staff, and awesome food! I would definitely recommend this restaurant!

I love the view! A glass of wine with small bites or a full meal with friends and family is a wonderful time at this location. I like the staff and service. The history of the place is incredible with the cedar, photos and native art pieces. It pays homage to the Indian people along the Salish Sea.

Great and well done food! Was their for a meeting- Their meeting room is spacious and accomodated a lot of people.friendly reception from the staff

Delicious plate that I attach the photo, beautiful view, good attention, a little expensive, about $ 35 per plate but well served!

I used to love coming here, great prices in the bar, great service and a nice view of the water. Unfortunately, like mentioned by Mr. Jack Morris below, since the minimum wage increase, service and wait times have been lackluster and detract from the experience. I came back a second time after a really poor experience a month previously, to give it a second chance, and I was met with the same disappointments.

Servers were not coordinated and kept passing off our table to other servers, making us wait in excess of 15 minutes to take a drink order after being seated. Our food orders came out about 45 minutes after placing the order, and there was a mistake. Thankfully, a (different) server corrected the mistake, bringing us the proper dish, though 15 minutes later, forcing us to awkwardly share entrees so that our guest wasn't left out and our food didn't get cold.

Either new, or confused wait staff kept coming by the table to take up unfinished plates (to hurry us out?) and the only thing that seemed to go smoothly and relatively quickly was getting and paying the bill. I'm sad to say that this is no longer a "cool spot" that I'm proud to suggest to my friends and visitors. Dear Ivar's Salmon House, please go back to giving quality and timely service, I miss having a nice time by the water.

We sat in the bar for happy hour. The views are very nice. The service started out very attentive, but petered out toward the end. The Monday special was 2 micro beers or mussels for $5. The ad was misleading, tho; it looked like they were offering 2 beers AND mussels for $5 (too good to be true). The mussels were not good. I did not like the cider sauce at all. I'd wished it was simpler. We also had the salmon cake sliders. The salmon was fishy (in a bad way) and there wasn't enough aioli to cover up the fishy taste. The cornbread was delicious and came with lavender butter. I could have taken the butter home. It offered a hint of lavender without the perfume. Finally, we had the crispy calamari. This was the prize of the evening. It was perfectly fried with a wonderful dipping sauce. To drink, we had the 2 for $5 beer deal of Mac & Jack's African Amber. We passed on dinner as it is expensive. Although the Ivar's fish and chips is always a good choice from the food stand out front.

Great food. Great service. Wonderful view of the city. A great place to take guests.

We stumbled across this place in 2004 on a visit and loved it! Glad to see it's still happening.

Ivar's is a great Northwest place. Wonderful Northwest Coast Native Art, delicious seafood and good views.

The salmon was okay. Expensive for okay quality. Service is not great.

DO NOT GO HERE! I made a point to call 2 DAYS BEFORE NEW YEARS about my reservations that I made a few weeks ago for this night. I asked do I need to come in earlier for a table by the window or a good seat. The hostess said I should be fine. We just got here, we were seated at the end of a table that was set up for a party of 8 but only 4 was sitting there so it was like we were joining their party. We talked to the waiter and manager- pretty certain they had all been drinking with the way they were communicating. Horrible customer service and they just ruined our New Years. We ended up leaving.

Great server, good food, awesome weather 78* fabulous beer Mac &Jack.

This is a classic Seattle institution and you can't beat the view of Lake Union. You can go into the Salmon House for traditional dining or pick up outside. But go inside. They have a really great happy hour menu of all your seafood favorites everyday. It only becomes $$$$ if you order a specialty item. Either way food is great. Well, the Salmon Chowder has always been a little too salty for my taste but good food overall.

food was okay and the service was alright too, everything took a while. the drinks were good and the staff was pretty nice all around

Ivars has fallen to the same money grab tactics of shrinking portions while raising prices. I had the halibut special with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. If you can picture about a half cup of potatoes, no gravy, and 10 green beans on the plate with a small strip of halibut. $37.00. When I ask for more potatoes, they charge another $4 I wish I took a picture. 5 people = $245.00 bill...never again!!!

Our party of 4 wanted some famous northwest US salmon and ordered 3 salmon entrees. All were disappointing. The location on Lake Washingon was scenic and fun, but the food was lacking.

Excellent service. Excellent decor. Excellent view of the water and the Seattle skyline at night. Would recommend sitting at the bar as there are several menu items that are on the happy hour menu, just up to half the price! Definitely recommend the famous calm chowder. Rockfish taco was really tasty as well.

A long time favorite. Great setting, fresh seafood, and Noble decor.

Very disappointing evening at one of my favorite restaurants. The salmon was expensive, overcooked and dry. Mashed potatoes and vegetables were barely warm. Staff attempted to remedy things, but it took away from a special evening.

Food was okay, but not memorable. After all the hype it was disappointing one overpriced.

Massively overpriced for what was presented like cafeteria food. Taste was ok, portions ok, but very poor presentation. Service was also subpar.
That said, the facility was awesome and the views outstanding. Is that worth $35/ plate? I'd take my customers to south lake union instead next time.

Incredible views from the back patio ( have some fun finding it ) of Lake Union and downtown.

Very good food, great service. Expensive but that is to be expected here. Worth checking out, try and sit outside the view is great

The atmosphere is great. My 1st time and we really enjoyed our visit.

The food here was absolutely phenomenal and the service was amazing.

One the best restaurants in Seattle! Highly recommended!

Didn t like what I ordered. The cod croquettes were awful. I didn t like the coleslaw. I m picky though. The halibut was OK but better from the bar because it s the same thing and considerably cheaper.

Very loud restaurant with mediocre food and service. Seating outside gets all the bridge traffic noise and inside its the large hall creating a lounge hum. I also wonder how clean the place is. We were sitting close to the bar and in the span of a meal there were 3 or 4 plates with food landing on the floor... Lots of greasy fried dishes. Overall we were not impressed!

Well, I just had my first run-in with the down-side to the $15/hour minimum wage that is all the rage now. We ate at Ivar's Salmon Bar in Seattle last night and while the food was AWESOME, the service was, well, AWFUL!!!
When we arrived, there was a notice that they had recently raised all of their employees' wages to the $15 minimum, so there was no expectation for their patrons to leave a tip. We found this interesting at first, and liberating in the end, because, I suppose due to the guaranteed salary and revenue-sharing program, our waitress was uninterested in doing any more than the bare minimum to draw her pay and get on to her next customer!
Even with the notice, I enjoy good service and always tip well when it is received. Needless to say, in this case, I would not have tipped any more than the bare minimum and then complained to the manager. However, looking around, I noticed several of the other wait staff merely going through the paces and not enhancing their customers' dining experience, so I saved the apparently pointless conversation with the Manager and left as soon as we could.
I only hope that this situation will rectify itself over time, but until then I will not be dining at Ivar's Salmon Bar again any time soon and hope that this lethargy does not similarly affect the other once-fine eating establishments in Seattle.

You can't beat the northwest native atmosphere. Fantastic views of lake Union and downtown Seattle skyline. We love the bar, great happy hour, attentive staff.

It's a small restaurant with very cute nautical decor. They do not take reservations and the wait on a Monday night for the four of us was about an hour.

Happy hour all night is a great view and a good deal but my stomach always feels unsettled after eating here. I want to like it so much but I am usually disappointed

Excellent food and service accompanied by nice ambiance and view of south lake union and space needle. Expect delays on weekend oh well, don't go this place in hurry.

Oh my goodness! The food was great and even had an alright view of the city during my meal. I got the fresh grilled salmon which was $26. A little pricey, but reasonable. I would consider this one of the most expensive items on the menu. If you are in the area I would give it a go!

Slow service, average food, and a bit dated. However, the views of downtown and the lake are spectacular, and the abundance of indoor and outdoor seating is a plus.

Let me start with saying it's bit expensive restaurant, but it worth it. The Ivar's Salmon House have excellent location with amazing view, the service is professional, they took their time to explain to us the different types of salmon. The food is delicious especially the fresh salmon sampler with the different types of salmon you can try. It's busy restaurants so make sure to call to reserve table before you go.

Have been a fan for 60 years, of Ivar and his food.

Vegetarian menu is fine, but it's more impressive that they even have one at a fish restaurant. Salmon platter with three types of northwest salmon is a favorite with out of town guests!

We ordered from the snack bar & ate on the deck! Great food & atmosphere

Service was wonderful for the prices the food does not cut the mustard. Dry salmon, presentation of food low looked Liked it was thrown onto the plate.

Iconic Seattle restaurant, has both the fancy indoor dining and fast food counter out front. The key here is to go for their AMAZING happy hour - get some of the same high quality seafood from the fancy restaurant for significantly reduced prices. On a sunny day, you can sit on their SLU patio with incredible views of the water and space needle. One of the best happy hours and outdoor patios in the city.

Great outdoor seating. A little pricey but the food is tasty.

Great selection of fresh seafood and situated right on the water front of lake union. We sat out and enjoyed the sunset before heading up to gas works park for the 4th fireworks. If you need something to warm you up I recommend the blueberry tea !