Best Chicken Parm in Seattle, WA

Chicken parm in Seattle, WA: our top picks

Seattle’s Italian story starts in the Rainier Valley. By 1910 the city had about 3,500 Italians, and nearly half of them lived in north Rainier Valley and on Beacon Hill, the area later called Garlic Gulch. Families kept big vegetable gardens there, and Frank Isernio Sr. was one of the first produce vendors at Pike Place Market. Highway building, ending with the I-90 widening, took out much of the old neighborhood. Downtown, the thread holds: DeLaurenti began in 1946 as Pete’s Italian Grocery on the Market’s lower level, and Il Bistro has been cooking below the Market’s main entrance since 1975.

Today the city’s Italian cooking leans toward fresh pasta, so a properly breaded parm takes some looking. Bizzarro Italian Cafe has been in Wallingford since 1986, when the artist David Nast turned a 1920s auto garage into a dining room; the art on the walls still changes. Pizzuto’s, on Wilson Avenue South near Seward Park, is a family red-sauce room with checked tablecloths. The Pizzutos took it back in 2003 after a few years under other owners.

Across the lake, Rimini sits on Lake Street in Kirkland’s old downtown and comes from the family behind Montalcino in Issaquah. Its menu has a chicken parm alla vodka and a breaded veal chop parmigiano, and a house singer works through Dean Martin standards.

Eggplant has its own short list. Italio, on NW 85th Street, serves eggplant and chicken parmigiana. Due’ Cucina, from two friends who met in high school in Italy, extrudes its pasta in-house every morning and bakes its eggplant parmigiana with caciocavallo and parmigiano; its West Seattle branch is on California Avenue SW. Assaggio, chef Mauro Golmarvi’s room on Fourth Avenue near Virginia Street, has been open since 1993 and draws on the cooking of Ancona, on the Adriatic coast.

1. Bizzarro Italian Cafe (Seattle) — Parm Score 83. Chicken parm comes up in 1 of the recent Google reviews we sampled, and the tone is positive. It is on the menu, too. 4.5 on Google across 1,335 reviews.
2. Rimini Restaurant (Kirkland) — Parm Score 72. Chicken parm is on the restaurant’s own menu (checked November 2026). 4.8 on Google across 779 reviews.
3. Pizzuto's Italian Cafe (Seattle) — Parm Score 70. Chicken parm comes up in 1 of the recent Google reviews we sampled, and the tone is positive. 4.6 on Google across 268 reviews.

We ranked 20 restaurants within 10 miles of Seattle, WA. 5 of them have the parm confirmed, by reviewers or on their own menu, and Parm Scores run from 53 to 83. Confirmed places rank first; the rest are well-reviewed Italian spots where the parm is not yet confirmed, and pizzerias and steakhouses need a mention to appear at all. How Parm Score works.

More rankings: Veal parm in Seattle, WA · Eggplant parm in Seattle, WA