Monday, February 11, 2019

Top Pot Doughnuts (Seattle, WA)

"Begun in February 2002 out of a small brick storefront on north Capitol Hill in Seattle, Top Pot pair[s] a vintage aesthetic with a gourmet spin on the traditional coffee and doughnuts pairing." (I stole this description from their website.)


I was recently in Seattle for the ALA Midwinter Meeting, and my Mom came up to stay with me a bit. I always like to go on some kind of bakery or baked goods adventure, and found Top Pot Doughnuts. The 5th Street location was charmingly lined with books (happy librarian here!) and had an additional layer of seating upstairs.


I was pleased to find the variety of both glazed and cake varieties, and happily without the silly trends of ingredients like breakfast cereal that you can find a few hours south at Voodoo (see my previous posts of Portlanders Standing in Line for Donuts episode 1 and episode 2.) Also impressive - the shop was busy but not over busy. We didn't have to stand in line or wait for a seat.


Maple bars are one of my favorite doughnuts but I swear they can't be found outside the northwest. Maple doesn't come from there, it's a northeast thing. But still, maple bars are a standard traditional doughnut everywhere you go for doughnuts in the northwest. Why? No idea. But I couldn't even take a picture before taking a bite, very satisfying.


My other favorite doughnut is a really good chocolate cake. Top priority is coconut, but without coconut, I'll go for glazed. Top Pot had both "old fashioned" (pictured, half eaten, whoops), and a more standard variety. This was an incredibly tender and chocolatey doughnut and I was a happy doughnut wanderer.

The latte I had was fine but not the star of the show. It was... fine. I used to think of Seattle as the best coffee city but I'm going to say that isn't true in 2018. Half the places I went served Counter Culture, and I like Counter Culture just fine but it is prevalent in the south as well. And Starbucks really dominates everything to an extent that it is difficult to find non-Starbucks places. At last Top Pot had their own!

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