MariPili Tapas Bar

Grayson Corrales boils her octopus with an onion the traditional way and sets it on potato punched into beads, poached, then deep fried.

Why go

Grayson Corrales grew up outside Basin City in eastern Washington, eating tater tot casserole at home and her abuela's paella one farm circle away.1 Her grandmother came from Galicia and left a daughter behind to find work abroad.1 That daughter was MariPili, and the restaurant carries her name.1 Corrales worked pastry and savory at Eden Hill and JuneBaby, then booked a flight and staged at Culler de Pau, which Seattle Met described in 2022 as the only kitchen in Galicia then holding two Michelin stars.1 She opened here in May 2022 in Cafe Presse's old brick room on 12th Avenue.1 Fishing nets from Galicia hang over the dining room now, and the octopus arrives on wooden pulpo plates she imported from there.1

Order this / avoid

Order: the bacalao a la marinera. Ling cod with a seared crust, manchego gnocchi and English peas in a tart fish broth, which The Infatuation called the best dish in the house and the broth outstanding enough to chase with bread.2
Order: the tortilla de patata, thick with olive-oil-poached potato under a lightly toasted shell. The Infatuation called it the best tortilla in town.2
Order: the oxtail fideua, broken spaghetti stewed in a braising sauce under green garlic aioli.1 Scrape the crispy bits off the pan.2
Order: dessert, which Seattle Met singled out as the unlikely thing a small kitchen pulled off.1 The Infatuation's pick there is the manchego cheesecake on a spiced walnut crust.2
Order the pulpo with your eyes open. The method is the reason it is on this page, potato punched to beads and the octopus boiled with an onion, and it comes with a spray of Spanish chili crunch.1 The Infatuation was not sold: $25 for a few bites of sous-vide tentacle that trended rubbery, and a portion too small to go out of your way for.2
Avoid: expecting a table-sized paella pan. Corrales cooks the California-style version her abuela learned, closer in size to a pancake, with double the crispy rice.1
Avoid: treating small plates as a cheap dinner. The Infatuation put the range at $4 for marcona almonds up to $65 for tinned baby eels and said the bill adds up fast.2

What locals & experts say

Aimee Rizzo, The Infatuation, 31 August 2022, 8.6: Tapas also fits into this category, and Maripili serves the best we've tried in the city. Her one complaint was portion size, that a dish is gone about when you start enjoying it.2
Seattle Met, Restaurant of the Year 2022: Corrales created a place where everything succeeds: the food, the bar program full of kalimotxos and Spanish wine. The same piece called the dessert menu a most unlikely triumph in our current staff-strapped restaurant landscape.1
Corrales on why she went to Spain first: But I didn't want to just put a Spanish stamp on something.1

Good to know

The award: Seattle Met, Restaurant of the Year, 2022 edition. The magazine has named others since, Little Beast in 2025.1
Getting in: The Infatuation wrote that a couple can usually find seats at the bar, and that a last-minute booking for six is usually doable.2
The bread: the tortilla de patata comes with slices from a Galician recipe Corrales got from her grandmother's childhood best friend, who grew up to run a bakery.1
Hygiene: King County inspected on 4 June 2026 and marked it Satisfactory at 5 violation points, rolling grade Excellent.4

Jeff's take (his words)

Note: seattle met restaurant of the year

Verdict

should-visit — Two reviewers judged this room in 2022 and they agree on the kitchen. Seattle Met made it Restaurant of the Year and spent the piece on method and family, down to the stage Grayson Corrales did at Culler de Pau, and a magazine that names a technique has watched somebody cook. Aimee Rizzo scored it 8.6 for The Infatuation and called the tapas the best in Seattle, with the ling cod in tart fish broth as the dish of the night. They disagree in one useful place, because the pulpo that reads best on paper is the plate Rizzo would skip, and she found the portions small against a bill that climbs fast. This is a room worth rearranging an afternoon for, and both judgments on it are four years old.

MariPili Tapas Bar.