When I moved to Seattle in 2004, I lived in an apartment on Capitol Hill less than two blocks from the original Top Pot Doughnuts on Summit. It had opened just two years earlier and since that time they’ve grown to six cafes and even have a mobile unit that unfortunately I’ve never seen but isn’t the world a better place just knowing a doughnut truck is on the loose?
You’d think living that close, the Top Pot would’ve been one of my BFFs, and normally that would be the case. Because yes, yes I am a person who believes that a wonderful chocolate doughnut can make the world a better, more tolerable place. Who knows how many times a doughnut has saved a person’s life? It’s what keeps spouses from being stabbed, supervisors from being shanked, and society safe as a whole from its sugar-starved citizens. Sure they’re fattening, but sometimes a woman has to pick her poison after work, and there’s only so many times she can get a margarita from the drive thru before she had to switch to doughnuts. And how many times has she been pulled over because she indulged in one-too-many doughnuts? Exactly.
As it is, I mostly forget about Top Pot until visitors come to town and want to try the famous Seattle goods. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one to like crullers or cake-style doughnuts or apple fritters and those items seem to be their most raved about specialties. There have been a few times that I’ve gone in there and had a raspberry Bullseye doughnut and asked myself “Why don’t I come here more often?” and others I go in there and have one and say “Oh yeah, this is why I don’t come in here often.”
My experiences have been that TP’s doughnuts aren’t sweet enough and tend to the cakier side of pastry, as mentioned before. I don’t know when Seattle decided to issue the fatwa against sugar, but if I’m going to have a sweet treat, I want the real thing.
This is the Belltown branch of Top Pot, the more famous cafe. Very Seattle interior, I’ve never checked but those books are all probably real, too. Just in case anybody gets tired of the free wifi.
The doughnuts, they ain’t cheap. But why should they be, they’re hand-forged and made from pixie dust. Unsweetened pixie dust, but still.
As you can probably tell by looking at them, the chocolate on the rings is more of a dark chocolate and less of the creamy fudge I prefer. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “doughnuts for adults” because every single time I visit, there’s a little kid fogging up the glass case.
Last October, Obama dropped into the Pot and grabbed a pumpkin doughnut to go with his two sampler dozens while he was campaigning for Patty Murray. He called them “outstanding” and said they were good, but couldn’t be eaten every day. When I visited I asked if the guy who sold me my doughnuts was working the day he was there, but alas it was his day off. The humanity.
Raspberry Bullseye (1.99) and underneath is a Glazed Raised Ring (.99). The raspberry filled, either Bismark or Bullseye, are the best doughnuts at Top Pot. It’s probably my preference for additional sweetness that does it for me, but mostly it’s just the awesome raspberry jam.
James goes for the Maple Bar (1.69). They’re huge and fluffy, but for me they’re a bit on the dry side.
The view from the stairs. Reading The Stranger, sipping coffee, and eating a Top Pot doughnut in Belltown is probably about as Seattle as it gets. Top Pot is Seattle experience that everybody should try at least once, and who knows, maybe you don’t need extra sugar in your doughnuts because you’re sweet enough, Turkish. Sweet enough.
