Using the Sapphire Reserve Dining Credit in Seattle: $150 at Tomo

We had a $150 Chase Sapphire Reserve dining credit expiring at the end of June, a restaurant list we had never once used, and a two-year-old who falls apart after about 7pm.

That combination is how we ended up at Tomo in White Center at 5:30 on a Saturday. Dinner for two adults and a toddler came to roughly $300. The credit covered half of it.

This is the field report. If you want the rules, we already wrote the mechanics guide and this post will not repeat them.

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The real constraint was not the credit

The credit itself is simple enough. $300 a year, split into two hard $150 halves, January through June and July through December. Use it or lose it.

The list is what makes it difficult. The dining credit only works at restaurants in Chase's Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables program, curated by The Infatuation and served through OpenTable, which is a few hundred restaurants nationally rather than anywhere that serves food.

So the search was not "where do we want to eat." It was "which eligible restaurant near us will seat a toddler at an hour he can handle, and serve food that arrives before he loses interest." That narrowed things fast. Two of Seattle's eligible restaurants are omakase sushi counters, which is a wonderful evening and an absurd thing to attempt with a two-year-old.

What changed since we wrote our guide

When we published our dining credit guide in March 2026, we described the list as metro-heavy and warned that outside major cities the credit was "closer to a marketing number than actual value."

Accurate in March, and out of date by July.

On July 7, 2026, Chase overhauled the program. It added 91 restaurants and removed 64, taking the list past 400 across 26 cities. Chase's own marketing pages still say "over 275," which is out of date. Las Vegas went the other direction and dropped from nine restaurants to one.

Seattle now has seven, and the point of this post is that one of them is a 28-seat room in unincorporated King County.

Tomo

Tomo sits at 9811 16th Ave SW in White Center, which is not technically Seattle. It is an unincorporated pocket of King County wedged between West Seattle and Burien, about seven miles south of downtown, with a Seattle mailing address and a long-running nickname of Rat City that locals use with affection. The roller derby league is named after it.

The chef is Brady Ishiwata Williams, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northwest in 2019 while running the kitchen at Canlis, and was a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2018. He opened Tomo in September 2021 in a former adult video store and named it for his grandmother, Tomoko Ishiwata Bristol. Tomo also means friend.

Tomo was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Wine Program in 2022 and landed at number 30 on Esquire's Best New Restaurants list the same year. It has no Michelin star, which says nothing about the food: Michelin does not publish a guide anywhere in Washington State.

The logo on the menu describes the place better than I can. It reads "JAPANESE-ISH," and underneath that, "SORRY, NO SUSHI."

What we ordered and what it cost

The adults took the Family Feast, a family-style menu for the table at $86 per person: Tomo Caesar, Salish halibut crudo, asparagus, mentaiko carbonara, dry-aged steam burgers, an Olsen Farms pork rib chop, and a matcha berry cheesecake kakigori. Substitutions politely declined, which the menu says out loud.

Our son ate the dry-aged steam burgers, which are on the menu at $5 each or $28 for six and are exactly what they sound like: griddled beef and American cheese on a soft roll. He was thrilled. I am aware that ordering sliders for a toddler at a James Beard chef's restaurant is not a sophisticated move, and I would do it again.

The pork chop was the best I have had. Not the best at a restaurant this year, the best I have had.

One thing worth knowing before the bill arrives: Tomo applies a 22% service charge and keeps all of it. The menu states that gratuities are not expected and that anything you do leave is shared among hourly staff. That charge is part of the merchant transaction, so it counts toward the $150 like everything else, but it does mean a $300 bill is not $300 of food and drink.

We added the Dungeness crab rice off the small plates menu at $28, brown butter and dashi and preserved strawberry, which is the most Pacific Northwest sentence in this post.

With two Family Feasts, that extra dish, one cocktail, the service charge and Washington sales tax, the table landed right around $300. The statement credit took $150 off. We paid about the price of a normal Saturday dinner out for a meal that is not a normal Saturday dinner.

What we actually had to do

Very little, which was the surprise.

We booked on OpenTable a few weeks ahead. Tomo opens reservations on a 30-day rolling window and dinner starts at 5pm, so a 5:30 Saturday put us at one of the first tables of the night, which is the only reason any of this worked with a toddler.

At the restaurant I asked our server whether anything was needed on their end. Nothing was. There is no code, no button, no mention of Chase at the table. We ordered, we paid with the Sapphire Reserve, and the $150 statement credit followed.

One honest correction to how I initially described this: I did not activate anything for this dinner, but my card was already linked to my OpenTable account from setting it up earlier. Chase's own instructions say to link your Sapphire Reserve on OpenTable, and I had. So the accurate version is not "no setup required," it is "the setup is one-time and I had already done it." Link your card once and then stop thinking about it.

Three things worth getting right

Booking through OpenTable is not required. Chase's wording is that cardmembers must pay with the Sapphire Reserve at an eligible restaurant, so the payment is what triggers it. We used OpenTable because we wanted a particular Saturday slot.

You do not have to spend the whole $150 at once. The credit is cumulative within each half of the year. Chase's own published example is $80 in February plus $70 in May, both drawing on the same first $150. A $60 lunch does not burn the other $90.

Exclusive Tables is not the same as the Visa Dining Collection. Both show up on OpenTable, and only the Sapphire Reserve program triggers this credit. This is the easiest way to walk in expecting $150 and get nothing.

All three are the kind of restriction we catalogued when we argued that premium cards have turned into coupon books, and the StubHub credit is built the same way: real money behind a narrow door.

The list changes without telling you

The July overhaul removed 64 restaurants with no announcement. Chase honored existing reservations at removed restaurants for 60 days, which is decent, but nobody got an email saying their neighborhood spot had dropped off.

The churn caught our own research. While checking the Seattle list for this post, two well-regarded credit card trackers listed Cafe Juanita in Kirkland as eligible, and OpenTable's own Sapphire Reserve page does not. One of those sources is right, and it is not the trackers.

So: check OpenTable's own Seattle page the week you plan to go, not a list someone published in March. Including ours.

The other six in Seattle

Verified on OpenTable's Sapphire Reserve Seattle page on August 1, 2026.

The eligibility is verified. The toddler column is my opinion, not restaurant policy. Tomo's own FAQ says "we love children and we look forward to serving them," and that kids can order off the dinner menu, but there is no published kids' menu, high chair policy, or age minimum, so call ahead if it matters. Tomo has no phone, so that means email.

What we do not know yet

Chase's site carries a line about qualifying purchases not earning points, and our own guide argued from the rewards agreement that the 3x dining category should still apply alongside the credit. I did not check my statement closely enough to settle it, so I am not going to claim either way. If you use this credit, look at whether points posted on that charge and tell us.

We also have not tested a walk-in without a reservation, which is the version most people will want to know about.

What we are doing with the H2 credit

The second $150 runs July through December and we have not spent it yet. Westward is the front-runner because a waterfront patio is forgiving of a small person who wants to stand up every four minutes.

If you have used this credit somewhere good, especially somewhere that works with kids, tell us. We would rather publish real reports than a list copied off a press release.

Bottom Line

This is a narrow credit. It works at a few hundred specific restaurants, it expires twice a year, and the list moves without warning.

It is also $150 that came off a real dinner at a restaurant I had wanted to try for four years, at a place I would not have guessed was eligible. If you carry the Sapphire Reserve and you have written this credit off because you do not live in New York or San Francisco, spend two minutes on the OpenTable page for your city. The answer may have changed in July.

Whether the card's $795 fee clears is a separate question, and one we have run the full arithmetic on. Two credits you actually use go a long way toward the answer. Our wallet optimizer handles the rest of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have to book through OpenTable to get the Sapphire Reserve dining credit?

No. Chase says cardmembers must pay with their Sapphire Reserve at an eligible restaurant. The credit triggers on the payment, not the reservation. We booked through OpenTable because we wanted a specific Saturday time, not because the credit required it. Chase does say to link your card to OpenTable, so do that once and then forget about it.

Does the restaurant have to do anything for the credit to work?

No. We asked our server and nothing was required on their end. Eligibility is tied to the merchant being on Chase's list, so the restaurant has no button to press and no code to enter. Pay with the card and the credit posts to your statement.

Do you have to spend the whole $150 in one meal?

No. The credit is cumulative within each half of the year. Chase's own example is $80 at one restaurant in February and $70 at another in May, both drawing on the same first $150. A smaller meal does not forfeit the rest of that half.

Which Seattle restaurants take the Sapphire Reserve dining credit?

As of August 1, 2026 the OpenTable list shows seven: Tomo in White Center, The Pink Door and Sushi Kashiba near Pike Place, Lark on Capitol Hill, Westward and Atoma in Wallingford, and Takai by Kashiba in Bellevue. The list changes without notice, so check opentable.com/sapphire-reserve/seattle before you go.

How much is dinner at Tomo?

The Family Feast, a family-style menu for the table, was $86 per person when we visited in the first half of 2026. Small plates ran $16 to $28 and mains $48 to $49. A 22% service charge is added to the bill and Tomo keeps all of it, with gratuities not expected. Our table came to roughly $300 for two adults and a toddler, including the service charge and tax.

Is Tomo good with kids?

Their FAQ says they love children and that kids are welcome to order off the dinner menu. There is no published kids' menu, high chair, or age policy, so call ahead if that matters. An early seating and a family-style menu that arrives for the table made it work for our two-year-old.