Musang is a Filipino restaurant in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, in the U.S. state of Washington.
The menu has included buttermilk fried chicken, pork lumpia with sawsawan, short rib kare-kare basted with peanut butter bagoong, as well as vegetables in coconut sauce and vegan shrimp paste.[1]
Chef and owner Melissa Miranda started Musang as a brunch popup series in the summer of 2017.[2] Later that year Miranda came together with other local Filipino American chefs and aspiring entrepreneurs, including Chera Amlag of Hood Famous and Aaron Verzosa of Archipelago, to create ILAW Coalition.[3]
In March 2019, Miranda announced publicly that her popup Musang was going to be a brick and mortar. She raised funds for the transition through Kickstarter and successfully exceeded exceeded her of $75000 goal in 30 days.[4] The brick and mortar restaurant opened in early 2020.[5]
Miranda incorporated a community-based approach to managing the restaurant, starting multiple community service efforts. Once the restaurant shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they provided over 200 meals a day.[6] They funded this effort through community donations and grants.[6] Even after re-opening, Miranda continued to provide free community meals for the rest of 2021.[7] Furthermore, Miranda provided free Filipino food education programming for children through her Musang Little Wildcats program[7] which was converted into Wildcats Catering in 2023.
In January 2024, Musang closed temporarily for repairs.[8]
In November 2020, Musang was named Seattle Metropolitan's Restaurant of the Year.[7] In 2021 it was named Eater Seattle's Best Community-Focused Restaurant.[9] Food & Wine named Miranda one of eleven best new chefs in the United States for her work at the restaurant.[10][11] In The Infatuation's 2022 list of "The 25 Best Restaurants in Seattle", Aimee Rizzo wrote, "Eating at Musang is like being guests at a pal's dreamy dinner party" with "phenomenal takes on Filipino classics" that "make us want to stop everything and sing about them as if life were a movie musical".[1]