21 Drool-Worthy Restaurants in Downtown Salt Lake City
Looking for the best restaurants in Downtown Salt Lake City? You’ve come to the right place!
When I lived in Downtown Salt Lake City I was always on the hunt to discover delicious places within walking distance of my apartment and work, both centrally located around the main attractions in downtown SLC: Eccles Theater, Salt Palace Convention Center, Temple Square, The Gateway, and Gallivan Center. (See my Salt Lake City guide for other great attractions in the area.)
On this search for the top restaurants in Downtown SLC, I did find so many great restaurants, listed below. Most of them are within walking distance to the popular areas named above, almost all are non-chain restaurants, and they are listed in no particular order. The list of SLC restaurants is very subjective (honestly just my top preferences), but they all have very good reviews, so clearly many others agree with me.
I tragically have not always been great at taking pictures of my food, so most of these photos are from Instagram, but don’t be dismayed—I have tried all of these places (some of them many times) and handpicked my top 21 restaurants in Downtown SLC. I hope you find somewhere new to dine downtown!
Best Overall Restaurants
Let’s start with the top overall restaurants in Downtown Salt Lake City that I would recommend to anyone visiting or local.
Gourmandise is known for their phenomenal bakery, with the most beautiful pastries always on display. However, I’ve never had a bad meal there and have been for lunch, dinner, and dessert! Their food is rich and filling and always hits the spot. Many people don’t dine in and just opt to take some treats to go. If that’s your plan, don’t skip the kouign-amman, pictured above!
Sawadee is hands down the best Thai food in Downtown Salt Lake City—maybe even in Utah! Their dishes are so flavorful and the portions are very filling. You can find all the Thai classics there, from many types of curries to pad Thai. My favorite dish though is their chicken Thai basil stir fried! One thing to note is that they are quite a far walk from the city center, so you will likely need to drive there from the middle area of downtown, but on the bright side that means there is much more ample parking.
Nestled between a parking garage and the entrance to an indie film movie theater is the delicious Copper Onion, one of the the most quintessential places to eat downtown. Copper Onion serves New American food, which I interpret to mean fancy-ish American food—elevated burgers, pasta dishes, salads, and roasted vegetables. I adore their beef stroganoff with fresh mushrooms and wagyu beef pieces, served over pappardelle pasta. Try it, I implore you! (If you’re like me and love beef stroganoff variations, check out another great restaurant in Utah that serves it: Back 40 Ranch House, near Midway, the perfect Utah winter destination.)
Red Iguana is one of the most famous restaurants in downtown Salt Lake City—so famous it opened a second location around the corner from the first. Both locations make the same food and are basically an extension of the other. Most meals come with beans and rice, and as typical as that is in Mexican cuisine, that is my favorite part. For most people though, the variety of moles—chili and chocolate infused savory sauces, pronounced MOH-LAY—are the highlight. This restaurant, like Sawadee above, is also a bit far from the city center, but there is a food court version in the City Center food court that offers a simplified, yet plenty tasty, menu.
Best Italian Restaurants
There are a number of Italian restaurants in Downtown Salt Lake City, but some are (much) better than others. Here are my top two. See the end of this post for one Italian restaurant downtown to avoid.
This is actually my favorite restaurant in Downtown SLC and I wish I dined there way more than I did when I lived downtown. Caffe Molise is set inside a beautiful venue that impressed me the moment I arrived and reminded me of my first time exploring Italy. Not once during my time dining at Caffe Molise did that feeling of being impressed leave. The appetizer, caprese salad, was so fresh and flavorful and opened in me a new obsession with perfectly ripe tomatoes and mozzarella drizzled in balsamic glaze. The ravioli continued to delight me, and my experience was rounded off with a decadent dark chocolate cake.
I ate at Settebello with my gluten-free friend. Her gluten-free diet is usually pretty limiting when we go out together, so being able to eat pizza with her was a bit of a miracle. Her gluten-free pizza seemed no different from mine, with a fluffy, flavorful crust. Both our pizzas had fresh ingredients that were carfully paired and placed on top. I honestly enjoyed this pizza more than most of the pizzas I tried in New York City! Within the same building is a gelato shop that is a great complement either before your meal if there is a wait time or after to cleanse your palate.
Best Upscale Restaurants
There is an abundance of fine dining restaurants in Downtown Salt Lake City, but I mostly only visit those on special occasions. Here are the best ones I have made it to.
This easily could have gone in the Best Italian Restaurants category, but its upscale quality puts it in a league of its own. This is the priciest restaurant on my list, so I only dined there on one special occasion—the night I got engaged! For as expensive and upscale as Valter’s Osteria is, I expected it to be stuffy, but it wasn’t. The atmosphere was celebratory—of good food and of special events in restaurant-goers’ lives. The staff is so friendly and professional as they serve dish after exceptional dish.
I mentioned in my Maui itinerary that I don’t like most fish, but I make an exception for sushi, especially really high quality sushi like they serve at Takashi. Skip the wait time and dine at the sushi bar, which feels like dinner and a show! I loved watching the sushi chefs blowtorch the fishes and meats and even got to try a sample after they cut the rolls into uniform pieces. You really can’t go wrong with anything on the menu!
Best Date Night Restaurants
I love going out to dinner downtown and have been on many first dates, dates with my husband, daddy-daughter dates, and sister dates throughout Downtown SLC. Here are my top recommendations.
Chile-Tepin is one of my favorite date night dinners in Downtown SLC, not only because the food is delicious, but because they have a parrillada that is basically a meal for two with a lot of variety. It comes with cheesy tacos, a grilled onion, steak, chicken, shrimp, and more. It’s so fun to share the meal and get to try several of their tastiest menu items.
Unlike Tekashi, with its high end sushi rolls and upscale atmosphere, Itto Sushi is a bit more approachable, offering bento boxes and classic Japanese entrees along with their sushi options. Call me basic, but I love their teriyaki chicken. My sisters and I devoured so many of their sushi rolls on one visit that we all left feeling so full and satisfied. Whether it’s a sister date or a romantic date with someone who loves sushi as much as you, you’ll want to add this to your going out list for sure!
The food served at From Scratch isn’t exactly unique or something you couldn’t find at many other places, but the quality is top notch. Everything is made from scratch, from their hamburger buns to their pizza crusts. I haven’t had a bad meal here—in fact, everything I’ve tried here has exceeded my expectations, especially the pasta dishes. And while I haven’t personally tried the signature Scratch Burger, I went with a group where half the table ordered it and raved about it the rest of the day.
I’m a sucker for good Vietnamese food, and Pleiku gave me exactly what I was looking for when I dined there: perfectly cooked noodles, a flavorful sauce, and a variety of textures. I visited on a daddy-daughter date and ordered the Vietnamese salad bowl with rice noodles and carmelized pork. The dish was colorful, with green cilantro, bright orange carrots, and shiny glazed pork. The crunchy egg roll on the side was so satisfying to bite into. No notes, just perfection.
Best Lunch Restaurants
Working downtown meant lots of lunch outings with coworkers. We definitely had some repeat places on our favorites list, but we also loved trying new places. Here are some of the easiest and tastiest places to dine at during the middle of the work day.
Crown Burgers is a no-frills fast food restaurant that is a staple in Utah food culture as the birthplace of the pastrami burger. Several other Utah establishments have their own version of pastrami burgers, but this is the original and, in my opinion, the tastiest, with layers of flavorful pastrami piled on top of a juicy burger. The original owners of Crown Burgers immigrated to Utah from Greece, so half the menu is typical American diner fare, while the other half is Greek food, including gyros and Greek salad.
If you’re looking for a casual place to grab lunch, head to Pretty Bird! The giant chicken sandwiches will fill you right up, especially if you have them with a side of crispy crinkle cut fries. There is very little seating inside, so go when the weather outside is bearable. Also be prepared to wait a bit for your food or order ahead—this place is very popular and everything seems to be made to order.
Okay, in all transparency, Siegfried’s is the one place on this list that I do not personally love, but I am recommending it because I do think they offer something really great: authentic German food set inside a fun market selling food items typically only found in Europe. Plus, I just generally don’t like German food, but my husband loves this place—the sausages, sauerkraut, pork schnitzel, and fried potatoes are all just like what we found in Germany and Switzerland on our honeymoon.
Cupbop is the only large chain restaurant on this list, but it originated in Salt Lake City as a food truck and then became a brick-and-mortar restaurant, plus it’s one of my favorite lunch restaurants downtown, so I had to add it to this list. Serving Korean BBQ in a cup, there are several variations of rice, sweet potato noodles, and meat, covered in sauce. I’m a wimp and always order bowls with the sweet sauce, but there are 10 levels of spice to choose from, all the way up to a chili and fire option. The customization makes it great for families with a variety of food needs. If you’re traveling with your family, here are some great family attractions in the Salt Lake area.
Don Joaquin tacos are nothing fancy and are actually pretty greasy, but boy do they hit the spot when I’m looking for simple tacos. These super authentic Mexican street tacos come with just the meat, onions, and cilantro on corn tortillas, but there is a variety of salsas to add on top. My guilty pleasure are the carnitas tacos—I could seriously eat like ten, so I always take them to go to give me an excuse to walk off at least some of the calories. Also, for the record, I don’t eat ten, I limit myself to four usually, but I could.
Most Unique Restaurants
Every restaurant listed below has either a unique vibe or food that can’t be matched anywhere else downtown.
If you’re looking for a great brunch spot, hit up Eggsburgh! This spot is very popular. In fact, the first time I tried to go was during a lunch break and the wait was far too long, so I went back another time with a friend. The food, both savory and sweet, was all really good, but what makes it unique is how yellow it is! The chairs, the decor, the egg yolks that come with many of the dishes—so yellow and bright!
In my late teens/early 20s I didn’t really enjoy dating because it usually involves going out to eat and…I’m a very messy eater. This place would have been a nightmare for my younger self, but married, secure me throws all dainty, polite behaviors out the window when eating here. I roll up my sleeves and become one with the birria tacos, letting the juices run where they please. Maybe it’s that this is the first place I truly experienced birria tacos or maybe they really do just do them better here, but for whatever reason, these are the first ones that come to mind when I crave that juicy meaty goodness.
There surprisingly aren’t very many Chinese buffets in downtown Salt Lake City. Charlie Chow’s isn’t a traditional one either—they still have a menu you can order classic Chinese dishes off of—but they do have an all-you-can-eat Mongolian grill. In the mood for rice noodles and veggies? How about grilled shrimp and lo mein? Or sliced teriyaki beef and rice? Get any of those combinations and so much more at Charlie Chow’s!
Squatter’s Pub is your classic bar food locale where you can watch your favorite sports teams play on the TVs throughout the restaurant, but what makes this place unique is its setting inside an old hotel-turned-restaurant. The inside feels very urban and modern, but still charming and warm, and the outside features colorful murals. The menu also highlights some unique items that aren’t very common in Utah, including bison burgers, jambalaya, and Greek pizza.
Restaurants to Avoid
Hate to be a complainer, but some restaurants just really don’t do it for me. Whether that’s overpromising and underdelivering or just not serving good food. Here are some I would never recommend.
Buca di Beppo
Buca di Beppo is a chain restaurant, found all over the United States, so it’s almost not worth mentioning except for that this location seems so much worse than others. The service was really slow, even though the restaurant was nearly empty, they gave us meat sauce because they ran out of meatballs without telling us (we definitely would have ordered differently if we knew), and the broccoli was practically raw. If you’re looking for a good Italian restaurant in downtown SLC, just stick to the options I provided above. My husband assures me the location in Minnesota his family frequented is much, much better… but it burned down a few years ago, so I’ll never know!
Blue Iguana
Usually when it comes to blue vs red in Utah I’m blue all the way (go cougs!), but in this case, red is definitely the better choice. I made the mistake of visiting Blue Iguana first and was not impressed, but instead very confused at what I thought were the rave reviews for it. It took me years before I finally tried Red Iguana, the actual killer Mexican food restaurant in SLC, and realized I had it wrong the first time! Blue Iguana does have a fun, lively atmosphere and is closer to the center of downtown, but the food is sloppy, dry, and bland. To ensure you don’t make the mistake of visiting the wrong iguana restaurant in Salt Lake City, remember this rhyme: blue is bad, red is rad.
Nacho Daddy
If you want to spend a lot of money on nachos (up to $26 for a plate) then come here! The premium prices may give the illusion that the food will be better than average, but don’t be fooled. The ingredients are meh and the amount of toppings is pitiful. There was barely any meat on the surf and turf nachos I ordered, which was more than a little disappointing for the price. Nachos, by principle, should be loaded with toppings, not nearly naked.
Spencer’s
I actually don’t hate this upscale restaurant in Downtown Salt Lake City, it is just really expensive for steak that was decent but not incredible. The dessert was great though and the service was pretty good, I just don’t think that overall it was worth the price.
Gracie’s
What’s a girl gotta do to find good nachos in downtown SLC?! This is the second place I tried nachos downtown and they were the opposite of Nacho Daddy’s: cheap and a lot of food. Unfortunately, they were not good. The meat was bad, there were too many onions that overpowered any other flavor, and the goopy cheese coated everything, but in a bad way. It is a bar though, so most people go there for a good time and the atmosphere was lively and fun!
Carson Kitchen
My husband and I really wanted this place to be good and at first it was. We got several small plates to share that included oysters, bacon jam, hotdog burnt ends, and devil’s eggs. Some of it was good, but overall everything was way too rich and salty, especially the hotdog burnt ends and bacon jam. Then we looked at the bill, and for a few small portions of okay appetizers it came to nearly $100! Not worth it.
Final Thoughts
This list is not all-inclusive of where I have eaten in Downtown Salt Lake City or of all the great restaurants there. There really is an abundance of great places to eat downtown. Just stay away from the ones on my avoid list and try to eat local. Let me know in the comments which ones I’ve missed that you would include on your list of top restaurants in Downtown SLC!
Next time you’re in the area, I hope this list gives you many ideas on where to eat. For fun attractions throughout Salt Lake and Utah Counties, see my Salt Lake City Guide for Families. For more Utah adventures, check out my Utah’s Mighty Five National Parks Road Trip or my Sundance and Midway in Winter blog.
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