My college town of 50,000 has one Michelin star but it belongs to the pastry chef. She baked for a Peruvian restaurant called Mistura but has left to open her own shop. Mistura is probably still in the running for fanciest restaurant but has completion not just on the prestige front but also cuisine. I’m pretty confident San Luis Obispo is the only town of its size outside of Peru with three Peruvian restaurants.
I tend to find the restaurants on the Bib Gourmand list being more my speed. I mean, if given the opportunity, I’ll gladly and eagerly attend a starred restaurant, but the Bibs are usually more approachable. Looks like I’ve been to five on the Chicago list, and one is literally a half mile from me (well, closer to a mile now in its temporary location after a kitchen fire.) ETA: Oh, holy crap. Sepia is a one-star Michelin restaurant, so I guess I have been to one. ETA2: Actually, no it was Schwa I was thinking of, not Sepia. I’ve never been to Sepia. But Schwa is also a Michelin star.
I have no idea what the “fanciest” restaurants in the nearest (medium-sized) city are considered, but our usual hangouts and special occasion joints would almost certainly not make the list.
I was reading a story in the Boston Globe about area restaurants that just achieved Michelin recognition (just one got an actual star, the rest were “recommended” or Bibi Netanyahooed). Looking at reviews of a few of these places, I was struck by how many had supposedly nasty hostesses and/or dubious upcharges. One place, on top of the “automatic gratuity” percentage fee, had a hefty “kitchen appreciation” charge.
If in Boston I’d skip that one.
Apologies for not living in a city, but a rural county. However, we have a fancy place in “downtown” Leonardtown, the county seat. It’s The Front Porch, and it’s certainly the fanciest place we’ve dined since moving here 21 years ago. But the last time we tried going, on my birthday a few years back, the wait was something like 2 hours, so we opted out. No, it didn’t occur to use to make a reservation.
As for favorites, I like Salsa’s for Mexican and AJ Hibachi for sushi. Apart from the ever-present chain restaurants, there are quite a few around here that are quite good. A decent variety considering we’re mostly the boonies. What’s lacking, however, is a good BBQ joint.
I wouldn’t know about fancy. If I’m expected to dress any nicer than a t-shirt and jeans, I ain’t going there.
There are all sorts of awesome restaurants in the Portland area. But limiting it my actual town, Beaverton, there are three that jump to mind.
Tapatio, a family owned Mexican restaurant. It’s the best Mexican I’ve had up here (being from California originally).
Taste of Sichuan is a damn good Chinese restaurant.
Nonna Emilia is an Italian place that’s been around for almost a hundred years. I’m not all that into Italian food, but this place rocks. My in-laws often visit just so we can go to this restaurant.
I love that my two “hometowns” (closest big cities) have an easy way to find great restaurants.
Milwaukee has the Bartolotta family, and Madison has Food Fight. Each run a dozen or so excellent restaurants.
(For Madison, I’d also add Tory Miller)
eta: Probably the most fun I’ve had was at l’Étoile, Tory Miller’s flagship. We spent a long evening deciding on, and sharing, small plates.
Second most fun, at a quarter the cost, was breakfast at Graze (same building as l’Étoile - both restaurants have a great view of the Capitol).
The fanciest restaurant in my town is probably Dennys.
Staying specifically in my town rather than Greater Chicago, the fanciest/best rated/priciest joints in Joliet, IL are probably The Reserve Steakhouse and Cut 158 Chophouse. I actually ate at The Reserve once and it was a pretty mediocre experience with the kitchen completely fucking up my steak (ordered rare, had no hint of pink inside) and even the replacement coming out rather lackluster. Can’t say I recommend. Never been to Cut 158. There’s also Al’s Steakhouse, outside the downtown area and on a depressing strip of road, which has been around forever and is known as the place the city council members go for their modern “smoke filled backroom” needs. You may be detecting a culinary theme to the local high end restaurants.
There’s a cool little restaurant in the downtown run by the local college’s culinary school serving up fancy dishes but they have extremely limited hours: the only dinner availability is 6-7:45 on Thursdays.
Michelin doesn’t rate that part of the country. Here’s what they rate in the US:
- New York
- Chicago
- Washington DC
- California
- Florida
- Colorado
- Atlanta
- Philadelphia
- Texas
- Boston
There was a guide for Vegas at one point but it hasn’t been published since 2009.
I’ve never been, but if they did ratings in Seattle, Canlis would probably make the cut.
Did you catch the scathing review in the Seattle Times a few weeks ago? Hope the restaurant gets back on track fast.
My mother and I visited Portland last month for her birthday and I took her to dinner at El Gaucho, which is definitely the fanciest place either of us have ever dined. I thought my filet was a little undercooked (I asked for medium and got closer to rare, but that might have been my own fault for not having them butterfly it), but other than that everything was delicious and the service was impeccable. Came out to just under $400 for the two of us and was well worth it.
House of Louie in Chinatown used to be a favorite of mine, but they didn’t survive covid.
Can’t say I did, but I remember when the Times did a March Madness-esque tournament a few years back to determine who had the best burger in Seattle, and the winner was Dick’s, so I’m not sure how much stock I put in their restaurant critics. 
The cost to a city to have a Michelin Guide is reportedly over a million. They’ve got better things to spend that money on.
Yeah, you could (maybe) pave half the parking lot of a city owned NFL stadium for that.
Little Rock, Arkansas is not known for it’s fancy restaurants. We have Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill whose prices are actually fairly reasonable all things considered. Another is Arthur’s Prime Steakhouse and Ocean’s at Arthur’s (both owned by the same people). There are a few others, but those are the only ones I’ve been to. My mother likes Samantha’s so I like to take her there for her birthday and Mother’s Day.
Not sure what a reader popularity poll in 2018 has to to with an actual restaurant-reviewer review of a new executive chef in 2025.
This spring brought two key leadership change-ups: Co-owner Brian Canlis left to work with restaurateur Will Guidara, while chef Aisha Ibrahim departed to open her own restaurant. After an international search yielding 72 candidates, the choice for the eighth head chef in Canlis’ history was James Huffman, its first-ever local hire and a rare in-house promotion, elevating the restaurant’s executive sous chef to the top role.
Canlis’ $180 per person prix fixe format remains in place. Over the course of several recent visits, the food was overwrought, mystifying and almost entirely unpleasant to eat — with one experience a somewhat stunning outlier.
On my dining-room visits, we left multiple dishes unfinished. No one asked why.
The depictions in the review seem fair. This particular critic is very good. Hopefully Canlis gets things back in order quickly.
Gola I think is the best place around here. Plus it has a cool sort of speakeasy feel to get into it.
I don’t live in a city. I recently moved to the Jersey Shore area. Although there are a lot of chain and casual places there are quite a few good restaurants with fancy food. They tend to still be rather casual with the dress code. The one that comes to mind in the general area is Charlie’s of Bay Head. It’s in a town where the average house price is $2-3 million with some well over $10 million. I ate dinner there once and at the next table was several cast members from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. If that’s not fancy I don’t know what is.
Tel Aviv is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fine dining… but I don’t live in Tel Aviv any more, I live in Givatayim, a small, mostly residential city of about 60,000 nestled between Tel Aviv and its sister metropolis of Ramat Gan. There are no fancy restaurants in Givatayim. Why would there be, when Tel Aviv is right there? Probably the nicest place in town is something like Pizza Porto, the type of middlebrow Italian place that serves you personal artisanal pizzas with arugula leaves and offers arancini as an opener. It’s actually quite good, but it’s not really fine dining.
The best restaurant in Givatayim in Oved’s Sabich, the best sabich in the universe (their official motto). Not only is it the best, it is by far the most famous restaurant in Givatayim, or for that matter most famous landmark of any type in Givatayim, and the most famous sabich joint in the country (before you ask: it’s a type of sandwich. Look it up). It is not a fancy restaurant. In fact, it’s barely a restaurant at all, just a stand with a plastic table on the sidewalk. It’s open every weekday from 10 AM to midnight, it sells just one thing (sabich) for about $10 a serving, Oved is always working the counter despite his age, and there’s always a line.
My current favorite un-fancy restaurant is a tiny mom-and-pop place called La Bodega, a taco joint run by an Hispanic family. It seats probably a dozen people, tops. Their birria tacos are to die for and we’re going there for dinner in about an hour.