IMHO,
Best Burger: Crown Burgers. Get the namesake burger. It’s piled high with pastrami.
Best Diner: Winger’s. They don’t have as much sauce variety as Buffalo Wild Wings, but their sweet sticky spicy Amazing Sauce is really good.
Best Asian: Thaifoon at the Gateway mall downtown.
Best Mexican: Red Iguana. No contest.
Best Seafood: Market Street Grill.
Best Italian: Old Spaghetti Factory. Get the spaghetti with mizithra.
There used to be byzantine rules about drinking in bars, but those laws were done away with in 2009. Now it’s just a couple of odd rules, but nothing like as restrictive as it used to. You can’t get a “double” or order liquor from a restaurant without food. Or have the bar visible from the dining area or have happy hours or drink specials. Weird but a lot better than it used to be.
I hear goat meat there is plentiful and they have vitamin injections by the case, not to mention all the flour you can eat!
Thaifoon has closed. It really wasn’t Thai food either, it was kind of Pan-Asian and very Americanized, like P.F. Chang’s. Market Street Grill is my go-to place, I had a membership to the bar before they did away with that stupid rule. It’s probably because Priceline always puts me in the Marriott just up the street.
Red Iguana is a very good Mexican restaurant. It is not Tex-Mex.
I think the lack of quality dining in Utah (and there is, make no mistake) is due to the fact that 60-70% of the potential clientele don’t drink. It’s very hard to run a fine dining restaurant without the markup you get from wine and liquor sales. I’m not familiar with the restaurant business, but I’d guess that close to 50% of the profits in a fine dining restaurant come from wine and liquor sales.
That said, Salt Lake City has about 95% of the good restaurants in the state. There are some good Native American run joints in the Southeast. Try finding something better than Olive Garden in Provo or Ogden.
I spent a couple long weekends in Salt Lake City last year on business, and was quite pleased with the food and drink offerings. Given that I was there during the week and working all day, going out for food and drinks were pretty much the only recreational activities I had time for.
Great mole at the Red Iguana.
Rodizio Grill (Churrascaria) was lots of fun for our large group.
We were treated to a very nice Italian dinner at Tuscany.
And thanks to a couple folks who had made prior trips to scope things out, we had no trouble at all finding spots to go for ‘nightlife’. Sorry I can’t recall any names in this category, but apparently there’s no shortage of places that cater to ‘non-Mormon’ pursuits these days…
Thaifoon is gone?? 
Nope, it wasn’t authentic and it wasn’t specifically Thai, but the Honey Walnut Shrimp was SLC’s second-best dish. (The best is still Red Iguana’s almond mole with sirloin tips and bacon.) SLC’s and Park City’s famous Thai is Bangkok Thai, but I prefer a little place called Thai Garden on 45th south near 9th east. Rodizio is a great churrascaria. But I’m too cheap - if I’m at Trolley Square I usually eat at Hard Rock Cafe instead.
When we go down into SLC proper we like to eat at Squatter’s Brewpub or Market Street Broiler; but that’s b/c they’re fine, not b/c they have remarkable food.
One could absolutely bum around Temple Square and have a tour of, say, the General Conference Center (which is an impressive architectural feat) w/o being hassled by Elder So and So or Sister So and So.
And should anyone get aggressive, a simple “No thank you.” is more than enough to send them off.
Millcreek Canyon has some lovely trails, but if you have time for Mt Timpanogas I;d go there instead. Antelpo Island is also a gorgeous place to go for a weekend but that’s nearly an hour north of SLC.
The movie Unicorn City was filmed in Utah; once you see the fauna here it’s recognizable.
Don’t go in the lake. It’s not worth the smell.