unsplash / @westleyaaron
There’s no better cuisine in America I’m off to Atlanta tomorrow morning for 3 nights of Phish in Alpharetta where I’ll be gorging myself on southern food for the next few days. So, when I was scrolling through my emails and caught this press release from OpenTable it caught my interest for obvious reasons and I was actually surprised to see that the list was the Best Southern (Food) Restaurants and not the best restaurants in The South.
14 states (and D.C.) are represented in Opentable‘s list of the Top 50 Southern Restaurants. The state of New York has three (2 in NYC, 1 in Buffalo). Philadelphia and Illinois are also represented, but as you can imagine the lion’s share of the 50 restaurants are all in The South. I was pleased to see a few of my favorite restaurants on this list like The Olde Pink House Restaurant in Savannah, Cypress Restaurant in Tallahassee, Yardbird in Miami, and a few of my favorites in NOLA. It was reassuring to know that I’m picking the proper restaurants when I’m traveling. The list comes from over 12 million reviews of 27,000 Southern Food restaurants across the USA in the past year. These aren’t in order from #1-50, they were listed in alphabetical order by Opentable:
Abel Brown – Augusta, Georgia
Acadiana – Washington, D.C.
Acre – Auburn, Alabama
Alligator Soul – Savannah, Georgia
Anson – Charleston, South Carolina
Antebellum – Flowery Branch, Georgia
Atchafalaya Restaurant – New Orleans, Louisiana
The Boil Waverly – New York, New York
Boucherie – New Orleans, Louisiana
Brennan’s of Houston – Houston, Texas
Cafe Dupont – Birmingham, Alabama
Carrollton Market – New Orleans, Louisiana
Circa 1886 – Charleston, South Carolina
Cured – San Antonio, Texas
Cypress Restaurant – Tallahassee, Florida
Distilled at The Sire Hotel – Lexington, Kentucky
Dogwood Southern Table & Bar – Charlotte, North Carolina
Fixe – Austin, Texas
High Street Caffe & Vudu Lounge – West Chester, Pennsylvania
Highball & Harvest – Orlando, Florida
Highlands Bar & Grill – Birmingham, Alabama
Hot and Hot Fish Club – Birmingham, Alabama
Ida Claire – Addison, Texas
Kitchen Notes – Omni Nashville – Nashville, Tennessee
The King’s Kitchen – Charlotte, North Carolina
Langdon’s Restaurant – Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Madison’s – Highlands, North Carolina
Mandolin – Raleigh, North Carolina
Maple Tree Inn – Blue Island, Illinois
Merrick Inn – Lexington, Kentucky
Midtown Cafe – Nashville, Tennessee
Mozelle’s Fresh Southern Bistro – Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Mr. B’s Bistro – New Orleans, Louisiana
Muriel’s Jackson Square – New Orleans, Louisiana
The Olde Pink House Restaurant – Savannah, Georgia
Preserved Restaurant – St. Augustine, Florida
Rapscallion – Dallas, Texas
Restaurant IRON – Pensacola, Florida
Restaurant R’evolution – New Orleans, Louisiana
Restaurant Rebirth – New Orleans, Louisiana
Root & Bone – New York, New York
RT’s Restaurant – Alexandria, Virginia
Rx Restaurant – Wilmington, North Carolina
South City Kitchen – Multiple locations
State of Grace – Houston, Texas
Stella’s Bistro – Simpsonville – Simpsonville, South Carolina
Toutant – Buffalo, New York
Urban Grub – Nashville, Tennessee
Willa Jean – New Orleans, Louisiana
Yardbird Southern Table & Bar – Multiple locations
You can book a reservation at any of these restaurants on Opentable HERE by checking out their interactive landing page for the 50 Best Southern Restaurants of 2018 list.