The Best Restaurants in Las Vegas

7th & Carson

A leader in the revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas, this local favorite melds originality with comforting flavors. The chicken and waffle plate, which here means spicy chicken tenders set atop a kimchi waffle, is drizzled with gochujang-spiked syrup. And the veggie burger consists of a chickpea-and-black-bean patty with feta cheese, arugula, avocado, and shaved red onions. Order in for brunch, lunch, or dinner, and for a group, as the dishes are created for sharing.

Archi's Thai

Since 2002, chef Arichai Silpasuvun and his team have been serving up his Thai favorites along West Flamingo Road. And its success has led them to expand to three other locations: South Rainbow Boulevard, West Sahara Avenue, and S. Eastern Avenue. While each locations has all the classics (egg rolls, pad Thai, pad see ew), you can also find nine styles of curry (try the red “country curry” with eggplant and green beans); unexpectedly juicy Thai beef jerky; crispy pancakes made with shrimp, scallop, mussel, and squid; and nine stir-fry preparations you can pair with your choice of protein. The “ginger, ginger, ginger” stir-fry is intensely true to its name.

Bar Code Burgers

The brainchild of nightlife veteran Cody Tomboli, this sports bar on Flamingo Road is where you actually pay attention to what you’re eating — and not just the game. It’s got some of the best burgers in town. We’re talking big, sloppy hand-helds featuring patties piled high with such varied toppings as an over-easy egg or the Elvis-inspired combination of caramelized banana, bacon, peanut butter, and Mike’s Hot Honey (a.k.a. The King). In lesser hands, such decadence might be overkill. But these guys do it right. Be sure to get the chicken sandwiches, tots, wings, and fries — they’re equally mind-blowing.

Big Chicken

Shaquille O'Neal is behind this chicken-centric, fast-casual restaurant across the street from the Virgin resort. Yet Big Chicken doesn't rest on its laurels as a celebrity vanity project. The NBA legend enlisted chefs Matt Silverman and Matt Piekarski to create what many agree is the best chicken sandwich in Las Vegas: plump breasts from cage-free chickens that are double-battered (wet and dry) and fried before they’re sauced and crowned with a range of toppings (crispy onions, even mac and cheese). The menu also has fun takes on Southern-style comfort foods, like the spicy, cheesy dirty fries, mac ’n’ cheese with Cheetos dust, and banana pudding ice cream sandwiches.

Big B's Texas BBQ

Barbecue is serious business, especially for Texas native and Big B’s founder Brian Buechner. He drives down to his home state several times a year to haul back a trailer full of mesquite wood, which he uses for smoking meats for his two locations in Henderson and the Southwest Valley. Specialties include tender racks of baby back ribs, massive Fred Flinstone-looking beef ribs, and a brisket that’s offered wet (fatty) or dry (lean). Enjoy the rich smoky flavors on their own, or pair them with a tomato-based barbecue sauce, a Carolina-inspired mustard sauce, or a spicy variety made with four different chile peppers.

Birria El Compa

Located near the northwest edge of Boulder Highway, this restaurant has its roots in Jalisco, which may explain why the namesake dish is made with goat (as it should be), stewed with chile peppers, and accompanied by handmade corn tortillas. You can also get roasted goat in tacos with soft or hard-shell corn tortillas (with or without cheese), and in a quesadilla. If goat’s not your thing, Birria El Compa also serves beef barbacoa birria, tacos, and quesadillas along with fried bean tacos and quesadillas. Complete the experience with agua frescas, juice, or Mexican (and American) bottled beverages.

The Boss Cafe

Buddy Valastro, the baker behind the now-famous Carlo’s Bakery and TV show Cake Boss, continues to expand his Las Vegas empire. This casual Jersey-inspired restaurant inside The LINQ hotel is known for hand-pulled mozzarella offered with bread and any combo of pesto, roasted peppers, pickled spicy peppers, tomato-olive relish, or basil and aged balsamic. The tight, efficient menu is rounded out by loaded Jersey-style sandwiches like The Soprano (prosciutto, peppered salami, smoked pecorino, basil pesto), individual rectangular pizzas, breakfast items (until 11 a.m.), and, of course, baked goods — get his signature “lobster tail” (flaky pastry stuffed with sweet French cream).

Cured & Whey

After selling gourmet products to Las Vegas’ top restaurants for years, Cured & Whey’s owners finally decided to let regular folks like us in on the fun at this retail space south of Allegiant Stadium. There’s no better place to shop for cheese and charcuterie, but the real treat is the lunch menu. It’s packed with amazing sandwiches, like the Truffle Honey Grilled Cheese (brie, honey, and a combination of truffle sauce and white truffle salt), porchetta with chimichurri, and the Duck Reuben, my hands-down favorite. It’s no wonder this place is a go-to for some of The Strip’s top chefs.

Bronze Cafe

Convenience meets healthy at this Desert Shores neighborhood spot. Focused on “fit-friendly” food, the menu features vegan offerings like the David's special kale salad (roasted beets, curried quinoa, and herbed garlic chickpeas tossed in a lemony vinaigrette) and the Vegucated Order sandwich with vegan soy bacon strips, avocado, greens, and tomato on ciabatta. But carnivores are still welcome — you’ll see when you bite into the bacon-and-chicken-fueled chopped salad and the What What sandwich stacked with turkey and pepperoni and swiped with basil aioli. The desserts are all vegan and many are also gluten-free.

Chinglish Cantonese Wine Bar

Finding contemporary Cantonese cuisine once meant choosing between the Strip and Chinatown. No longer. The Boca Park shopping plaza is now home to this family-owned restaurant. Chef Po-Fai Lam brings his Hong Kong heritage — as well as decades of experience in fine-dining restaurants — to the kitchen, while his daughter and son-in-law run the front of the house and business end. Make sure to try Poh Poh’s Dumplings filled with wood ear mushrooms and chives, and the char siu boneless pork lollipops brushed with honey.

Crossroads Kitchen

Leave it to a California chef to crank out some of Las Vegas’s best plant-based cuisine. Crossroads Kitchen from Tal Ronnen inside Resorts World is the closest thing the Strip has to a fine-dining vegan restaurant. And tasting is believing. Try the eggplant hydrated with beet juice in place of steak, blended chestnuts disguised as foie gras, and mushrooms sliced to resemble scallops. There's even plant-based "caviar" made of kelp. If that sounds too experimental, stick with the textbook pizzas, thin and charred Neapolitan-style with cashew cheese on top.

Daeho Kalbijjim & Beef Soup

The signature item, kalbijjim, is a traditional Korean dish of slow-braised beef short ribs and vegetables served in a bigsiness located between the Virgin resort and UNLV has been one of Las Vegas’ most popular Italian restaurants since it opened in 1985. Two generations of chefs have evolved its cuisine from simple deli fare and pizza to some of the most sophisticated Italian food in the city (see the rigatoni spilinga with spicy house-made ‘nduja sausage or the surf-and-turf combo of American Wagyu rib cap and Canadian lobster with black truffle sauce). The Ferraro family travels to Italy regularly to keep up on trends and maintain relationships with suppliers for high-quality goods. So, whether you’re craving the signature osso buco, simple but well-executed spaghetti carbonara, or something you’ve never tried before, you’ll find it here.

Honey Salt

This Boca Park area favorite isn’t your typical neighborhood restaurant. Husband-and-wife team K pot of glass noodles — and here topped with melty cheese. Word to the wise: It’s served in portions large enough for two to three people. But smaller parties have plenty of other options, like the kalbitang (fall-apart-tender rib soup); bibimbap; icy, beefy naengmyun; and yukhwe (beef tartare).

Ferraro's Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar

This family-owned buim Canteenwalla and Elizabeth Blau deliver a creative menu of upscale American fare — and they do it at off-Strip prices. Try the grilled octopus with punchy romesco sauce, branzino seared to a crisp in a cast-iron skillet, bacon-wrapped meatloaf with tomato jam, and the mighty kale salad with hearts of palm, crispy chickpeas, and tom yum vinaigrette. As for dessert, make sure to order a Brookie — a brownie with a frozen chocolate chip cookie at its center.

Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab

This classic American steakhouse inside the Forum Shops at Caesars has a loaded menu that manages to do a lot of things exceptionally well. The bone-in cuts of USDA prime beef offer a deep, rewarding flavor. However, the best reason to visit Joe's — as the name suggests — is the stone crabs, which are flown in fresh from Florida between October and May, with frozen specimens available off-season.

Letty's de Leticias Cocina

Chef Leticia Mitchell has been wowing locals since opening the original Leticia’s Mexican Cocina in 2009. She and partner Sue Kiple have now found a new generation of Downtown fans enraptured by 16 different types of tacos; an award-winning quesataco with seared cheese, chipotle crema, and a protein; and tortas stuffed with chilaquiles or mole chicken, to name just two options. Other standouts include inventive dishes like the quesabirria pizza: crispy flour tortillas layered with melted Oaxaca cheese, beef birria, onions, cilantro, and lime with consommé on the side.

Makers & Finders

With locations in The Arts District, Downtown Summerlin, and Henderson, this is so much more than a coffee shop. In addition to caffeinated beverages and baked goods, Makers & Finders offers excellent breakfast and lunch with Latin influences. You’ll find five types of empanadas (garlic shrimp and spicy mushroom are my go-tos), juicy shrimp ceviche, and chilaquiles alongside lox and bagels, French toast, and loaded breakfast burritos. There are vegan and gluten-free options as well as top-notch non-caffeinated beverages in the form of cocktails, wine, and beer.

Meraki Greek Grill

It's hard to find Greek food this good in such a quick and convenient format. The gyro and tzatziki are done better than just about anywhere in Vegas, as well as the tart and lemony chicken and egg soup, avgolemono. It comes from a team that has plenty of fine-dining experience and a partnership with chef Michael Mina. Meraki also mixes things up with a half-pound Wagyu burger and a Greek rice bowl and stellar grilled meats (chicken, wild-caught salmon, and filet mignon). Meraki does it all and delivers it from five locations: Spring Valley, Henderson, Summerlin, Blue Diamond, and Centennial Center.

Metro Pizza

This pizza chain’s roots date back to 1928 on the East Coast. But the local story starts in 1980, when cousins John Arena and Sam Facchini, whose parents once fed coal into the ovens at New York City’s famed Lombardi’s Pizza, made the move west. The Vegas chain specializes in crafting numerous styles of pies, with thick, thin, and ultra-thin crusts. Many are named for famous pizza-making centers, such as The Gotham (pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, green peppers), The Milano (white pizza with mozzarella, ricotta, and garlic), and The Bleecker Street (Italian sausage and garlic), while the signature round Metro has a thick crust and extra cheese. Apps, salads, subs, and calzones are also available at all of the locations (Green Valley, E. Tropicana, Spring Valley, and Sky Pointe).

Milpa

This tiny Mexican spot near Desert Breeze Park community shot to national fame when chef DJ Flores was named a James Beard Award semi-finalist in 2024. But locals have been raving about it since it opened in 2021. At the heart of the menu are the tortillas made from heirloom varieties of Mexican corn that Flores grinds himself. They serve as the base for tacos topped with topics like battered fish or oyster mushrooms, chilaquiles layered with black beans and sunny-side eggs, and bright huevos rancheros.

Monzu Italian Oven + Bar

Chef and owner Giovani Mauro is the second-generation Las Vegas restaurateur behind this neighborhood restaurant on the outskirts of Spring Valley that offers more adventurous dishes than mainstream Italian fare. Pizza alla palla is a popular street food in Rome, and here it’s recreated with Mauro’s own strain of yeast and topped with only the freshest seasonal ingredients. The rest of the menu is packed with unique takes on Sicilian classics: confit chicken gizzards with sautéed vegetables (pumpkin or eggplant, depending on the season) in sweet-and-sour agrodolce sauce; lemon leaf stuffed with meat croquettes; and salt cod poached in milk, whipped, and served with Golden Osetra caviar.

Naked City Pizza

Buffalo native Chris Palmeri created Naked City to bring the rectangular pizza he grew up with in upstate New York to Las Vegas, and now offers it at two locations: Paradise Road near UNLV and the Virgin resort and on Blue Diamond Road in the Blue Diamond Saloon. Here he pays tribute to his childhood home with the Buffalo pie glazed with white garlic sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, crispy garlic, and hot honey, and the Buffalo Chicken topped with the city’s namesake sauce.

Old School Pizzeria

With locations in the Desert Shores, Mountain’s Edge and North Las Vegas neighborhoods, this casual sister chain of the upscale Italian restaurant Monzu Italian Oven uses the same pizza dough — crafted with a 300-year-old Neapolitan sourdough starter, fermented for five days — for traditional round pies. And it never skimps on quality, crowning that burnished dough with pristine cheeses and meats. Old School Pizza’s signatures pies range from the familiar, such as the Classic Combo (pepperoni, sausage, olives, onions, mushrooms, and peppers) to the more contemporary, like the Apricot (apricot jam, smoked bacon, goat cheese, pine nuts, and arugula).

Osteria Fiorella

Located in the Red Rock Resort, this sophisticated Italian-leaning restaurant comes from legendary Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri. Expect lots of East Coast Italian-American classics — lasagna, linguine and clams, veal parmigiana —  executed at a high level, as well as some sophisticated dishes you’re unlikely to find elsewhere in Vegas. Looking at you, chestnut agnolotti with roasted pears, whipped ricotta, and honey.

Paymon's Fresh Kitchen and Lounge

A local favorite since the 1980s, Paymon’s began as a small deli near UNLV, with a table and two chairs. It’s now one of the valley’s best restaurants for Greek, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern food, and located across town in the Lakes/Peccole Ranch neighborhood. In addition to moving, it’s expanded the cuisine, adding Italian, Persian, vegan, and vegetarian dishes. Paymon’s now has more for everyone: pitas packed with your choice of falafel, chicken, or thinly sliced beef and lamb gyros; kebabs of juicy chicken, lamb, or steak; broiled fish tandoori; and the Persian delicacy fesenjan (chicken and crushed walnuts with tangy pomegranate sauce).

Pizza Rock

Thirteen-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani is an icon in the pizza world. And his talents are evident at Pizza Rock outposts in Downtown Las Vegas, Green Valley Ranch, and inside Allegiant Stadium. Between the three, you’ll find pretty much any style you can think of: pillowy Napoletana with slightly charred crust, cracker-thin Chicago, thick Detroit with caramelized cheese in the crust, brick-oven American, and focaccia-style Sicilian, to name a few (some are even gluten-free). But those options vary by location, so check the menu before ordering. If you see it, go for the Cal Italia, with three kinds of cheese (Asiago, mozzarella, gorgonzola), prosciutto, and sweet fig preserves, and the New Yorker, finished with house-made fennel sausage, pepperoni, garlic, sliced mozzarella, and ricotta.

RPM Italian

Co-owned by celebrity couple Bill and Giuliana Rancic, this Chicago import in The Forum Shops at Caesars sometimes gets more attention for its star power than for its food. But it delivers on high-quality Italian-American cuisine. Think hand-stretched pizzas with toppings familiar (pepperoni) and unconventional (red onion and lemon slices); buttery, 600-day-dry-aged prosciutto di Parma; and fresh chunks of lobster tossed with burrata. If you’re into steaks, go for the 38-ounce dry-aged Bistecca Fiorentina, a porterhouse that can serve up to four people.

Saginaws Delicatessen

When Circa resort’s owner Derek Stevens wanted a taste of his hometown Detroit in Downtown Las Vegas, he turned to Paul Saginaw, one of the co-founders of Michigan’s famed Zingerman’s Delicatessen. Zingerman’s is best known for its sandwiches, and that’s the best place to start here. Get grilled and “not grilled” options like the Reuben, tuna melt, ham on rye, and fried bologna served with house-made chips and a pickle. There are also plenty of Vegas originals on this menu, including a beef and pork meatloaf, andouille sausage gumbo named after the iconic Vegas Vickie neon sign, and "old Vegas shrimp scampi" served over angel hair pasta.

Soulbelly - The Sundry Food Hall

The arrival of this popular Arts District barbecue spot at The Sundry food hall was a cause for celebration among local barbecue fans. Run by chef Bruce Kalman and his rock star buddy (heard of Dave Grohl?), it’s become one of Las Vegas favorite spots for smoked meats, thanks to its delicious brisket, pulled pork, St. Louis ribs, and burnt ends. But make sure to try the grilled cheddar and pepper relish on Texas toast, and don’t skip the sides — especially the ooey-gooey mac ’n’ cheese topped with Parmesan, panko, and chicharron bread crumbs.

Sunrise Coffee

When this Sunset Park neighborhood coffee shop opened in 2008, with its sister business Mothership Coffee, they were at the forefront of what was then a very undeveloped Las Vegas coffee scene. Today, they’re leaders of the movement. The espresso-based drinks (lattes, Americanos), café au lait, and drip are made with beans from organic, fair-trade, single-origin, woman-owned farms. And you can pair them with a small but satisfying selection of sandwiches, bowls, and baked goods — many of which are entirely plant-based.

Toasted Gastrobrunch

These all-brunch restaurants in Aroyo Crossing and on the outskirts of Summerlin South may be known for the weekday bottomless mimosa brunches, but the menu holds up without the booze. You can get traditional morning classics like a French omelet, a breakfast sandwich, seven varieties of pancakes, and four styles of French toast. Or turn up the volume with kanafee, a riff on the Middle Eastern dessert with toasted brioche piled high with ricotta, mozzarella, and pistachios. Eggs Bennys are another house specialty, and you can get them topped with short rib, fried chicken, cornbread, and your choice of Canadian or American bacon.