38 Best Restaurants in Helena, Bozeman, and Southwest Montana, Montana
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Helena, Bozeman, and Southwest Montana - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
Uptown Café
Fresh seafood, steaks, poultry, and pasta are served in this elegant restaurant that's one of southwest Montana's finest eateries. Try the scallops Provençal, sauteed with tomatoes, feta cheese,and garlic. A cafeteria-style lunch is served from 11 to 1. A rotating exhibit of paintings by local artists lines the walls.
Whistle Pig Korean
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Barclay II
This supper club and lounge is known for its steak and seafood. Folks come especially for the huge set meal of tenderloin typically served with salad, shrimp cocktail, breadsticks, spaghetti, salami and cheese, and ice cream. Dim lighting, white tablecloths, mirrors, and historic photos of Anaconda decorate the restaurant.
Benny's Bistro
The art deco–inspired interior, often filled with live jazz music, is a hallmark of this small but spacious restaurant, which started out serving comfort food but has branched into tapas and more exotic, internationally influenced but locally sourced fare. Favorites include the creamy tomato soup with fresh rosemary and the apple-tizer: black pepper feta and Flathead Lake apples drizzled with Montana honey. Look for menus items like lentil burger bowls, bistro steak frites, and rainbow trout served with saffron gnocchi.
Blackbird Kitchen
Bogart's
This longtime local favorite for Mexican food, margaritas, specialty pizzas, and burgers is set inside a handsome historic downtown building but has a modern, rustic, real-Montana feel. Good bets from the Mexican side of the menu include pork chile verde burritos and mahi-mahi fish tacos, while the Surfing Pig (with Canadian bacon, grilled shrimp, pineapple, mozzarella, and barbecue sauce) is a favorite among the pizzas.
Broken Arrow Steakhouse
Buck's T-4 Lodge and Restaurant
Within a historic log lodge and bar, this restaurant is known for its dinners of seafood, wild game, and hand-cut Montana steaks.
By Word of Mouth
At night this restaurant fills with the boisterous merrymaking of the après-ski crowd—particularly Friday night, when a throng gathers for an all-you-can-eat fish fry. The menu includes Asian soba noodles, grilled rainbow trout, and lamb burger blended with mint chimicurri. There are several local beers on tap and happy hour is 3--6 with $4 drafts and $2 off wine by the glass and house cocktails.
Carbon County Steakhouse
Saddles, saddle blankets, bridles, and other cowboy and ranch paraphernalia prepare you for the certified Angus beef from the grill, perhaps in the form of a hearty Cowboy Coffee Ribeye, charbroiled with a spiced rum coffee sauce. Seared fresh mussels (from Prince Edward Island) are a local favorite. Dine on the deck in summer.
Continental Divide
This bistro-style restaurant is a pleasant surprise in an area with numerous steak houses. Among the specials are Thai curry salmon, wild game chili, and duck ramen.
Feast
Firehole Bar-B-Que
Foster and Logan's Pub & Grill
Multiple TVs, each tuned to a different sport, line the brick walls of this friendly place. The bar claims 20 beers on tap, the better to enjoy what locals call the town's best hamburgers and other hearty pub fare. In winter opt for buffalo chili. The fish tacos, bison burger, and beer-battered fries also get rave reviews.
Gil's Goods
Hanging Five Restaurant
Horn & Cantle
Iron Horse Bar & Grill
Iron Star Pizza Company
Last Chance Ranch Wagon Ride Dinners
Get a true taste of Montana during this all-you-can-eat prime-rib dinner, which follows a horse-drawn wagon ride through high mountain forest. The private forested plot feels like backcountry. And the generous meal, served family-style in an oversized tepee, includes hot-from-the-oven rolls, salads, potatoes du jour, and huckleberry cheesecake, all accompanied by a singing cowboy.
Lucca's
You're a guest of honor at this cozy Italian eatery tucked into the north end of the walking mall. With only 54 seats, dinner is intimate and elegant, and this regularly ranks among the best restaurants in Helena. Start with baked fontina or fried calamari, then dine on an array of pasta dishes, New York steak, veal scallopini, or pork chop with apples. Try the Italian Sausage Cavatappi, a Lucca's original: spiral pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, shallots, and garlic in a Marsala and fresh sage cream sauce. Be sure to ask the maître d' about the impressive wine list. Limited hours and a small dining area make reservations a must.
Madison Crossing Lounge
Metals Sports Bar & Grill
Montana Ale Works
A cavernous brick building, the former Northern Pacific Railroad depot houses a full bar with a huge selection of Montana microbrews, and a restaurant with a choice of quiet or boisterous seating areas. In addition to 40-plus beers on tap, Ale Works serves bison burgers, bison pot stickers, hand-cut steaks, sandwiches, fish tacos, and seasonal salads. Favorites include the pepper Parmesan fries and the Montana meat loaf, as well as nightly specials like Dungeness crab cakes, wild Alaskan salmon sliders, and carrot ginger soup.
Montana Dinner Yurt
For a unique dining experience, rendezvous upstairs in the Snowcrest building in Mountain Village to ride a snowcat into the pristine land of Big Sky for a meal under the stars. While the chef prepares French onion soup, filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, and chocolate fondue with fresh fruit and pound cake, you can sled on hills under the light of the moon or relax around a bonfire. Alcohol is not available for purchase, so feel free to bring your own.
Montana's Rib & Chop House
Here, in the middle of cattle country, you can expect the juiciest, tenderest steaks—such as the hand-cut rib eye—all made from certified Angus beef. Jambalaya, salmon, and baby back ribs marinated for 24 hours are also on the menu. It's a small chain, but a local one in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.
Old Piney Dell
This small hangout on the banks of Rock Creek has good meat and seafood options, as well as daily pasta specials. Part of the Rock Creek Resort, the restaurant dates to the early 1940s.
On Broadway
Wooden booths, discreet lighting, and brick walls contribute to the comfortable ambience at this family-owned Italian restaurant, known for its generous portions and long-term staff. Popular menu items include rib-eye steak, pasta puttanesca (sautéed Greek olives, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, red onions, capers, and pine nuts tossed in linguine), and the breaded Chicken Broadway, topped with mozzarella and served with a side of pesto linguine. When the state legislature is in session, representatives make this a boisterous place.