My first Yup, I’m in Salt Lake City now moment was in its airport. Walking through the SLC arrivals hall, I counted more handmade "Welcome Home" signs than I'd seen anywhere outside of a military homecoming. The posterboards with printer paper cutouts of the faces of countless young people reminded me of high school, when people would make signs to ask their dates out to Prom. (A promposal, if you will.) Families held balloons, shed tears, and gave hugs that looked like they'd been planned for years—which, in most of these cases, they were. The flags on the signs told the story: Fiji, Colombia, Denmark, the Philippines, Brazil. Missionaries returning from two years abroad, greeted like the heroes their families clearly believed them to be.
For a long time, Salt Lake City was just not on my radar as a destination I actively wanted to go to. I’m not much of a skier, I don’t keep up with the Real Housewives like that, and I saw it more as a place you flew through on the way to Park City or one of the national parks. I was interested in the whole dirty soda thing, though. (More on that in a sec.)
But, hear me out: Salt Lake City is one of the US’s best kept secrets, and it’s hiding in plain sight.
What it takes seriously these days, among other things, is food. The culinary scene in SLC has quietly become one of the most compelling in the Mountain West, and the cultural moment isn't slowing it down. The Real Housewives effect is real: dirty soda—the Utah invention of a customized, cream-laced fountain drink that functions as this community's cocktail—has graduated from local institution to Hulu phenomenon to McDonald's menu item, and it brought a wave of outside curiosity to the city with it. The Utah Curl is on TikTok. The data centers are going up. (Unfortunately.) And the Salt Lake Temple reopens next year after years of renovation, with officials projecting somewhere between three and five million visitors—a genuine mass-tourism moment, regardless of your faith.
All of which is to say: Salt Lake City is in the middle of its arc. James Beard recognition is landing on chefs who have been putting in the work for years. The right time to go is now—before it becomes the kind of city that requires a reservation six weeks out and a hotel at three times the price.
Here's where to point yourself if you want an above-par visit.
Where to Stay
Asher Adams
The most exciting hotel opening in SLC in years arrived in October 2024, when the 1908 Union Pacific Depot was converted into a 225-room Autograph Collection property with all the thoughtfulness that adaptive reuse can offer when it actually gets it right. The Grand Hall—soaring ceilings, original terrazzo, stained-glass windows intact—is worth walking through even if you're not staying here. Rooms and suites nod to the golden age of rail travel without tipping into costume-party territory; thirteen are housed inside the historic station itself. The food and bev program punches above its weight: Rouser runs a charcoal-fired kitchen with real technique, and No. 119, the whiskey-forward bar overlooking the Grand Hall, is one of the better places to have a drink in the city. (It’s where I sipped on a great Old Fashioned before my flight back home.) It's also directly across from the Delta Center, which—given the upcoming arena renovation and its incoming dual-use basketball-hockey conversion—is going to be a peg worth having.
Kimpton Hotel Monaco
The Monaco does what it's always done: irreverent design, bold color, and a warmth that the bigger box hotels in SLC can't quite replicate. Its position in the heart of downtown makes it the most convenient base for eating and exploring on foot or on a Lime scooter. Bambara and the Vault bar are solid anchors for a low-key first evening.
Ellerbeck Mansion Bed & Breakfast
If you want something more eccentric—and you should—the Ellerbeck is a six-room Victorian mansion in the Avenues historic district, built in 1892 and still operating with the kind of innkeeper hospitality that makes you wonder why all hotels don't work this way. Rooms are individually decorated with period antiques, there's a library and a garden, and the three-course Pioneer Breakfast is the sort of thing you'll be describing to someone a week later. It’s adults-only, and it’s resolutely not a downtown hotel, so plan on renting a car or Ubering if this is your choice.
Where to Eat
Oquirrh
Chef Andrew Fuller and his wife Angie opened this New American spot in 2019, and the city has been catching up ever since. Named for the mountain range you can see to the west from downtown—the less famous one, the one the locals actually look at—the kitchen operates from a philosophy of radical ingredient honesty. The menu shifts with what Fuller's network of regional producers is delivering that week. The homemade sourdough is a recurring fixture; the duck, in whatever form it appears, tends to be the move. Oh, and the name is pronounced OH-ker, in case you need to say it out loud when making the reservation. Not like Cardi B’s “Okurrrr.”
White Horse Spirits & Kitchen
A whiskey-forward cocktail bar and restaurant on Main Street with elevated American fare, an extensive spirits list, and a name rooted in an 1843 Mormon prophecy about the Rocky Mountains — which the menu copy includes, deadpan, under the heading "The White Horse Prophecy." It's a good room. What makes White Horse particularly noteworthy for the traveler is that it also has a location inside SLC airport, in Concourse A — which means you can have a proper drink and a real meal both before you leave and after you land. Few cities can say that about one of their better restaurants.
Urban Hill
Chef Nick Zocco's cooking is New Mexican by instinct and training—bold, fire-forward, genuinely warm—and it earned back-to-back James Beard semifinalist nods before advancing to finalist in 2026. He also beat Bobby Flay on television in 2025, which is worth mentioning because that man does not play around. This is the right place for a big first-night dinner.
Arlo
An elevated-casual, chef-driven restaurant in the Marmalade neighborhood with a global pantry, a whole-animal butchery program, and a menu that changes with the season. It’s tucked into a neighborhood rather than in the heart of downtown,which is exactly what makes it worth seeking out.
Eva's Bakery
A French-trained bakery downtown, run by chef-owner Charlie Perry in honor of his great-grandmother Eva, who cooked with equal parts love and butter. Super cute.
Mira Mira
The newest reason to spend a morning in the Marmalade District: a Caribbean-inflected coffee shop that opened in June 2026 inside the former Blue Copper 2000 space, brought to life in collaboration with the Blue Copper team. The room got a full refresh—green subway tile, midcentury seating, plants everywhere—and the menu leans into Puerto Rican empanadas, breakfast sandwiches, and pastries alongside the excellent Blue Copper espresso program. It honestly wouldn't be out of place in Williamsburg or any other trendy coffeeshop with performative men in Brooklyn.
Caputo's Market & Deli
An institution. Tony Caputo's family-run market is one of the best specialty food shops in the Mountain West—expect cheese caves and a serious craft chocolate program.
Where to Play
The Cliff Spa at Snowbird
Located on the top floors of The Cliff Lodge in Little Cottonwood Canyon, this is not a hotel spa masquerading as something more. It's a legitimate mountain sanctuary—granite peaks through the windows, a rooftop pool, and treatments calibrated for people who've been outside and need to decompress. (Which is everyone.) The drive up the canyon alone is reason enough to leave the city for a few hours.
Hiking the Foothills & Canyons
The Avenues Ridge Trail is the easiest entry point: a 3.3-mile loop above the Avenues neighborhood with about 500 feet of gain and an unobstructed view of the valley below. A short, peaceful morning reset before breakfast, and the kind of hike you can do in trail runners before 9am. If you have more time and appetite, Little Cottonwood Canyon and Big Cottonwood Canyon both have trails worth an afternoon—the drive alone, with the Wasatch closing in on either side, does something to you. For a proper summit, the Frary Peak Trail on Antelope Island (more on that below) is the one people remember.
Antelope Island State Park
About 45 minutes north of downtown, connected to the mainland by a seven-mile causeway that deposits you onto one of the stranger, more beautiful landscapes in the American West. The island sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake, ringed by salt pans and pale blue water, and it is home to somewhere between 550 and 700 free-roaming bison—a fact that seems impossible until one of them is standing twenty feet from your car on the main road and you realize you are not in the city anymore. Hike Buffalo Point for an easy half-mile with panoramic lake views, or go long on the Frary Peak Trail—a 6.9-mile out-and-back to the island's highest point, with the Wasatch range visible in one direction and the Great Salt Lake spreading flat in every other. Spring and fall are the best seasons; summer brings brine flies near the shore, which is context worth having before you pack sandals.
Great Salt Lake State Park
Yes, you can actually go into the Great Salt Lake. Floating in it is one of those experiences that sounds weird until you're actually on your back in the water, effortlessly buoyant, staring at the Wasatch range with no effort required. Southwest Adventure Tours runs small-group excursions that combine the float with ecology education, short trail walks, and kayak options. It’s not the Dead Sea, but it’s pretty damn close if you put your mind to it.
Red Butte Garden
One of the largest botanical gardens in the Intermountain West, situated on the University of Utah campus with close to 600,000 springtime blooming bulbs, 2,000 trees, and mountain views that puts every other botanical garden to shame. I’m not even a flowers type of guy but this place was pretty cool. The outdoor summer concert series is an institution. It’s worth a morning, especially between May and July.
Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
