Food: Waiter! >>

• Best New Restaurant
  1924 Main
  1924 Main's chef-owner Rob Dalzell tries not to say "I told you so" to the naysayers who predicted that Kansas City diners wouldn't catch on to his idea of serving (during lunch and dinner) a reasonably priced prix fixe menu with a limited but inspired choice of dishes. "I heard a lot of... More >>
• Best Place for Late-Night Dining
  Nichols Lunch
  Three in the morning: that magic time-between-times when the spirits of mirth transform into the devils of overindulgence and you have to find some pancakes, chicken-fried steak or a cheeseburger to soak up all that liquor, fast. While a mad line is forming inside the door at Chubby's, head... More >>
• Best Bakery
  The Pastry Goddess
  It's nearly impossible to find local bake shops that still do everything from scratch, but Kathy and Doug Huddleston are sticklers for making things the old-fashioned way. That includes hand-rolling the dough for their flaky Danish pastries (seriously, they're the best in town) and actually... More >>
• Best Breakfast
  Succotash
  Thank God that sweet little Succotash finally expanded its mismatched tables and chairs into the space next-door. Beth Barden runs this River Market "brunchonette," and her cute waiters and waitresses (whom you probably saw the night before at an art show, in a burlesque troupe or in a band)... More >>
• Best Power Breakfast
  Cascone's Grill
  We love Cascone's for the basics: two eggs over-medium, bacon, hash browns, toasted Italian bread with loads of butter, a couple of pancakes on the side, orange juice and coffee. That's just a standard Saturday morning for us -- and half the rest of the city. But on weekday mornings, plenty of... More >>
• Best Power Lunch
  The Capital Grille
  The centrally located Plaza has always attracted the local power brokers for deal-making lunches, but for years the favored venue for that wheeling and dealing was the inexpensive Pam-Pam Room coffee shop in the old Alameda Hotel. After the Pam-Pam Room vanished in 1993, bigwigs didn't have a... More >>
• Best Hangover Brunch
  Soul Food Sundays at The Brick
  Mornings suck. Especially mornings that involve waking up to a pounding headache and a wool sock for a tongue. Fortunately, the beverage professionals at the Brick know that fried food and more alcohol can be a fantastic hangover remedy, so fish out those crinkled bills from last night's front... More >>
• Best Place to Eat Alone
  Joe's Pizza Buy The Slice
  We often imagine ourselves as the fellow Eric Heatherly sang about in his hit "Flowers on the Wall." Now, we've never smoked cigarettes while watching Captain Kangaroo or played solitaire until dawn with a deck of 51. But we often eat alone, and most times we find ourselves at Joe's Pizza,... More >>
• Best All-You- Can-Eat Buffet (1 Comment)
  Peachtree Buffet
  The concept of an all-you-can-eat buffet is sometimes more exciting than the reality. It's wonderful to have dozens of choices on some of the more elaborately laden buffets in town, but sometimes the tables piled with rubbery crab legs, overcooked prime rib, salty enchiladas, gloppy Chinese fare... More >>
• Best Restaurant When Someone Else Pays
  Benton's Steak & Chop House
  When someone generously offers to spring for dinner in an upscale restaurant, most people immediately think of going to the Plaza (positively saturated with dining possibilities) or more iconic local choices such as the Savoy Grill or the American. The 20-year-old Benton's Steak & Chop House... More >>
• Best Cheap Italian Restaurant
  Bugatti's Ristorante & Cafe
  Bugatti's isn't non costoso in the same way that the Olive Garden restaurants or a neighborhood pasta joint like Villa Capri is easy on the wallet. But because Bugatti's is located in one of Kansas City's busiest casinos, it manages to be both elegant and cost-effective. Think about it: Your... More >>
• Best Cheap Chinese Restaurant
  Kin Lin
  Before there were Chinese all-you-can-eat buffets popping up in every other suburban shopping center, there were the iconic neighborhood chop-suey joints, famous for big portions of inexpensive Chinese-American fare. The closest thing Kansas City has to those no-frills Chinese neighborhood... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant (1 Comment)
  Ortega's Mini-Mart
  It's not easy to find this out-of-the-way little mercado and café on the city's West Side and there are loyal fans who don't want you to find it. You see, it's not terribly big, and it has become the secret "in" place for hipsters in the art and culinary communities, who like to hog the... More >>
• Best Thai Restaurant
  Arun Thai Place Grill
  Ted Liberda, the chef-owner of the stylish Arun Thai Place Grill, practically grew up with a sauté pan in one hand and a fistful of fresh cilantro in the other. His mother, the ambitious restaurateur Ann Liberda, insisted that all of her children know their way around the kitchen of her... More >>
• Best Sushi
  Sushi House
  Our mom told us not to scrimp on shoes or handbags, and we'd like to add something else to that list: sushi. We've learned our lesson the hard way with all-you-can-eat sushi dens. But Sushi House, a Zen-like oasis in the middle of Town Center Plaza, has the freshest, most delicate sushi we've... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Restaurant
  Blue Bird Bistro
  An exclusively vegetarian restaurant in meat-loving Kansas City is a tough business proposition -- non-meat eaters love the idea, but often their dining companions don't. So when Bluebird Bistro owner Jane Zieha-Bell purchased the restaurant formerly known as the Bluebird Café nearly five... More >>
• Best Small Plates
  La Bodega
  In the Spanish culture, tapas are small, sample-sized plates that generally serve three purposes: to stave hunger, to prime the appetite for more food and to provide a reason for people to gather and socialize without overstuffing. At La Bodega, the small plates blend such unique flavors that... More >>
• Best Big Plates
  Jerry's Woodswether on Ninth
  Never let it be said that Jerry Naster is stingy with his portions. "That's what I do," says Naster, who has run the Woodswether for ten years. "Why else would you come down here?" That's the West Bottoms he's talking about -- the Woodswether recently moved a few blocks away from its former... More >>
• Best Romantic Dinner
  Poco's Latin American Grille
  Most people think that to share a really memorable dinner with a date, the destination should be flashy, well-known, decked out and require a reservation weeks in advance. You know what? That's whack. As far as we're concerned, crowded and romantic are mutually exclusive. With its sloped... More >>
• Best Wine Selection
  Starker's Reserve
  The Starker's wine list is 59 pages long. That's approximately 1,665 varieties of wine in a cellar stock of more than 12,000 bottles. But it's the quality that makes the selection remarkable. Starker's has earned Wine Spectator's annual Grand Award since 1992, a designation signaling an... More >>
• Best Desserts
  M&S Grill
  Finally, a local chef had an epiphany and decided that, because every other restaurant in the city was offering cr¸me brélée, tiramisu, bread pudding and mango sorbet on its dessert trays, it might be time to try something new. Happily for Kansas City, the enterprising Nathan Holm,... More >>
• Best Waiter
  Darren Manson
  A good waiter needs to have the patience of a saint, the consoling manner of a priest, the flirtatious charm of a roue, the juggling skills of a clown, the wisdom of a scholar and, most important, the subtle suggestiveness of a salesman. After all, the higher the final tab, ideally, the more... More >>
• Best Waitress
  Heather Price
  A really terrific server typically has lots of call customers -- patrons who make reservations requesting to be seated in her station -- but you don't often see diners also giving their chosen waitress a standing ovation. At Bar Natasha, though, the effervescent Heather Price gets tips and... More >>
• Best Rising Chef
  Jeff Scott
  Jeff Scott's career trajectory -- from a teenage line cook at a little café in Excelsior Springs to the Culinary Institute of America and on to the kitchen of one of New York's biggest celebrity chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, at his namesake restaurant -- is one example of his drive... More >>
• Best Chef
  Colby Garrelts
  This has been a very good year for 31-year-old Colby Garrelts. Food & Wine Magazine named him one of the country's "Ten Best New Chefs," which not only provided national exposure for the culinary school dropout but also kept his Westport restaurant packed every night of the week. Garrelts owns... More >>