Food >>

• Best Bakery
  Artisan Francais
  One of the unexpected delights about this attractive little suburban patisserie is that the owners, the youthful husband-and-wife team Sebastiene and Brianna Saint-Ouen, are just as pretty as the delicate mousse tarts, feather-light madeleines and crispy éclairs in the display case. And visuals... More >>
• Best Reason to Drink Your Milk (2 Comments)
  Shatto Milk Company
  We first noticed Shatto milk in area grocery stores because of its packaging -- chunky glass bottles evocative of an era that we never experienced, a time when milkmen made home deliveries and lactose-intolerant wasn't in anyone's vocabulary. Upon learning that the milk comes from a farm about... More >>
• Best Breakfast
  The Classic Cookie
  On Saturdays and Sundays, there's invariably a crowd waiting and hoping to snag a table -- any table -- in the 30-seat dining room where owner Leslie Stockard and her kitchen crew serve terrific breakfasts. Some loyal customers eat here several times a week. The regulars include artist Jim... More >>
• Best Really Cheap Breakfast
  Winstead's
  Kansas City's best-known hamburger hamlet has been grilling up its distinctive steakburgers in this former drive-in location since 1940. But breakfast -- served every day from 6:30 to 10:30 a.m. -- has never gotten the respect it deserves, probably because discussion has focused only on the... More >>
• Best Mexican Breakfast
  Tienda Casa Paloma
  The breakfast menu at Tienda Casa Paloma lists at least seven items, but every time we visit this cheery Mexican restaurant, it comes down to this: Will it be the huevos rancheros or the chorizo and eggs? The huevos (tortillas with over-medium eggs plopped on top) have everything we want from... More >>
• Best Hangover Breakfast
  Re:Verse
  Luckily for those who tend to sweat what they drink, Re:Verse serves a cure every Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to2 p.m. One of the best breakfasts in the city has all the essentials: crisp bacon, fluffy biscuits, roasted potatoes, scrambled eggs, perfectly frothed cappuccino and cold... More >>
• Best Sunday Brunch (1 Comment)
  Benton's Steak & Chop House
  It's getting harder and harder to find a truly elegant brunch. Putting on an elaborate buffet can be costly to restaurant owners, and too few restaurants set out buffets with more attention to quality than quantity. Benton's, on top of the Westin Crown Center Hotel, is the exception to this... More >>
• Best Cupcakes
  The Mixx
  Like everyone else, we go to the Mixx mainly for its fabulous create-your-own salads. We were thrilled when Jo Marie Scaglia opened this healthy-eating emporium just south of the Plaza in December. We know we're not alone -- it's packed with greens eaters every time we go (which is often). But... More >>
• Best Reuben
  Woodswether Café
  If you really, really crave a tasty Reuben, your reward will require some effort. First you must navigate the West Bottoms, home to some of the city's most confusing streets, to find the almost-hidden Woodswether Café, a restaurant that we usually find only when we're not looking for it. (Here's... More >>
• Best Barbecue (9 Comments)
  Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue
  Yes, Kansas City has older barbecue joints (the 72-year-old Rosedale Barbecue) and more iconic restaurants (Arthur Bryant's and Gates, which are low on frills but high on taste and succulent meats). But every so often, we crave glamour. At his namesake restaurant in the Crossroads, Jack Fiorella... More >>
• Best Burger
  Hereford House Zona Rosa
  If you want a real steakburger, it only makes sense to go straight to a steakhouse. All four of restaurateur Rod Anderson's Hereford House restaurants serve a juicy 8-ounce burger made from trimmings of the filets, strips and top sirloin hand-cut every day in each location's kitchen. "This is... More >>
• Best French Fries (1 Comment)
  Oklahoma Joe's BBQ
  Whether we're leaving stragglers at the bottom of a Burger King bag or just not lovin' the heat-lamp scorched strips from McDonald's, we never finish our fries. Except when we're at Oklahoma Joe's. There, $1.95 buys us a fat bag overflowing with fries fresh from the fryer (no heat lamp),... More >>
• Best Soup
  French Onion Soup at Café Provence
  Too many Midwestern restaurants serve a sorry excuse for the classic potage français d'oignon: watery, flavorless and usually blanketed with stringy mozzarella or provolone cheese. At Café Provence, French-born Patrick Quillec insists on preparing his soup in the proper manner. He caramelizes... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Meal
  Massaman Tofu at Thai Orchid
  If strip malls have given us anything, it's international cuisine. A lifetime confined to eating at ethnic restaurants that share parking lots with nail salons would be a life spent pretty well. Thai Orchid is a friendly and simply decorated strip-mall tenant that takes care of its vegetarian... More >>
• Best Really Cheap Buffet (1 Comment)
  Marrakesh Café
  Sometimes it seems easier to travel to Morocco than to explain the directions to this storefront restaurant that's almost lost in a far-off corner of Rosana Square. But once diners find their bearings, they'll find buffet tables kept full of delicious delicacies: curry chicken, tender lamb,... More >>
• Best Dinner Deal
  Figlio Restaurant
  Sometimes, going out to a restaurant isn't a luxury -- it's a way of preserving one's sanity. Great comfort comes from being coddled by a caring server, having dinner brought out to you hot and ready to eat, and then enjoying the mandatory dessert. Every Sunday through Thursday, Figlio offers... More >>
• Best Place to Eat Alone
  Café Rumi
  Eating alone in a restaurant can be a hit-or-miss venture. Servers don't alwayswelcome single diners; a single customer typically rings up a small check, which translates into a scrawny tip. Too often, when we're eating alone, we find ourselves contending with half-disguised scowls from our... More >>
• Best Pizza (2 Comments)
  Pizza 51
  Pizza 51 serves slices so big, they come on trays, not plates, proving that just one piece of pizza can be a meal. Housed in an old filling station ringed by pink neon lights, the shop plays on a Route 66 theme, with a mural of license plates from each state that forms a map of the country. The... More >>
• Best Fish and Chips
  75th Street Brewery
  We know that the United Kingdom isn't loved for its cuisine. It is, after all, the region responsible for haggis and spotted dick. But the UK does get one dish right: A good plate of fish and chips comprises light, crisp, plump filets (preferably cod) served atop perfectly seasoned fries, with... More >>
• Best Sushi (2 Comments)
  Jun's
  Things that a sushi joint doesn't need: bumping club music, expensive cocktails with pseudo-Japanese names, spiky-haired waiters with attitudes, 30-minute waits for a table. Things that a sushi joint must have: a pretty interior, white rice that's neither too sticky nor too moist, rolls in... More >>
• Best Crab Legs
  Jumpin' Catfish
  The act of devouring crab legs can hardly be called romantic or relaxing. It's far too messy and too much work. With so much cracking, pulling and twisting involved, that sweet crabmeat had better be good. Which is why we look to Jumpin' Catfish when it comes to crabs. Thursdays and Sundays are... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Restaurant
  Vietnam Café
  If the Vietnam Café's nondescript brick building looks like an old roadhouse, that's because it was a raucous saloon for many years before owner Brian Lam lightened up the interior and put Saigon souvenir-shop dolls on the bar shelves. The long bar is now used primarily for carry-out orders; the... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant (5 Comments)
  Bollywood Indian Bistro
  Restaurants all over the metro serve Indian and Pakistani cuisine, but none do so with more dazzle than the Bollywood Indian Bistro. Located in a new shopping center in Independence, this unusual restaurant combines the taste of Northern India with strong musical and visual components. A large... More >>
• Best Italian Restaurant
  Jasper's Restaurant
  Back in 1954, an ambitious young Jasper Mirabile, the son of Sicilian-born immigrants, risked his savings to buy a little neighborhood restaurant and bar in Waldo. For the first decade, he and his wife, Josephine, served traditional Italian-American dishes, but in 1965 Mirabile took an even... More >>
• Best Chinese Restaurant
  Jen Jen's
  If you don't give a damn about aesthetics but crave authentic Chinese fare, Jen Jen's will be an epiphany. Located in a dreary building just south of the T.J. Maxx parking lot at 91st Street and Metcalf, Jen Jen's has a décor best described as utilitarian. Some tables are draped with flimsy... More >>
• Best Mexican Food (5 Comments)
  Tarahumara Mexican Restaurant
  For a real treat, ask Fred and Meza Garcia about the tongue-twisting name of their year-old restaurant. Tarahumara isn't just lyrical -- it's historical. The Tarahumara is one of Mexico's largest indigenous groups, a formerly nomadic people who speak Ramamuri, a dialect related to the ancient... More >>
• Best Steak
  Morton's
  The Steakhouse
  We didn't say the best steak would be a bargain, did we? At the very expensive Morton's, the art of enjoying a succulent, well-aged steak might require a second mortgage. OK, maybe that's hyperbole, but giving our highest honors to Morton's mouthwatering 14-ounce double-cut filet mignon most... More >>
• Best Cheap Steak (3 Comments)
  Dan's Longbranch Steakhouse
  Servers at Dan's Longbranch Steakhouse wear T-shirts that announce "The customer is always wrong." In addition to showing a little attitude, the shirts make a sort of promise that diners won't have reason to complain -- at least not about price or serving size. The Longbranch offers a number of... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant, North (1 Comment)
  Hayes Hamburgers & Chili
  Hayes Hamburgers won't ever have a drive-through because it operates on a throwback idea: A great cheap-eats joint can also be a community hangout. Since 1955, the mobile-home-sized diner has served breakfast and burgers 24 hours a day, without the hurry-up mentality. Cook James Hyde, who has... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant, South (1 Comment)
  T.J.'s Café<
  Go ahead and ask any of the briskly efficient waitresses at T.J.'s just how long this funky-looking, low-slung diner has been a fixture in beautiful downtown Grandview. After a good pause, the answer is always the same: "A long time." For more than two decades (by most accounts), this homey... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant, East (4 Comments)
  Big Biscuit
  Taking his cue from Field of Dreams, Dan Gerson decided that if he could bake the perfect biscuit, people would come to his roadhouse-style diner. And they do, arriving from all over the metro to fill up on inexpensive but hefty platters of country classics. Here, diners can order their eggs... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant, West
  K.T. Fryers
  Stroud's may be the city's most famous chicken shack, but we know of a few neighborhood joints that do a damn good job giving customers the bird as well. Specifically, we're thinking of the 15-year-old K.T. Fryers, which operates out of a space in a Lenexa shopping strip. Because the bird is... More >>
• Best New Restaurant (3 Comments)
  Cassis
  Foie gras may be a dirty word in Chicago, where the goose-liver delicacy has recently been banned, but in Overland Park it's still legal at the lively and attractive new Cassis. French-born restaurateur Patrick Quillec is a gambler, having opened and closed a handful of cafés in the past few... More >>
• Best Desserts (1 Comment)
  Pangea Café & Market
  The husband-and-wife team of Martin and Wendy Rudderforth wanted their particular culinary concept -- modestly priced interpretations of international dishes -- to be no-frills, casual-dining fare, but chef Wendy's selection of seductive desserts is surprisingly elegant. In fact, her seven daily... More >>