bleicher

Please tell me your favorite 3 restaurants in Banff. I am interested in both fun/casual/reasonable dining as well as more upscale/elegant/gourmet (with good wines!).

GailLK

I haven't been to Banff yet, going in August but I booked a reservation with the Maple Leaf Grille and Coyotes Deli.
I researched a little bit and these kept coming up as good places to dine so we thought we give them a try.

taggie

A search on this forum turned up the following recents threads discussing restaurants:

http://www.fodors.com/forums_reg/thr...ect.jsp?fid=29

http://www.fodors.com/forums_reg/thr...ect.jsp?fid=29

http://www.fodors.com/forums_reg/thr...ect.jsp?fid=29

deborahk

We ate at the Coyote Grill about a week ago and it was very good. I'd also recommend you make a trip to the Baker Creek Bistro along the Bowriver Parkway on the way to Lake Louise. It was delicious and a great drive in the evening to see the wildlife.

Borealis

There is a large choice of places to eat in the Banff-Canmore-Lake Louise corridor, so your biggest problem will be deciding where!!

Our personal favourites include Coyote Grill for lunch or a casual dinner (tasty nicely presented food and good coffee), Post Hotel for very fine dining or a special occasion (excellent food and an impressive wine list), Buffalo Mountain Lodge for fine dining (good food and charming ambience), and Melissa's for an inexpensive breakfast.

Other eateries to consider are Grizzly House (fondues - nice in cold weather), Lake Louise Station (food is good and the location right next to the railroad tracks is unique), and Baker Creek Bistro (service and food very good, nice relaxing location).

Have heard very good things about Saltlik but haven't been there myself.

Had a bad experience at Maple Leaf Grill (poor service and indifferent food).

Hope that this helps.

Dick

We ate at the Maple Leaf Grill a few weeks ago and loved it!

The food was excellent and the service was very professional and attentive.

If you are into wine, they have a great wine list. Wine Specator just rated them highly.

PVB

We also dined at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge. The food was delicious and we liked the Canadian wine we had so much that we bought several bottles and lugged them back to Florida! We dropped in at the Saltlik without reservations. It was quite busy but they seated us right away. The service was good and so was the food. It was more of an upscale steak house, whereas Buffalo Mountain served some exotic game dishes. If you are after a romantic splurge (and I do mean splurge), the Eden Room at the Rimrock Hotel is divine. Multi courses with (at an extra charge) wine to go with...truly a dining experience.

TracyB

Was just in Banff the other day and ate at a restaurant called Typhoon...It was really good, concentrating on Asian food..The decor is very nice and the food was great...Curries, naan, soups, Chai, all sorts of beers and wines...Not your typical Asian restaurant...More upscale....

MF

Another fabulous restaurant to splurge is the Banffshire Club in the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. We spent our last dinner in Banff last March and IMO it was splendid. We had the tasting menu with matching wines and will go there again on our next trip.

deborahmcginnis

We were in Banff last year and enjoyed a fine dinner at Buffalo Mtn Lodge - not cheap, but very good and excellent service. We ate twice at the (can't remember the exact name of the place) Guinness Pub-type place downtown. We had the shepherds pie and the fish & chips and of course, the Guinness - very good food & great prices.

Engaged

If you want way upscale, the Grizzly House (the "Grizz&quot is an amazing restaurant. It is a hot rock/fondue house with an amazing selection; the owners Peter and Ellen are great people as well. Pricey, but a one-of-a-kind experience.

MonaManuel

I haven't been to Banff in about 8 years (but my heart never left). I've heard there are many new restaurants since I left, but I'm some of my favourties are still around.

We always enjoyed dinner at Earl's, which falls into your fun/casual/reasonable category. It is an inexpensive restaurant where families were as confortable as the hordes twentysomethings that populate the town of Banff in the summer.

Back in the day, our fave dish was the Kung-Pao, but Earl's served up everything from pasta and pizza to Asian fusion to seafood. They also had a great parmesan dip and Mondays were Margarita Mondays at Earl's.

To get hired at Earl's you had to be young, hip and have personality to spare. I think we had crushes on all the waiters and waitresses and their fabulous attitudes always contributed to our good times there.

Earl's is part of a chain of restaurants out west. We visited other outlets in Lake Louise, Calgary and Vancouver, but none ever topped the atmosphere at Earl's in Banff.

A very romantic spot, if it is still there is a restaurant called Cilantro, which was located on Tunnel Mountain, either near the campsite or the Banff Centre (sorry, my memory is a little foggy).

The restaurant was an intimate and well-appointed log cabin that could seat about 20 patrons. My last night in Banff ever (I spent three summers working in the town) was spent at Cilantro and although I have no memory of what I ate, the restaurant made such a wondeful and warm impression on me that I had planned to return last year and throw myself a romantic mountain-top wedding there (alas! that didn't happen).

Cilantro was quieter than other restaurants in Banff, seeing as how we dined on top of a mountain and not in the busy town centre.

I concur with what the other posters said about Coyotes and the Grizzly House. Evelyn's Cafe served the most wonderful bread (try a turkey sandwich with cranberry's on her oat bread) and great coffee, but that's more of a breakfast or lunch-on-the-go spot.

As for the other restaurants mentioned, I think they're all newer additions so I can't comment.