Dining in Yellowstone
 

If you could only have one "fine dining" experience in Yellowstone National Park, where would you go?

(We are already planning on the chuckwagon dinner, not that that qualifies as fine dining)

Jayne, I hate to sound like the sour apple, but my answer to your question is "some place else." Fine dining in Yellowstone is an oxymoron.
If you must, the dining room at Old Faithful Inn and the dining room at the Lake Hotel are tolerable, even good upon occasion. You will need reservations for those two places. If you want a prime seating time, you will need to reserve several days in advance.

I think the best meal I had in Yellowstone was a "fancy" sandwich I picked up in West Yellowstone and enjoyed under the stars waiting for Grand Geyser to erupt. Amazing how the moon and a classic geyser can improve life.

The Executive Inn in West Yellowstone does not really qualify as "fine" but it was acceptable a couple of summers ago.

Jackson is a little far down the road for dinner.

I'll agree. There is no such thing as "fine dining" in Yellowstone. We had a decent dinner at the Lake Lodge. But overall the nice atmosphere of Old Faithful Lodge covers the mediocre food the best and would probably come the closest to being a "memorable meal" if there is such a thing at Yellowstone.

I was afraid I was going to get that kind of response regarding park food... but after reading Bob's post, I will definitely have to check out the moon/geyser magic! ;)

Since we are staying the first three nights at Old Faithful, I guess we'll have one "special" meal there.

Are there any other good places for lunch or lite meals in the park? Is West Yellowstone close enough to Old Faithful to drive in for a meal?

We are staying at Mammoth the last two nights and I'm wondering if there are any good places to check out in Gardiner.

Thanks for your input!

There are a few dining options in West Yellowstone. For some unique menu options, try Bullwinkles. http://www.wyellowstone.com/bullwinkles/dinnermenu.htm
It's not fine dining, but probably one of the better options in town.

Thanks hugglyn-- Bullwinkles looks pretty good,and entertaining, too.

Jayne
We thought our dinner's at Lake Yellowstone Lodge and Old Faithful Inn were both good. We really enjoyed the chuckwagon dinner! We found the cafe food for lunch to be expensive. If I had it to do over I would bring my own fruit and peanut butter and bread! :-)

The first requirement is a near full moon. The second requirement is a geyser that will cooperate. The visitor center near Old Faithful has a list of predicted eruption times, usually given in 2 or 4 hour windows of time. Nothing of course is 100% sure when it comes to predicting geysers.
The most spectacular of the listed geysers are Castle and Grand.
Riverside is pretty because it is on the Firehole River and the sitting area is nestled in a grove of lodgepole pines.

If the night is clear, and the moon is right, Grand is quite a spectacle.

If you are interested in dining in Yellowstone, you should make your reservation today 1/26. I am staying in the park in the middle of july and today is the first day that they will take summer reservations for dining and other inpark activities. I could not get my first choice on one of the dates for the time I wanted.

melissa

i just came back from a trip to yellowstone a couple of weeks ago and i have to say that there are decent places to eat. one was the dining room across from mammoth hotel. i wasn't expecting much but overpriced cafeteria food and the food really surprised me as being very good and not overpriced. the other good place we liked was in gardiner called the yellowstone mine. if you venture out a half hour north to chico hot springs, there's a really fancy restaurant there at the hotel (we didn't go but it did look nice).

have a great time!

I have to say that we had a very memorable dinner at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel Dining Room. The Lake Lodge is several hundred yards to the east and is more of a fast food - hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. kind of place. The food was probably, just okay, but I still remember savoring every sip of the after dinner B&B's that we ordered. Compared to most of the cafeteria type food service in the park, considering the ambience, this was as close to "fine dining" as you're going to get.
JoeG

Opp's! After reading Joe's post I realize I meant the Lake Yellowstone Hotel dining room not the Lodge as being good!

JoeG -- Was the view at the Lake Inn really nice? I made reservations here and it looks so fancy... Is it a comfortable place to enjoy a meal? We are a pretty informal bunch but appreciate a nice meal.

Hi Jayne
Not Joe, but I can answer. You cannot see the lake from the dining room as there are pine trees blocking your view. The dress is casual but there were four of us and we all really enjoyed what we ordered. We started with wine and some of the best crab cakes the four of us have ever had.

Another vote for the Lake Yellowstone Hotel dining room. The food was decent and the atmosphere is quite nice--feels somewhat "Southern/Old World".

The dining room at Roosevelt (NE corner of YNP) has pretty good food. It's the smallest location in the park, and therefore, the smallest kitchen so they do a better job than the busier locations.

I keep hearing about those great Roosevelt ribs and beans!

Alas... just found out the chuckwagon dinners won't start up until after we leave, so since we are at Mammoth on the last night, any other suggestions for a special last night in the park? It doesn't have to be extravagent... maybe a special site to visit or just some horseback riding... I am open to the possibilities.