83 Best Restaurants in Connecticut, USA

This place has been a rival of Frank Pepe's since 1938, when Salvatore Consiglio, Pepe's nephew, decided to break away from his relatives and open his own place. The result of this family feud is two competing pizzerias and a divided city: those who believe Frank Pepe's serves the best pizza and those who are devoted to Sally's.

Packed every night, Salute is the downtown spot for consistently delicious Italian fare and pleasant service. The kitchen serves up grilled steaks, seafood, and a long list of pasta dishes—try the chicken gnocchi with pesto cream, perfectly executed shrimp piccata, or classic ragu Bolognese—and traditional Italian desserts like tiramisu and gelato.

Share small plates, have a pub-style sandwich, or enjoy a full entrée at this iconic neighborhood tavern—there's something on the menu that will appeal to everyone; the Friday Night Prime Rib Special is a big draw. There's also a great selection of local craft beer and cider and a full wine list.

If the name "Sherkaan" sounds familiar from The Jungle Book, the food at this Indian eatery may be less so as the owners have mostly steered clear of the usual office lunch food orders. Instead, they've created what they call bindaas—roughly translated as "the coolest"—which are apps, small plates, and shareables like salmon, chicken, and lamb kebabs that emerge from the tandoor, with larger plates of chicken biryani, curries, and more. Appetizers, or chaat, include filled puri shells and samosas, with street eats, like dosas, noodles, and the "chaat dog," made with veggie kebab, cucumber, pomegranate seeds, and chili garlic chutney on a bun. The bindaas carries over into the atmosphere, which is immediately apparent when you enter an Indian street scene of bicycles, a streetcar, and doors hundreds of years old flanking the room.

Located on the ground floor of The Whaler's Inn, Shipwright's Daughter immediately rose to statewide recognition for delicious, tremendously creative fare sourced from local farms and the crisp, clear waters where eastern Long Island Sound meets the Atlantic Ocean. Expect daily specials where the catch of the day was actually just caught, plus pasta, imaginative meat and vegetable dishes, and breakfast daily. Chef David Standridge was recently named Best Chef in the northeast by the prestigious James Beard Awards, so reservations are recommended, although drop-ins may often find comfortable seats at the bar.

Pastry chef Adam Young credits a stay in New Orleans for his love of baking sweets, and national attention and awards have followed him to his Connecticut bake shops. Breads, macaroons, pastries, and cookies are displayed in a galaxy of texture and color, along with coffee from local New Harvest Roasters and tea from Harney & Sons.

The newest creation of local chef and restaurateur John Bourdeau is manned by another local chef, Mike Sorenson, who produces globally inspired dishes for an ever-changing, seasonal menu. Expect dishes like potstickers or caviar grilled cheese, outstanding smashburgers, and in-house baked bread. The indoor-outdoor space will suit diners for all seasons.

The theme for this neighborhood favorite is horse, of course; the atmosphere reflects the historic building (circa 1808), and the menu offers old-fashioned comfort foods with modern flourishes. The grilled pork chop has a whole-grain mustard glaze, chicken Milanese includes a side of lemon yogurt sauce, steak frites comes with Parmesan fries—and items on the Pony Menu will delight the kids.

The menu at this art deco–style diner, alive with bright colors and shiny chrome, runs the gamut from griddle cakes to smoked salmon Benedict at breakfast, classic sandwiches to Greek specialties at lunch, chicken in a basket to rib-eye steak at dinner—or anything you'd like at any time of day or night. If that's not enough, the diner hosts occasional musical, comedy, and kids' events.

Stop in to try one of dozens of cupcake flavors or one of the special flavors featured each month—or you may like a cookie or a whole cake. With flavors like cannoli, cookie dough, and Boston Cream cupcakes, you're bound to find one (or more) to fuel your sugar high.

Heading north from Fairfield County toward the Litchfield Hills along rural Route 53, definitely stop at the Sycamore Drive-In in Bethel for a burger, fries, milk shake, and authentic 1950s atmosphere. During the summer, Saturday "Cruise Nights" (5--8 pm) see classic cars and "hot rods" fill the parking lot (more parking across the street) and rock 'n' roll music fills the air.

One of several area restaurants operated by the Marchetti-Tarantino family over the past four decades, Maria Marchetti still makes all of the restaurant's homemade pasta and ravioli. You'll also find traditional Italian fish (il pesce), meat (la carne), and poultry (il pollo) dishes on the menu, along with a full roster of antipasti.

Tavern on State won chef Emily Mingrone the 2021 Connecticut Restaurant Association Chef of the Year, and this little spot just outside of downtown hasn't stopped wowing everyone who takes a seat. Burgers are outstanding, and sourced from the chef's nearby butcher shop, Provisions on State, but the menu also features globe-spanning influences applied to seasonally available ingredients like grilled octopus with chili butter or roasted bone marrow with sourdough bread. The offerings are ever changing, but the quality is not. Chef Mingrone's other restaurant, Fair Haven Oyster Co., in New Haven's eastern Fair Haven section, is also well worth a visit.

Upbeat, hip, and casual, Trumbull Kitchen is the place to see and be seen. A loft-style dining area with leather-clad walls overlooks the action below where an eclectic menu features selections like seared Point Judith scallops, pan-seared salmon, brick-pressed chicken, and truffled onion burger, or a "stone pie" (pizza).

Stop by the UConn Dairy Bar in the UConn Department of Animal Science Creamery for the most delicious ice cream you've ever tasted. Students produce the 24 regular, two seasonal, and occasional limited-edition flavors. To see the ice cream--making process from start to finish, begin at the barn at the Kellogg Dairy Center on Horsebarn Hill: mingle with the cows and watch them being milked (1--4 pm), then walk to the manufacturing plant where more than 50,000 gallons of ice cream are produced each year. You don't have to start at the barn, though; there's an observation window in the Dairy Bar where you can see the delicious treat being made.

Whether you come for the pasta (pappardelle, fettuccini, tagliolini, gnocchi) or the secondi (scalloppine, scampi, pollo, vitello), diners here enjoy authentic Italian cuisine in a setting where you can actually have a conversation. You can also opt for a brick-oven pizza—with usual or unusual toppings—too.

Beloved among visitors and locals alike, this storefront eatery in a redbrick town house serves tasty, unfussy food—inexpensive pub grub in one room, updated contemporary American cuisine in the other. Whether you order a cheeseburger or horseradish-and-Parmesan-crusted salmon, you're bound to be pleased.

This sophisticated dining room on the town green is the place to see and be seen. Dinner selections might include free-range chicken with potato purée, braised short ribs with Cabernet demi-glace, or Scottish grilled salmon with ratatouille.

Within the Terrain garden store, you'll find a bright, cheery café that offers exquisitely prepared dishes using locally sourced organic produce so fresh you'll want to become a gardener yourself. Enjoy brunch all afternoon; dinner entrées like line-caught Atlantic halibut with barley risotto or the duck breast with braised endive come with a delicious (and, frankly, adorable) terracotta pot of baked bread.

This upscale seafood restaurant serves straight-from-the-sea clams, oysters, and fish inventively prepared and exquisitely presented. The clean lines of the dining room give the nearly always crowded restaurant a maritime feel that perfectly complements the food. No reservation? See about seats at the bar or chef's table.

In a sexy, dimly lighted storefront space looking toward the New Haven Town Green, ZINC turns heads with its artfully prepared and globally inspired farm-to-table cooking. Menu items include typical American standbys (NY strip steak, grilled yellowfin tuna, pork chop) modernized by adding an Asian influence (in dishes like Saigon lettuce wraps and steamed pork dumplings).

Zohara is most quickly described as Mediterranean comfort food in an upscale setting. Large plates like seafood tagine and lemon za'atar--roasted chicken are available, but most guests choose to share several small plates of food inspired by every culture along the eastern Mediterranean shore, much of it grown at nearby Sub Edge Farm in, appropriately, Farmington. Crowds begin arriving during happy hour for inexpensive drinks and bites of salatim spreads, but Zohara is open from lunch through dinner.