Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City has a growing culinary scene but no real staples. You can find good food in a lot of cuisines (Italian, Japanese, Thai, Indian, etc.).

Our favorite restaurant is Oquirrh. Named after the mountain range just southwest of the city, it’s perhaps one of SLC’s staple restaurants? It’s a small spot that gives local vibes with a rotating locally-sourced seasonal menu. Perfect for a nice dinner out!

Downtown has a nice collection of restaurants. If you’re feeling Italian, Valter’s is a classic, and Matteo’s is a bit more modern; you can’t go wrong with either of these! There’s also HSL, which stands for “Handle Salt Lake”. Handle is a restaurant that we really like in Park City (if you get up there, it’s a must visit), and this is their sister restaurant in the city!

Rumour has it that Michelin is reviewing SLC establishments in the summer of 2026. So once that is available, it’ll be the go-to source for recs. In the meantime, Infatuation and Eatery also have good articles for best places to eat while in town.

SLC has a love/hate relationship with beer (or alcohol in general). There's some good breweries, but the Utah liquor laws are super weird. You can't have any draft beer over 5%! Naturally that limits your options, but a few good breweries have risen in spite of this (you can serve beer over 5% but it has to be in a can or bottle).

The best brewery in the SLC area by far is TF Brewing (Templin Family). They have great IPAs that you can get in can, and have an awesome draft selection of lower ABV European pilsners and lagers (and single IPA!).

You can walk / scooter to a cluster of breweries right from downtown. It makes for a fun afternoon of beer crawls! You should hit TF (mentioned above), Fisher, Level Crossing, and Bewilder.

Most of the attractions here are outside and require getting out of the city (namely up to Park City or other neighboring ski hills). Park City is a must visit while here. If you're visiting for Supercross chances are ski season is over, but it's still worth heading up to Park City to visit the ski village and see some of the mountains. The Park City ski village is quite entertaining with lots of bars, great restaurants, and their own distillery! Perhaps the coolest part is that the village center has a old-western vibe (unlike most ski villages which are alpine-inspired). Rent a car and go for a drive!

One of the best ways to see the city is going for a hike. There's lot of hiking trails right in the foothills on the edge of the city.

Also, make sure you walk around downtown and checkout the State Capitol building and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's interesting architecture, and considering Utah is the center of Mormon faith, it's worth checking out.

Side note: SLC is a great hub for adventuring around the entire state of Utah and visiting some of the countries best national parks (Arches, Zion, Canyonland, etc.).

Outdoors! Salt Lake is what Denver wants to be. It's surrounded by mountains and you can feel it in almost all aspects of the city; you're constantly amongst climbers, skiers, bikers, etc.

It's not all outdoorsy though... Salt Lake has a weird mix of liberal hippy outdoor folk and ultra religious Mormons. It's a strange vibe that is truly unique to this city.

It's worth renting a car to get out into the mountains, but the downtown core is quite accessible via walking and scootering. It's generally chill and an easy play to hang out in.