Billings, Little Big Horn, and the Montana Plains Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Billings, Little Big Horn, and the Montana Plains - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Billings, Little Big Horn, and the Montana Plains - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Award-winning Hawaiian-born chef Carl Kurokawa's menu changes monthly, but you can count on fresh fish, often flown in the day before from Hawaii. Other offerings might include proscuitto-wrapped chicken marsala, and London broil made with local beef. Inspired by Pacific and European flavors, yet distinctly American, Carl's cooking is some of the best in the state. The intimate dining areas' decor is impressive, with a pressed tin ceiling in one room and painted scenes of a grape-carrying Bacchus in another. Situated behind a hedge on a residential street, and thus not easily spotted, the building was formerly a stable for the turn-of-the-20th-century sandstone mansion next door. In warm weather patio dining is a popular option.
Once an ice-cream parlor, today 3 Brother's Bistro, named for chef Greg Smith's three sons, is Hardin's finest dining establishment. That said, it's still a casual place that serves mostly pizza, barbecue, and beer. While it's hard to beat the house smoked pulled-pork sandwich, the salmon melt, paired with the Pigs Ass Porter brewed in Belt, Montana, comes close.
A restored flour mill houses this restaurant, which prides itself on serving locally raised and processed proteins. Steaks, chicken, and pasta are mainstays, but the seafood selection is also noteworthy. Like outdoor seating options at most Billings restaurants, the patio here is very popular in summer.
People come to this attractive chalet-style building for European, pan-Asian, and American specialties such as quinoa tajine, veal picatta, coconut prawns in Thai curry sauce, and wood-fired pizzas.
Discerning diners flock to Black Eagle, a small community that borders the northeast edge of Great Falls, for dinner at Borries. Regulars favor the steaks, fried chicken, lobster, and burgers, and the huge portions of spaghetti, ravioli, and rigatoni are legendary. Historic photos of Great Falls line the walls, but they're hard to appreciate in the dim lighting.
Housed in the historic (1916) former Central Feed building, until recently this family-owned brewery was where farmers and ranchers came to buy grain and seed. Today it serves typical brewpub fare, but with a slightly elevated twist. That said, the beer brewed on-site has a ways to go before it's ready to win awards. Reservations are recommended as this is the most popular restaurant in town.
For hand-tossed pizza and homemade pastas in Billings, it doesn't get any more authentic than at Ciao Mambo. This Montana chain, which also has locations in Whitefish and Missoula specializes in "immigrant-style Italian cuisine." For your antipasti course, try their famous tootsie rolls: egg wrappers stuffed with fresh ricotta cheese, mozzarella, and pesto. And considering splitting your main so you have room for their equally famous cannoli di bacche: cannoli dipped in chocolate ganache and drizzled with huckleberry.
With its stock of T-shirts, inexpensive jewelry, Indian fry bread mix, and dream catchers, the trading post is touristy, but the small attached restaurant is quite good—as evidenced by the locals who regularly congregate here. Steak is the dish of choice, and there are no fewer than three ways to get it on a sandwich. The several variations of Indian tacos, featuring fry bread as big as a plate, are especially popular.
The menu at this restaurant, part of a regional chain of steak houses, offers a large array of enticing appetizers, such as the rim-fire shrimp cocktail served with wasabi-infused cocktail sauce, creative salads, signature burgers, more elaborate dishes such as seafood linguini, almond-crusted halibut, and filet à la Jakers, a steak topped with crab, asparagus, and béarnaise sauce. Dress is casual, although the cherrywood interior adds a feeling of sophistication.
While its burgers have been deemed "the best" in Great Falls and even in Montana, this diner's claim to fame came when it won the Food Network's Guy's Grocery Games in 2017. Each burger is made with grass-fed, sprout-finished Montana beef cut and ground on-site, every few hours. Buns are baked fresh by Great Harvest Bread, another Great Falls institution. There are even a few vegetarian options. But the best is the beef burger. If you don't want any pink in it, make sure to order "no pink."
The historic bar serves excellent pizza and offers the best selection of draught beer and top-shelf whiskey in eastern Montana. Play pool or darts while quaffing one of 40 beers on tap and enjoying a slice or three from one of Mama Stella's locally famous pizzas. There's even a breakfast pizza with scrambled eggs, gravy, and bacon. The bar is kid-friendly except on weekend nights.
The Union Grille's constantly changing seasonal menu features Montana regional cuisine and fare from afar, such as Pacific troll salmon, tagliatelle pasta with sautéed tiger prawns, and grilled pork tenderloin. The varied wine list is populated predominantly by choices from California and Oregon vineyards and offers a number of exceptional beer choices from Montana microbreweries. Reservations are recommended, and in the summer, enjoy dining on the outdoor deck with river views.
Situated downtown near the Alberta Bair Theater, this prime people-watching restaurant has a loyal dinner following, understandable considering its casual yet elegant decor, pleasant, attentive service, and such entrées as buttermilk fried chicken, Alaska king salmon, apple-brined pork shank, and made-from-scratch pastas. Walkers also has an upscale bar scene, attracted, in part, by a tempting selection of craft cocktails served by bartenders so hip they look like they belong in Brooklyn. This is where politicians (such as President Bill Clinton), celebrities and other famous folks dine when they're in town.
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