Atlanta Good Food category interest

To many, Kansas City will always be a cow town. The city’s culinary scene was largely defined by the Black pitmasters who established its barbecue traditions, the cattle ranchers who thronged the Kansas City Stockyards (the second-largest in the country after Chicago), and the Mexican immigrants who helped sustain the local meatpacking industry.

Barbecue and butchery are still critical parts of the restaurant scene. But the city’s palate has broadened thanks to an influx of creative chefs expanding the idea of what makes Midwestern food. Today, you’re as likely to stumble across a hand-pulled noodle shop or a vegan lunch counter as you are a brisket sandwich.

The common thread of Kansas City’s dining scene might not be a single ingredient or style of service, but an inclusive Midwestern hospitality that infuses even the most high-dollar dining rooms with a casual warmth. White collars aren’t common here — they’re too vulnerable to barbecue sauce stains. Whether you’re touring the high-end tasting rooms in downtown KCMO or the casual carnicerias in KCK, every restaurant on the list will work hard to make you feel right at home.

The only tourist sin locals won’t forgive? Forgetting which side of the state line you’re on.

Liz Cook is a freelance writer based in Kansas City, Missouri, and the creator of the experimental food newsletter Haterade.

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Expect to hear “Hi, may I help you?” shouted like one compound word the second you step through the doors of one of the city’s oldest continuously operating barbecue spots. If you need a second to consider your order, just ask — but you can’t go wrong with the Nooner, a bun piled with both thin-sliced brisket and chopped burnt ends. Gates is a local chain with a few locations, but the one on Brooklyn Avenue turns out consistent barbecue in a dining room dripping with old-school cool.

Sip an ube daiquiri or spoon through feather-light “street corn kakigori” in this buoyant bar with caramel-colored booths, sunny floral accents, and loads of natural light. The cocktails are the most playful in the metro, right down to the bar’s creative glassware and intentionally overwrought garnishes. But the bar pays just as much attention to its wines by the glass and no-ABV drinks (try the Negroni, which a blind taster wouldn’t guess was alcohol-free). Know before you go: Wild Child doesn’t have a back bar, so the options are strictly limited to the menu. For a wider selection, visit Drastic Measures, the sister bar next door that was a nominee for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Bar award in 2023.

Sip an ube daiquiri or spoon through feather-light “street corn kakigori” in this buoyant bar with caramel-colored booths, sunny floral accents, and loads of natural light. The cocktails are the most playful in the metro, right down to the bar’s creative glassware and intentionally overwrought garnishes. But the bar pays just as much attention to its wines by the glass and no-ABV drinks (try the Negroni, which a blind taster wouldn’t guess was alcohol-free). Know before you go: Wild Child doesn’t have a back bar, so the options are strictly limited to the menu. For a wider selection, visit Drastic Measures, the sister bar next door that was a nominee for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Bar award in 2023.

Although Earl’s opened in 2022, it’s already become a neighborhood fixture in East Brookside. Part of that has to do with the restaurant’s casual vibes and lived-in design, which lands somewhere between Maine oyster bar and Revolutionary War museum. Post up at the charming zinc bar to try a gargantuan shrimp cocktail, sip a frozen gin and tonic, and chat with the shuckers while they pile up the freshest oysters in town.

Waldo Thai is unique in the metro for its focus on Northern Thai, or Lanna cuisine, and date-night atmosphere. The restaurant’s expansive menu of small plates, which changes every other week, is an ideal way to sample as many of chef Pam Liberda’s dishes as possible. If you’re ordering off of the regular menu, start with the nam prik ong, a richly spiced chile dip with fried pork rinds, or the gaeng hung lei, braised pork belly curry with ginger and tamarind.