Lincoln’s best restaurants in 2021

1. Dish

Much like last year, Dish has been the highlight of my year eating out in Lincoln. Every time I go in, I continue to be impressed with the creativity and quality of food. One evening on a date with my wife, sitting outside, everything came together in such a perfect way we that we were openly questioning if it was the best we had anywhere. Having time bring us back to reality a bit, we can say that the “this is the best ever!!!” label is a very, very hard one to get. Even still, this sort of night leaves quite the impact and it helps them land on top for 2021.

Favorite dish this year: Do I have to choose one? I’m a sucker for could soup and nobody does it better than Dish. So I’m going with the melon gazpacho. Is cold soup not your thing? I didn’t have a single thing this year which wasn’t worthy of being my favorite, including drinks and desert. It was all great.
http://www.dishdowntown.com/

3. The Oven Cellar

The Oven Cellar continues to deliver a great atmosphere, great wine and the ability to order food from one of my favorite restaurants on it’s own, the Oven. You can’t go wrong spending an evening here enjoying a great selection of wine and having some good food to go along with it.

Favorite wine this year: Argh. Why don’t I write these things down? New year’s resolution for me: Instagram my favorite Oven Cellar wine in 2022 so I can tell everyone about it.
http://theoven-lincoln.com/about_cellar

4. The Parthenon

The Parthenon is still doing great things and still brings great food and great new specials every time I go in. 2021 was no different and I leave every time happy.

Favorite dish this year: I usually pick one of their specials, like the fish or osso buco. But I love their homemade ice cream and I’m not sure I’ve ever picked it as my favorite. That’s what I’m going with this year.
http://www.theparthenon.net/

Honorable Mention

Venue
For the first half of the year, Venue had some amazing specials, large menu and really fun presentations. The second half brought none of that. I’m not sure what changed, but it moves them out of “the best of 2021” conversation, but at the same time they certainly belong in the honorable mention category.

Copal
Copal started life as a restaurant with a lot of creative, but still traditionally based food. They would often have specials that were amazing. Since then, I feel like they have gravitated toward more traditional Mexican food that you will find all over. I’m sure that pleases the masses a bit more, and I still rank them at the top of the Mexican scene in town. But I also feel like they have lost a bit of what made them special in the first place. Still one of my favorites, just not all the way up in “the best” for 2021.

Lazlos
Lazlos also significantly paired down their menu this year, which makes them less exciting than previous years. But they are probably still the restaurant I visited more than anywhere else over the course of the year, and they still have my favorites, so it’s all good.

JTK
I’m sensing a theme here. Add JTK to the list of the restaurants that I feel like has lost some creativity over the last couple years. Even still, they’re still awesome are toward the top of Lincoln restaurants in my opinion.

Hub Cafe
Hub is still delivering fun, creative food. One of my favorites.

MoMo
One of my favorite things at MoMo is going in and just blindly ordering the special pizza of the week and eat it while sitting at their awesome bar. It turns out great every time.

Pepe’s Bistro
Continues to impress me every time I go in with different, creative and fantastic food. I know Pepe is changing his format a bit, but I hope whatever it evolves into continues to deliver amazing food.

Yia Yias, Ivanna Cone, 402 Creamery all deserve props for continuing to deliver great stuff for the Lincoln community.

Goodbyes are always hard

There were plenty of closings this year and each one sucks. The one that tops my “sad” list is Prairie Plate Restaurant. It was truly one of the most unique experiences that the great plains can provide. In my opinion, the closing of Prairie Plate leaves a really big hole to fill in the Lincoln dining scene, but I’m grateful for the experiences I was able to have out there while they were in existence.

Personal blog notes

Before the pandemic, I worked in the downtown area and rode my bike to lunch pretty much every single day. It was an awesome way to explore the food scene. Since the pandemic, I’ve been working almost exclusively at home, and while I’m loving it, working from home also means I just don’t go out to eat during the day as much. Between that and having kids who are getting old enough to have strong opinions on where we go out to eat (which tend to gravitate toward favorites instead of trying new things) I don’t feel like I’m able to explore as much as I did when I started the blog. That said, I still have a strong drive to try everything Lincoln has to offer, and find the best individual dish each local restaurant has to offer. I’ll keep posting on Instagram when I find something I really like, writing up an article when I have a fun idea and I’ll keep my map of places you should visit as up to date as I can.