The Absolute Best Restaurants To Celebrate Thanksgiving In The US

The Thanksgiving holiday is brimming with not just gravy and turkey, but also a dense network of traditions. For instance, who carves the turkey? Is mom making grandma's mashed potatoes? Will family football start at two in the afternoon or three? The holiday is intrinsically emotional and nostalgic. We gather with family and friends, recall what we're thankful for, and devour a meal steeped in Thanksgiving rituals. A tablescape studded with autumnal gourds, brightly colored leaves, and whole-roasted turkey points to our uniquely cherished food traditions.

Nostalgia aside, Thanksgiving can still be a tough meal. Some of us love the challenge of menu planning, shopping, and meal prepping. Uncovering Thanksgiving hacks can be invigorating, finalizing the oven schedule presents a thrilling and practical puzzle, and compliments after a meal are immensely gratifying. But suppose you'd rather ditch the potential chaos and a sink full of dirty dishes. 

In that case, a restaurant Thanksgiving may be the answer. If that sounds appealing, restaurants across the country are willing to stay open or can deliver a T-Day meal kit, so you don't have to stress over the details. If that sounds good, then here are some of the absolute best restaurants where you can celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S., all so you can focus your energy on plates of turkey and the company of family and friends.

The Michelin-starred Kinship's daily menu is inspired, paying tribute to five approaches to cooking: craft, history, ingredients, indulgence, and for the table (via Kinship). This precision and attention to detail are channeled on the biggest food holiday of the year, too — an evening made even more special in an elegant dining room with floating cylinder lights and gorgeous plate settings.

The 2020 menu provides a glimpse of what's to come for guests who reserve a dining room table in 2022 (via Tock). To start, on-brand poached cranberries and candied walnuts garnish a celery root salad and a Provençal pumpkin soup was topped with juniper marshmallows. Kinship's famed Maine lobster French toast and a cheddar and sage agnolotti are on the menu next to the traditional-leaning herb-roasted turkey. That last meal comes complete with thyme bread pudding, potato puree, green beans amandine, cranberry bavarois, and Parker House rolls. For dessert, apple confit, brown butter ice cream, and dark chocolate pecan pie all may make an appearance, a showing that left Yelp reviewers praising the restaurant's homegrown atmosphere and delivery.

A Thanksgiving feast — especially one teeming with stuffing, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie — is extremely hard to top. But a Turkey Day feast in wine country? Yes, please. The Boar's Head Resort in Charlottesville, Virginia does it all. On a gorgeous 600 acres of Blue Ridge Mountain land (via Conde Nast Traveler), the Tripadvisor 2022 Traveler's Choice winner entertains both resort vacationers and local diners with a Thanksgiving brunch buffet for the ages.

Between 10:30am and 4:00pm, families can pull up to the resort's event space for a massive spread void of Thanksgiving clean-up (via Boar's Head Resort). Menus past are way too long to recite just now, but rest assured that this place will have every Thanksgiving staple and more on that buffet. That just about always includes a turkey and ham carving station, an omelet station (for true brunch aficionados), and nearly a dozen desserts (via Boar's Head Resort).

If admiring beautiful cuts of marbled meat is your Turkey Day vibe, Cote's steak omakase is the end-all, be-all of Thanksgiving feasts. Cote's concept pays tribute to Korean barbecue and American steakhouses with an entertaining do-it-yourself component: all guests cook their own meat on smokeless grills (via Cote NY). The Cote Thanksgiving menu is already out in the wild, with previous reviews noting delicious turkey dumplings to start and ultra-professional selection and preparation of the restaurant's meat (via Tripadvisor).

A Cote meal is truly a design-it-yourself-eating experience. To start the experience, consider ordering a shrimp cocktail with gochujang cocktail sauce, chilled oysters with sea urchins, or the restaurant's "caviar service." Next, steak and eggs (featuring filet mignon and milk toast) and Korean bacon are ready for sharing before the spotlight shifts to the star of the show: steak omakase. Finally, in a cordial nod to Thanksgiving tradition, Cote delivers classic pumpkin or pecan pie for dessert.

Brennan's, the proud inventors of bananas Foster, is open and ready to serve eager Turkey Day patrons. Per Nola.com, Brennan's skyrocketed in popularity on the New Orleans culinary scene when Ralph Brennan purchased the restaurant in 2014 and became the full owner of his family's namesake establishment in 2022. Today, the French Quarter spot draped in pastel greens and pinks is on the national food map, named to the New York Times 2022 list of best restaurants.

Thanksgiving offerings at Brennan's stay true to its New Orleans roots with classics like turtle soup and seafood gumbo. That's followed up by a second course of bacon-wrapped turkey breast with a braised turkey leg, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, and rosemary jus. But it may be challenging to then turn down the restaurant's eggs hussarde complete with homemade English muffins, coffee-cured Canadian bacon, or chicory-rubbed beef tenderloin with sweet potato rosti. For dessert, try a slice of chocolate pumpkin pie or a pear galette, but we all know that Brennan's original take on bananas Foster (with a tableside flambé) is likely to steal the show.

Austin's Aba is brilliantly catering to homebodies with a Thanksgiving meal to-go that is packed full of bright Mediterranean flavors for a new take on a traditional holiday fest. The original Aba is in Chicago, but all locations maintain high standards of Israeli, Lebanese, Turkish, and Greek food. Aba chef and former Top Chef contestant CJ Jacobson keeps proximity to the fridge and the couch in mind with his memorable Thanksgiving meal for two.

The at-home food selection from Aba includes a seasonal pumpkin hummus complete with house bread, black truffle orzo, crispy Brussels sprouts, beef tenderloin kebab, crispy chicken thighs with sautéed green beans and butternut squash, and date cake for dessert. In addition, the kit comes with heating instructions and an optional wine selection from the restaurant's in-house sommelier. If you're looking to impress dinner guests with a twist on Thanksgiving that takes minimal effort, this could be your best bet.

Lucky for us, this Caribbean and Latin-inspired restaurant, recently named to the New York Times best restaurants list 2022, is open Thanksgiving weekend. Jacksonville, Florida native Jackson Patel was named to Food & Wine's Best New Chef's list in 2020, and today, his talents help adorn a menu of bold flavors (via Mamey Miami).

Patel's Thanksgiving weekend spread is a concrete reason to extend the food holiday a few days longer. A family-style "Island Feast" menu will be served the Saturday after Thanksgiving, drawing from Mamey Miami's mainstay tropical flavors. The festive offerings include fresh wahoo crudo with cranberry tartar, pumpkin empanadas, and roasted pork with mofongo and mojo. Meanwhile, a classic turkey roulade plate with stuffing, cranberry jam, gravy, and a cornbread and honey side serves up traditional Thanksgiving flavors. If you need a bit more, a special drink package delivers a three-course beverage selection to accompany the meal.

The Somerset restaurant is home to a Midwestern farm-to-table culinary concept that's sure to impress. The finest local ingredients are sourced from Midwestern farms for a "garden to glass" wine and cocktail offering (via Viceroy Hotel and Resorts). Per Chicago Magazine, the Boka Restaurant Group did the historic hotel proud, praising the executive chef and 2011 Michelin Star awardee Lee Wolen for its stunning culinary creations.

While the airy, regal dining room is closed on Thanksgiving, Somerset's "Thanksgiving On The Fly" aims to please in the comfort of your home. Each meal kit serves two to three people and is equipped with cooked turkey breasts, turkey leg confit, cranberry sauce, Pink Lady apple salad, and Parker House rolls with whipped butter. Diners can choose two sides from an array of elevated Thanksgiving classics: mashed potatoes and gravy, truffled Mac and cheese, or green bean almandine. A 9-inch pie — of the pumpkin, Dutch caramel apple, pecan, or chocolate malted peanut butter cream variety — is also par for the Somerset dining course.

In the heart of downtown Seattle, Stella at Hotel Sorrento is seriously committed to its restaurant Thanksgiving tradition. With few exceptions, Stella has proudly served a Thanksgiving dinner every year for over 100 years (via King5). The restaurant celebrated its very first 1921 Thanksgiving celebration last year, spearheaded by chef Carolynn Spence. Spence and her Stella culinary team helped replicate the first-ever Stella Thanksgiving menu, awarding diners a taste of historic Thanksgiving turkey. Roast turkey, chestnut dressing, and Brussels sprout soup with croutons soufflé graced Stella's elaborate tables for four days.

This year, Hotel Sorrento is again preserving its Thanksgiving dinner tradition. The midday meal will seat diners in the tiled Italian-inspired dining room, on the patio, or in the cozy fireside lounge. The special menu is still under lock and key, but if the main menu is any indication, Thanksgiving dinner will meld the restaurant's Italian theme and tributes to autumn flavors.

The delivery or take-home Thanksgiving meal from Mírame in Los Angeles is doing the holiday a little differently. Chef Joshua Gil and his devotion to "Alta California" cuisine have made waves with a way of eating that turns Mexican culinary tradition on its head while still encompassing communal eating tradition. For its outstanding meals, Mírame was named to the Los Angeles Times 2020 best new restaurants list.

Mírame's hearty Thanksgiving kit will feed a family of six to eight people this year. An organic, heirloom pasture-raised turkey with chile chilaca adobo sits front and center. It's complemented by a fall Caesar salad with roasted jicama and pork chicharrones, roasted sweet potato with Hoja Santa and brown butter, and green dent corn grits with butternut squash and pine nuts, as well as housemade corn tortillas. For dessert, a cacao corn flan and pumpkin pie with masa crust and toasted halva marshmallows will sweeten the Thanksgiving deal.

Want some real historical cred to your meal this year? Let's go back to the very beginning, as Thanksgiving dinner travels back to its 1621 roots every November in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Plimoth Patuxet Museums transfers visitors back in time to the historic lands of American Indian peoples and a 17th-century colonial village. When late November rolls around, Pilgrim roleplayers and a classic roast turkey dinner take over the museum grounds.

The Plimoth Patuxet offerings include two Thanksgiving dinner options: a "Thanksgiving homestyle buffet" and a "story of Thanksgiving" dinner. The menus are similar, though the latter includes fall harvest fruits and nuts and a warm Indian pudding for dessert. All dining tables are communal, so guests are encouraged to mingle with neighboring parties much like colonial diners would have done all those centuries ago. Yelp reviewers lauded the immersive experience for its tasty meal and time-traveling vibe.

Union Hmong Kitchen made quite a splash when it opened in 2020, bringing Southeastern Asian flavors to Minnesota's capital city. Not only were head chef Yia Vang's talents featured in a variety of media outlets, but he was also named the 2019 "Chef of the Year" by local MSP Magazine (via Union Hmong Kitchen).

For the last two years, Union Hmong Kitchen has provided Minneapolis locals with a taste of Hmong food tradition. The restaurant's 2020 Thanksgiving kit included boneless turkey filled with egg roll stuffing, blistered green beans, fried Brussels sprouts, galabao steam buns, and a matcha cheesecake pie with spiced pears (via Facebook). Last year, Union Hmong Kitchen put forth three main dishes: whole smoked fish, turkey legs and thighs, and Hmong sausages. The purple sticky rice was one of three sides to choose from, and a 10-inch gochujang French silk pie was enough to feed eight people (via Facebook).

Detroit's Oak and Reel is also satisfying the increasing demand for pick-up Thanksgiving dinners. Deemed the 2022 "Restaurant of the Year" by Hour Detroit, the restaurant once struggled to stay open during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Today, however, chef Jared Gadbaw and the restaurant both are thriving thanks in large part to his Italian seafood and pasta creations.

Although you can't dine in the elegant and rustic dining room of Oak and Reel on Thanksgiving itself, the restaurant's at-home feast will still capture the magic of Oak and Reel's kitchen. This year, its slow-roasted turkey is accompanied by oyster stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts with cippolini onions and pancetta, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and dinner rolls. Depending on the size of your crowd, both half-turkeys and whole turkeys are available. Finally, a seasonal pumpkin Basque cheesecake and chocolate tart will guild the Thanksgiving lily (via Tock). For you, reheating the goods according to the chef's instructions will be the hardest part.

Chef Michael Symon knows his way around a Thanksgiving turkey. For one, he spent years on ABC's "The Chew" sharing his carving knowledge. He also gives out cooking advice on Twitter as Thanksgiving prep launches every November. Mabel's BBQ in Las Vegas is one of Symon's many restaurant babies, but the Vegas barbecue headquarters is one of the few of Symon's spots that will host diners in-house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Of course, barbecue is front and center here, even on Thanksgiving. Guests can choose between a single or three-course menu. The single course covers the main dish only, with smoked turkey bread with chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, braised red cabbage, and truffle giblet gravy. The three-course meal includes endive, pear, and walnut salad and apple cobbler dessert for less than $20 per person. Tripadvisor reviews indicate that Mabel's BBQ has an exceptional barbecue track record, so Symon's T-Day menu should be fit to impress.

Washington, D.C.'s Blue Duck Tavern has received quite a few awards since its opening nearly two decades ago, including some coveted Michelin stars, as well as national and local awards that have caught the eye of the foodies of the nation's capital (via Blue Duck Tavern).

With all this culinary buzz, it's worth mentioning that the Blue Duck Tavern is again setting off on a grand Thanksgiving dinner endeavor in 2022. Last year, the restaurant's "brunch into dinner" feast featured a three-course meal of seafood, salads, cheese, and charcuterie that included jumbo lump crab cakes, braised short ribs, and a sorghum-brined turkey. This year brings another three-course Thanksgiving dinner to the people of Washington, D.C., a meal that includes a cider-brined bird (packed with focaccia stuffing and braised turkey leg), duck pate en route, and slow-roasted prime rib (via Blue Duck Tavern).

Just how over the top can Thanksgiving get? Every year, STK Steakhouse appeals to the flashy party culture in Las Vegas with its bright white booths and illuminated serpentine wall features helping to back up its aesthetic. If you're searching for a Thanksgiving meal with some extra flair, then rest easy, as STK Steakhouse has you covered.

This year, STK is presenting two different options for hungry diners. The restaurant will be seating guests in-house or preparing Thanksgiving orders for pick-up. Either way, STK beneficiaries will enjoy a roasted free-range turkey breast that comes with confit turkey legs. The sides include foie gras stuffing, cranberry sauce, maple-baked sweet potatoes, sweet corn pudding, and Brussels sprouts, and will surely keep the energy high. The finale of a spiced pumpkin pie with candied ginger ice cream and crunchy caramel honeycomb tops everything off nicely with traditional flavors and new textures.