Yellowstone Spotlight: Grant Village Dining Room

On the whole, Grant Village is one of the most underrated parts of Yellowstone National Park.

True, it doesn’t have as much history as the Old Faithful area or Lake Village, nor does it have any astounding features like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, but you shouldn’t fault its recentness. Indeed, its virtues are often overlooked.

First, it’s more or less equidistant between both Old Faithful and Lake; it’s an ideal home base if you’re looking to see the Park over several days at a leisurely pace. Second, it’s the closest visitor hub to Grand Teton National Park, which well warrants a visit if you’ve got the time.

Third, Grant has many of the same amenities one values throughout the Park, such as its dining room.

Like the other formal restaurants in Yellowstone National Park, the Grant Village Dining Room brings its own flair to proceedings. It’s not rustic like the Old Faithful or Roosevelt Dining Room, nor does it aim for the elegance of the Lake Hotel Dining Room. Rather, this Dining Room shoots for comfort—and achieves it in several ways.

The exterior of the Grant Village Dining Room (or Restaurant) comes across as a tad foreboding, with its stone, glass, and red metal façade. True, the architecture is a far cry from either the colonial style or parkitecture so prevalent throughout the rest of Yellowstone National Park.

Nonetheless, stepping inside the Dining Room is a transformative experience, to put it mildly. Cold stone gives way to warm wood paneling; the whole interior is like a posh cabin, one you’d find at an upscale summer camp or tucked away on some private ranch/mountain escape. The view out the windows to Lake Yellowstone—a vista dressed with conifers—is charming.

The Grant Village also has a surprise tucked into it. The Seven Stool Saloon, located near the entrance, is the spot for a drink before dinner and makes for a good hideaway for someone looking to unwind.

The room does retain some of the modern feel of the exterior. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, for instance, look like installations in a modern art mobile: geometric, with cylinders of yellow light affixed to brass.

The menus at Grant Village Dining Room aim for comfort too, and offer some outstanding specialties: elk sliders, white wine steamed mussels, a goat cheese and maple-pecan salad, Monte Cristo sandwich, calamari, sautéed trout belle meunière—alongside favorites like hot wings, bison burgers, and trout amandine.

Dessert is luxurious too; consider the Yellowstone Sundae—huckleberry ice cream on crumb cake, topped off with a mixed berry sauce—or the huckleberry crème brulée. The Grant Village Dining Room also prides themselves on their “After Dinner Libations,” ranging from single malts to Irish coffees and Brandy Alexanders.