Beaver Creek Restaurants: Where to Eat in the Village and on the Mountain

Beaver Creek restaurants are a high point of any luxury vacation to the valley, and rightly so. Rarely will you find this much variety. The hardest part is deciding which one to walk to.

Within a short walk of the plaza, you can settle into a rich tasting menu with a sommelier, a Belgian dinner in a farmhouse older than the resort, or a slopeside pizza with your boots still on, and a sleigh will carry you up the mountain to a cabin for a meal you'll talk about for years. The range is the point, and this guide sorts it by the kind of night you're after.

Keep in mind that mountain restaurants open and close with the seasons, and a few of these run only in winter. We've marked those, and our local team keeps this list current, since they book these tables all winter.

wo restaurants carry the fine-dining reputation of the village, and they're different enough that you could enjoy both in a week.

Splendido at the Chateau is the grand one, a contemporary American room with a serious wine program and a pianist, the perfect place for your anniversary or the last night of your trip, when you want the full performance. Reserve well ahead during Beaver Creek's high season.

Mirabelle is the quieter classic, known for Belgian and French cooking from a chef who has run the kitchen for decades, set in a restored 1890s farmhouse at the entrance to the resort. It feels like a discovery, even though it has been here longer than nearly everything around it. When you want the evening to be about the food and the room, Mirabelle is the place.

For refined mountain cooking in a more relaxed register, Grouse Mountain Grill at the Pines Lodge is the third of the village's fine-dining rooms, a longstanding favorite for New American food and a warm, relaxed evening with the same quality on the plate.

The Beaver Creek restaurants people remember longest are the ones you travel to. Beano's Cabin sits up the mountain at the base of Larkspur Bowl, and you reach it by a sleigh ride in winter, or open-air shuttle or horseback in summer, then sit down to a multi-course dinner of Colorado game and mountain cooking. It's a full evening out, and it books far in advance, so reserve early.

In winter, Zach's Cabin over in Bachelor Gulch offers the same concept in a different setting, complete with a snowcat-drawn sleigh up to a log cabin for dinner. Both are resort-operated, and both run only in season, so check dates when you plan.

Not every dinner is an event, and Beaver Creek is well stocked for the nights when you just want to feed a hungry group.

Blue Moose Pizza, on the plaza, is the reliable family answer: pizza and a loud, happy room where no one minds ski clothes. The Dusty Boot Roadhouse is the steakhouse-and-saloon option, with ribs, burgers and a bar, the kind of easy, unfussy place that's good with kids.

Coyote Cafe does Tex-Mex and margaritas right off the plaza, a natural stop when your hungry group comes off the hill wanting nachos more than tablecloths. And Hooked brings seafood and sushi to the mountains, an upscale-casual room and a welcome change of register midweek.

Some of the best cooking in the valley is inside the hotels, and you don't have to be a guest to eat there.

8100 Mountainside Bar and Grill at the Park Hyatt is steps from the main lift, with a contemporary mountain menu that works for a relaxed dinner or a slopeside lunch. Charter Steakhouse is the classic chophouse of the group, and the place for a proper steak dinner.

Over in Bachelor Gulch, the Ritz-Carlton holds the neighborhood's dining, led by WYLD, its signature restaurant, with Buffalos as the slopeside spot for a drink and a plate at the end of a ski day. And on the plaza, Citrea brings a lighter Mediterranean menu to the village.

In ski season, some of the easiest good meals are the ones you can ski to. Beaver Creek runs a set of on-mountain restaurants, from the big Spruce Saddle Lodge in the center of the mountain to smaller spots like Talons at the base of the expert terrain, and Broken Arrow lower down.

These are open only in winter, and close when the lifts stop running, but on a ski day they save you the trip back to the base and put you back on snow faster. And if you're on the mountain at 3 PM, stop for the resort's free fresh-baked cookies, a tradition worth planning your last run around.

In high season, Beaver Creek's fine-dining rooms and cabin dinners book up days ahead, so reserve a table before you arrive rather than hoping for a walk-in.

Several of the best experiences here run only in winter, including the sleigh-ride cabins and on-mountain lunches. So if you visit during the summer, plan to enjoy the village restaurants, most of which stay open year-round.

Half the pleasure of a week in the Creek is not having to think about any of this. Staying in one of our Beaver Creek luxury vacation rentals comes with a local team who will book the tables, arrange the cabin sleigh, and stock the kitchen for the nights you'd rather stay in. For the mountain those tables sit on, see our complete guide to Beaver Creek Ski Resort, and for the trip in, our guide to how to get to Beaver Creek.