El Tovar Dining Room — Restaurant in Four Corners States

This is a must stop at the Grand Canyon. El Tovar is fine dining (you don't have to dress up, though), so be sure your budget can allow the higher costs. That being said, the food is delicious and well worth splurging. We had the best server, Jack (Tennessee). Jack is an absolute delight and such a wonderful person. Take all of his recommendations on the menu if you are not sure what to get. We had reservations two nights in a row, so we requested Jack on the second night, and we were greeted like old friends. This was a bucket list trip with my dad, so we both got the filet mignon the first night. It's actually 2 pieces of meat cooked to perfection on how you order it (I had medium well and my dad dad medium). I'm not normally a steak person, but this was outstanding. Ours came with seasonal vegetables, which were little round whole carrots and greenbeans and mashed potatoes. The bread is so tasty that I had to force myself to try the herb butter - also good - before finishing off a couple of pieces plain. The second night, we wanted to have room for dessert, so we split a charcuterie board and had the elote Caesar salads (all 3 are appetizers). The Caesar dressing was one of the best I've had. My dad got the apple pie, and I got creme brulee. I didn't have anything here that I didn't like, and I'm normally quite picky. They also have prickly pear drinks that you can get virgin versions of. Yum! The dining room overlooks the Canyon through a couple of large windows, and the lodge is a darker esthetic with murals of the local tribes. It's a bit confusing getting in and out of. They are handicap accessible - but it's not really easy to identify the side entrance off to the right around the side near the Canyon, which has ramps, and you go through one of the hallways of rooms to get to the lobby. The normal public bathrooms are down the stairs to the left of the restaurant entrance in the lobby. They do have a sign to ask the front desk for an accessible bathroom. They provide you with a swipe key attached to a stick and point you to a nice big bathroom that's the second door on the left down the hallway near the stairs to the other bathrooms. Swipe the key card over the round black piece on the door, and you're in. Now for the tricky parts. You need reservations for lunch and especially dinner. Book online on their website because it's super easy, or if technology is a challenge, call and book in advance as far as possible. Booking online allows you to cancel anytime without penalty, but they do ask that you cancel at least 24 hours in advance. I think that's a fair request. The last item is parking. You need to know that parking is horrible. There's a lot off to the right of the loop that goes in front of the main entrance. People circle this loop many times to find a spot and typically don't. That means you need to plan to get there a minimum of 30 minutes before your reservation (45 minutes minimum if you have members of your party requiring drop off at the door), so that you can drive the many parking lots around the buildings and the main lodge loop road to find either a lot space or curbside along the street. If you can swing it, use the free shuttles to get to the restaurant. Hope this helps with your decision and planning to eat at El Tovar. Don't forget to tip your waiters well - the service was top-notch. And if you request Jack, let him know his fellow southern yankee veteran father/daughter...

If you come to Grand Canyon, you must book a dining experience at El Tovar Hotel. It’s a historic hotel built in 1905 and the oldest hotel in Grand Canyon. Many former presidents have stayed in here throughout the years.

Breakfast is first come first serve but lunch and dinner need reservations. Reservations are made on line and can be booked 30 days in advanced. It books up fast so be sure to mark your calendar!

El Tovar is located on the South Rim side at the Village. I made reservations for noon. This meant, arriving at the park from the East Rim by 8am, giving us enough time to stop at all the view points along Desert View from East to West with the final stop at El Tovar. Unless you’re arriving from the South Rim and eating first then head east. I would suggest you plan this out so that you’re not back tracking. Desert View drive is about 30 mins with no stopping.

The menu is not big. We got the Pasta Puttanesca ($15) and Salmon Amandine ($24). The pasta was a tomato sauce of linguine. Delicious. The salmon was my favorite. It was a filet pan fried to perfection with a light crisp exterior topped with toasted almonds and in a scoop of garlic lemon butter. Then you lather it on and underneath is a bed of rice. The seasonal vegetable was brussel sprouts but it was plain and steamed. It was still too hard. I would have preferred carrots, broccoli, asparagus along that family.

Both dishes were to die for. We finished our plate clean. It was so well made and great flavors.

The dress code was casual. 99% of the people who were dining there that day were hotel guests. I was the only one coming from a hike in athletic wear. I think because you can’t just show up last minute as a walk-in and guarantee a table. However, I heard dinner has a stricter dress code.

It was our first time so we had a nice Canyon view table with a view by the window. Our waters were refilled constantly and dirty plates taken away quickly. But our server took forever to check on us. Lag time between ordering and getting the check. Rating 4.5 stars, round down to 4.

You must ask about the featured crème brûlée. It’s different each time. The flavor at the moment was Vanilla Apple Bourbon crème brûlée ($8.25). Yummy! Had two apple slices. It was like eating a cross between creamy crème brûlée custard and apple pie but with an after taste of bourbon and a layer of hardened caramelized sugar. Easily...

We had heard amazing things about this place. I think that’s because of the vibe. The atmosphere is really nice and so is the staff we encountered - although I have to assume there was staff we didn’t encounter who decided the food we were served passed quality control, so I am not pleased with them. First the good: the cocktails were good, as well as the garlic butter for the rolls, and the butternut squash bisque. Really, everything but the main event - the entrees. My husband ordered the lemon garlic pasta, which lacked both lemon and garlic (and any discernible flavor). It had clearly been under a heat lamp for a long time and had that film on it that pasta primavera gets after it’s sat out a while. It was something you’d expect as a “kids meal” in a mid-grade eatery, not a nice restaurant. I ordered the trout. It also lacked much flavor, but there was a thing under it that I came to learn was a “blue corn pancake.” It had the look of a moldy beef patty without any attendant flavor and the consistency of sawdust. I took a photo of it just because it was comically bad and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something rancid because of the color (though I imagine rancid food does not taste to bland). We didn’t eat much of these entrees and asked to take them to go (minus the “blue corn pancake”) in case we got extremely hungry after hiking. The side vegetables that came with the meals were carrots and green beans and they were old and not fresh (and the cut on the carrots matches what I see on the GreenGiant Steamers I get from the grocery store - which I also have to flavor). After this, we ordered crème brûlée and it was just as good as you’d get in any nice restaurant. Had we known they drop the ball on the entrees, we would have made a meal of soup and bread and dessert. You can’t let a bad meal ruin an otherwise lovely day, so we enjoyed the best parts of it and chalked the rest up to a memorable story, but I wanted to share this bc it did cost a LOT of money for food...