Sugar Bowl Mid Mountain Lodge — Restaurant in Truckee

I don't normally write reviews, but I had to this time. The Truckee food scene is modest at best. Most restaurants range from bad to mediocre, with a few notable exceptions, such as The Drunken Monkey and Moody's. Last year I would have included the Dining Room at Village Lodge in the "perfectly fine" category.

But my wife and I went to dinner there last night (Jan 2024), and it was immediately clear that something had changed. The service was attentive and the menu was inspired. Andrew did a great job as our waiter. Before even ordering, I said to my wife that they must have a new chef, and indeed they do! It's made all the difference.

I ordered the duck, my wife had the halibut, and we shared the steak tartare. It was all delicious. We paired it with a French Sancerre for an impeccable meal. Truly fine dining at a reasonable (by Tahoe standards) price.

I should note that we were skiing earlier that day, and prior to dinner had a wonderful time getting to know some of the staff at the bar. We spent the night upstairs at the lodge (cute room), and the next morning had an equally good breakfast and equally good service from Bella. Also, they've put in a coffee bar right by the fireplace between the bar and the dining area. It's a nice place to warm up after a few runs.

Highly recommended and worth the short drive up...

Pre-Covid, the lodge was always extremely crowded, making it extremely hard to find a single seat. Since visiting the Mid Mountain lodge twice recently, I was unhappy to see that prices for their cafeteria food had increased drastically. Don't get me wrong, it tastes pretty good and portions are decent. However, a Chili Mac n Cheese bowl which was my go to which had been around $13-14 in 2019 was now being sold for $17-18. In addition, they no longer take cash, so I had to get a friend's credit card as I didn't have one on me. The bathrooms are also scratched up and tagged with stickers. A good redeeming quality of the mid mountain lodge is that the staff are friendly, helpful, and hardworking. It's a decent but crowded and expensive place...

The food here is horrible. Whatever you do, do not spend your hard-earned money buying food at the mid mountain Lodge.

The atmosphere here is nice and it's a lot less crowded than the lodge but all of the lunch and breakfast items are terrible. Absolutely would...