There's a wonderful new problem facing Palm Springs visitors these days: There are officially way too many good restaurants to hit during a typical long-weekend visit. Since you'll most likely be busy with mid-century architecture gazing, a little vintage shopping, some requisite cocktail guzzling, and a stroll through the fabled Robolights (yes, it's back!), here are 20 places — from hot new haunts to standout stalwarts — to help you figure out where to dine during your next desert getaway.
Read MoreThe 20 Hottest Restaurants in Palm Springs, Winter 2015
Check out 20 restaurants to plan your Palm Springs winter trip around.
SO.PA
As part of a recent multi-million renovation, the L'Horizon Resort and Spa got a sophisticated al fresco restaurant. Michelin-starred chef Giacomo Pettinari, formerly of Barcelona's El Bulli and Valentino in Santa Monica, creates thoughtful dishes that combine his Italian roots with Middle Eastern flavors. There's burrata with a butternut squash puree and watermelon radish chips, for instance, and Ling cod with mashed chickpeas and blistered shishito peppers. The seasonal cocktails are killer, too, made with clever combinations of obscure spirits, housemade cordials, and herb-based mixers. Try the L'Horizon Classic — a mix of vodka, apricot liqueur, muddled thyme, peach bitters, and a Peat Monster whisky rinse.
Birba
Birba is always bustling for a reason. There's a sleek, open-air bar, a gorgeous outdoor patio dotted with uplit trees, excellent farm-to-table fare, and pizza that rivals any favorite back in LA. Keep it tame with a margherita or go wilder with a pluot-kale-and-gorgonzola white pie or the long-running braised greens pizza dotted with Serrano chiles and smoked mozzarella. The homemade pastas are worth a try, too.
Rooster And The Pig
This 50-seat eatery may be tucked away in the back of a strip mall a block over from main drag Palm Canyon, but that hasn't stopped locals from lining up nightly for Vietnamese-American fare created by chef/owner Tai Spendley, former food & beverage director of the nearby Ace Hotel. The menu changes weekly but several of Spendley's signature dishes are always available, including the Jasmine tea leaf salad, the banh mi burger, and a tumeric-spiked fish of the day. The restaurant also emphasizes craft beer, offering up a variety of microbrews on tap and a few Vietnamese beers in the bottle.
eight4nine
The Uptown Design District's newest hot spot — opened by Willie Rhine, general manager of the successful Lulu, and photographer John Paschal — has been filling its wide-open whimsical space nightly since opening in August. In the lounge, anchored by a backlit white onyx bar, you can sip cocktails and share small plates of Brussels sprout-mushroom toast and barbecued blue points. Or head for the dining room for entrees like caramelized cauliflower pappardelle or a cider-brined duck breast. Don't miss the steal of a four-course menu for $44.
The Barn Kitchen at Sparrows Lodge
This beloved little hotel with a modern ranch feel has been offering breakfast to guests since its inception in 2013, but recently unveiled a lunch menu the rest of us can try too. Chef Gabriel Woo whips up smart small plates and sandwiches like the ham and mustard melt with gruyere and almond butter on sprouted bread. His Saturday steak dinner, which just launched last month, is reservations-only, limited to 12 people, and already has "hot ticket" written all over it. The $40 three-course family-style meal served in the communal barn recently treated a lucky dozen to grilled pear salad and coffee-crusted New York strip with asparagus.
Workshop Kitchen And Bar
When LA chef Michael Beckmen partnered with restaurateur Joseph Mourani to open a trendy spot with "industrial chic" décor and a farm-to-table focus on local ingredients and craft cocktails back in 2012, it was big news for a city once full of aging steakhouses and ill-made Old Fashioneds. More than three years later, its giant communal table is still full. The menu focuses a lot on locally-sourced small plates (there's a lovely shaved Brussels sprout salad, for example), while entrees skew heartier with a pastrami-topped burger, the newly added smoky braised pig cheeks, and a wood-fired ribeye with creamed kale for two. Look for an updated bar program this winter.
Pho 533
Chad Gardner, chef/owner of in-demand catering company Dash and Handful, bought this storefront spot on the south end of town earlier this year, expanding the menu and giving the space a facelift with concrete floors, mod chrome-and-orange chairs, and cool, colorful wall art created by his husband, artist Roly Carvajal. Gardner is now focusing on what he's dubbed Viet-fusion cuisine, sticking with an array of pho choices (try one with his signature chicken lemongrass meatballs) as well as fresh, flavorful adds such as Saigon noodles with wok-fried tiger shrimp and shaking beef over mizzuna and watercress. Vegetarians have plenty of options too with a list including mango summer rolls, veggie banh mi, and taro root-tofu crispy egg rolls.
WP Kitchen + Bar
The ubiquitous celebrity chef and his crew replaced the former Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar with this new concept (the first in the country with more to follow) in October, giving the space a more open and modern feel and the menu a total revamp with a focus on more sophisticated ingredients and dishes. There's a vadouvan-spiked lobster knuckle slider, a bottarga-tossed chitara, and a standout grilled octopus smeared with black garlic aioli. And yes, there are still pizzas. Try the one topped with diavolo chicken, picked eggplant, and shishito peppers.
Gyoro Gyoro
Despite the fact the closest ocean is 120 miles away, there's indeed good sushi to be had in the desert, though many of the area's existing spots are lacking in atmosphere and heavy on fluorescent lighting. Gyoro Gyoro, run by a giant Tokyo-based restaurant operator, manages to get it all right with a glitzy indoor-outdoor eatery and dauntingly large menu that will please both sushi purists with its top-notch nigiri choices, and those who love their spicy tuna rolls tempura-fried and drizzled with three kinds of sauces. There are also a few dozen yakitori skewer choices ranging from sea bass to beef tongue.
dish Creative Cuisine
What began a few years back as a little spot in a less-than-ideal Cathedral City shopping center quickly gained big buzz and a following to match thanks to lawyer-turned-chef/owner Joane Garcia-Colson's inventive cuisine (and her nightly parade of out-of-the-box amuse-bouches and palate cleansers). In early 2015, the restaurant moved into its newly designed 100-seat space at the reincarnated Don the Beachcomber building in the foot-traffic-friendly Uptown Design District. In addition to a dinner menu big on layered flavors like diver scallop escabeche with black truffles and pancetta, there's a good selection of craft cocktails along with a lineup of weekly specials including the wallet-friendly two-for-one bar burger deal on Tuesdays.
Mr. Lyons
After taking over the shuttered prime rib palace Lyons English Grille, Tara Lazar and husband Marco Rossetti, who also own Uptown's ever-popular restos Birba and Cheeky's, have given the place a retro-modern makeover with touches of clubby dark woods and green velvet-upholstered booths and reopened it as a swanky steakhouse last spring. The dining room menu skews old school with French onion soup, beef Wellington, filet mignon, and a twice-baked potato, while the lounge focuses on classic cocktails (think Manhattans and Old Fashioneds), along with throwback salads, bar bites, and smaller entrees including a French dip and duck pot pie.
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Tinto
Iron Chef Jose Garces's intimate, woody tapas bar is exactly the kind of place you'll want to pop in for a bite and a sip of sherry on a chilly winter night. (Yes, it gets cold in Palm Springs, too, you know.) His menu offers a simple selection of flavorful, authentic Basque tapas — think grilled chorizo, marinated boquerones with pickled vegetables, and grilled octopus with a smoked paprika aioli. The wine list skews Spanish and the cocktail program puts an emphasis on Spain's favorite spirit — gin. Groups can order an entire bottle of No. 209 served alongside Fever-Tree tonic and an array of botanicals for infusing at your leisure.
Eureka
Eureka is that rare casual restaurant concept that does just about everything it sets out to do really well. It's got a huge craft beer list, an impressive selection of small-batch whiskeys (including some that have been custom barreled), impressive gourmet burgers (don't miss the bison version topped with bacon-infused jalapeño jam), and an enticing list of upscale comfort dishes that run the gamut from osso bucco riblets to a beet salad garnished with pop rocks. Inside, the modern-rustic space features a large bar and booths, while there's an enclosed heated patio outside with a sprinkling of large picnic-style tables for larger groups.
Shanghai Reds Bar & Grill
This sliver of a bar behind downtown's main drag is the perfect spot for a few beers, a bucket of peel-and-eat shrimp, and the valley's best fish taco. But if you're hungry for more, there's also everything from cioppino to crab enchilladas When the bar's too crowded (and it often is), grab a table on the outdoor patio, which, thanks to an expansion earlier this year, now has a lot more room for enjoying the live bands that play on their new stage a few nights a week. Happy hour food prices start at 8 p.m. every night and all day Sunday.
The Edge Steakhouse
Whether the Palm Springs area needed another steakhouse is debatable, but the gorgeous space and killer views— thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows and a cliffside location — aren't. The Ritz-Carlton's newest restaurant features the usual steak suspects – like a dry-aged rib-eye and a bone-in filet that'll run you $85 each – along with an array of other, beautifully plated entrees including a roast chicken over savory bread pudding with Chanterelles and grilled swordfish with grapefruit and grilled radicchio.
Appetito
Executive chef Chad Shaner and owner Patrick Service (whose grandparents founded Palm Springs' longstanding Mexican restaurant Las Caseulas) met while working for Danny Meyer in New York and partnered to open this casual Italian spot a stone's throw from the Ace last year. Though they launched with an order-at-the-counter concept, they recently introduced table service, which means you can linger longer inside the airy dining room or out on the patio over Italian sandwiches, homemade pastas, and a selection of small plates like crispy green beans with a jalapeno aioli or wild mushroom arancini.
Johannes
It may not be a trendy new hot spot, but the 15-year-old Johannes happens to be quietly churning out an all-around top-notch dinner service. Service is spot-on, cocktails are excellent, the wine list is extensive, and Austrian-born chef and owner Johannes Bacher has perfected a lot of the dishes that have been on his menu for years. Don't miss his signature schnitzel, the wild mushroom soup, and scallops over a corn-leek ragout.
Chi Chi
This funky new eatery that replaced Citron at the Viceroy-turned- Avalon Hotel is showcasing Latin American street food with fun, colorful cuisine like mushroom-taro-kale tostadas and green-apple scallop crudo created by area chef and restaurateur Tara Lazar. For a mid-day, by-the-pool treat, try one of the housemade organic "Chi" popsicles with rotating flavors.
Trio Restaurant
Six years in, this mod, orange-tinged restaurant is still wildly popular, especially during the always-packed happy hour thanks to bargain cocktails and fun bar bites. There's also an extensive dinner menu in the splashy dining room, filled with modern comfort dishes including a Yankee pot roast, and chipotle-rubbed spare ribs, as well as lighter fare like a seared-ahi nicoise salad.
Wilma & Frieda's Cafe
After winning the hearts of locals over the last two years with a homey breakfast and brunch menu (fan favorite: the short rib Benedict), this eatery on the upper level of Palm Desert's posh outdoor shopping center The Gardens on El Paseo recently opened for dinner service Thursday through Saturday, too. The casual spot feels a little more upscale after dark with white linens and candelight, and dishes are nothing if not filling with meatloaf and mashed potatoes, a chuck-short rib burger on brioche, and pecan-crusted Mahi on the menu.