Traverse City is known to be a foodie town. Mario Batali spends his summers there with his family, and chefs both well-known and undiscovered make their meals in the scenic resort town. So it’s hard to narrow it down to five best bites in Traverse City.
1. Don’s Drive In’s burgers & fries.
This little diner serves up the usual diner food — mostly at great diner prices. The burgers and fries are cheap eats, but the homemade shakes can be expensive if you go for the fresh fruit.
2-3. Red Mesa‘s fajita twister and Latino chopped salad.
I’m a recent convert to south-of-the-border food. This restaurant serves traditional Mexican and Latin American cuisine using fresh and local ingredients (a common theme in TC restaurants).
My husband and I split the Latino chopped salad and a steak fajita twister for lunch — and it was nearly too much food! The twister is a fajita baked in the oven so the tortilla gets good and crispy; I can’t wait to try recreating it in my own (decidedly non-Latin) kitchen.
4-5. Dinner at Aerie Restaurant and Lounge, inside Grand Traverse Resort.
This is how grownups eat when they don’t have the kids with them (or so I imagine — we so rarely dine out without the kids). Anyway, from the moment the elevator doors opened to the 16th floor of the Grand Traverse Resort, we knew we were in for a fancy dinner.
And fancy it was, complete with window seats and a view of a beautiful sunset. While we did get to enjoy the nice sunset, the result was less-than-ideal light for food photography.