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The 38 Essential Omaha Restaurants – 2024 Edition
An omakase and yakitori from the city’s first James Beard finalist, prime rib at a century-old steakhouse, the purported inventor of the Reuben sandwich, and more of Omaha’s best meals.
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The 38 Best Restaurants in Omaha — 2023 edition
An omakase and yakitori from the city’s first James Beard finalist, prime rib at a century-old steakhouse, the purported inventor of the Reuben sandwich, and more of Omaha’s best meals
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The 38 Essential Omaha Restaurants
Where to find farm-to-cone ice cream, Burmese ramen, totchos (tater nachos), and the purported home of the original Reuben
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It’s Negroni week!
I couldn’t have been more excited to be asked to judge the return round of Mercury’s Negroni Throwdown, this year the kickoff event to national Negroni week. Mercury is Omaha’s home for the Campari-themed event, and owner Clark Ross told me they’ll be running specials all week. The format of the Throwdown is simple: the…
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“It Tastes Like Liquid Cinnamon Roll” – A Christmas Cocktail Courtesy of one of Omaha’s Best Bartenders
You need a Christmas cocktail, and Clark Ross is here to help. The co-owner and cocktail impresario behind Mercury – my favorite Omaha cocktail bar – agreed to share a holiday drink recipe with you, (print the recipe here) the loyal readers of sarahbakerhansen.com. Consider it the holiday bookend to the Thanksgiving cocktail, the Mr.…
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Letter of recommendation: Burgers and Manhattans on 16th Street
A couple of weeks back, Matthew and I took a stroll downtown and ended on 16th Street, where we spent our whole evening. I’d like to recommend you consider doing the same: locally-owned bars and restaurants need our business right now, and the two in question this week — Mercury and The Green Room — have new patios to experience.…
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Matthew Hansen: On the joys of dining outside in a pandemic summer
Sarah and I haven’t wined and dined inside a restaurant or bar since COVID rudely interrupted life’s regularly scheduled programming in March. Five months feels like five decades. We miss cozying up to our favorite back table at Dante and splitting the Cortona pizza and the Bolognese. We miss sidling up to the sushi bar…
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Corona cocktail club with Matthew: Mercury’s Booze Cruiser is teaching us how to survive a pandemic
They bought a gently used Nissan. They stenciled their formidable bar’s name near each taillight and hand-painted a trippy celestial scene all over the faded black paint job. They gave their new rolling headquarters a name, emblazoned it on the driver-side and passenger-side doors in electric green: BOOZE CRUISER. And then they headed out, to…
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I’m not ready to return to restaurants
I miss eating out. Restaurants have shaped the last decade of my life. Food continues to be a central focus of my work. Dinner at an Omaha restaurant is my job, my pleasure, a huge chunk of my identity, as big a part of my daily ritual as brushing my teeth, getting dressed and reading…
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Omaha restaurants attempt to respond to a pandemic: “The shockwaves are yet to be felt.”
At Hardy Coffee Company, sharing tables is encouraged. People are meant to engage with each other, to share a power strip for their computers, perhaps to make conversation. “All of a sudden we have to be six feet away from each other,” said Autumn Pruitt, the owner of the three Hardy shops around Omaha. “It’s…