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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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Omaha chef ditched ‘familiar trappings’ in his restaurants. Now he’s a James Beard Award finalist
The first thing a person notices when spending time with chef David Utterback is that he’s constantly in motion. He rearranges the bottles behind the counter at his new six-seat, high-end sushi counter, Ota, which sits next to his wildly popular Omaha sushi restaurant, Yoshitomo. He stacks and re-stacks boxes of ingredients. He paces. He…
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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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Review: At Omaha’s Ota, find the best sushi experience between Chicago and Los Angeles
Today is all about bold pronouncements. I am now prepared to make several, starting here: two-time James Beard semifinalist David Utterback, who has just opened a new, upgraded omakase experience in Benson called Ota, is making the best sushi in the Midwest. Period. I’ve been writing about Utterback’s restaurant and his omakase since 2018, when…
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My top five reviewed restaurants of 2022 (and five more favorites, for good measure)
It has been a real pleasure to return to restaurant reviewing this year. I knew I missed it; what I didn’t realize was just how much. As we close out 2022 — a year that has been personally challenging for me on many levels — I just want to say a quick word of thanks…
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The 16 Best Restaurants in Omaha, Nebraska
From classic steakhouses to sushi, explore the top dining destinations.
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Berkshire Hathaway is back. Here’s where to eat.
It’s been a minute since the Berkshire Hathaway crowd made its way to Omaha, but thousands of shareholders are coming back this week. (I’ve already seen a few strolling around downtown, in fact.) A lot has changed since the last time I put together one of these lists — in fact, I didn’t even have…
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The 11 best food experiences I had in 2021
It took me a few hours to shuffle through my iPhone’s camera roll to prepare for this year’s recap, which includes a wide variety of individual dishes, meals, destinations in and outside of Omaha and memorable experiences that together make up the best dining during the last year. I didn’t include any of my own…
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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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Best of 2020: Crap year, great food
I had no plans to recap the best food I ate in 2020. Then I saw a Facebook post written by chef David Utterback, where he featured my best of 2018 list which I wrote when I was still at the World-Herald. I sent Dave a text, and we chatted. He made a good point:…