Ingram's June 2026

Wining & Dining (continued)

as a smaller, warmly regarded bistro with its own devoted following. 1587 PRIME takes Bronze —the two-story steakhouse at the Loews Kansas City Hotel that has already established itself as a destination for special occasion dining in its first year of operation. BEST SEAFOOD BRISTOL SEAFOOD + STEAK + SOCIAL has been Kansas City’s answer to the ques tion of where to go for serious fish. The daily fresh-fish menu, raw bar, and consis tent kitchen execution have given it stay ing power across multiple Ingram’s ballots. EDDIE V’S PRIME SEAFOOD earns Silver , the upscale national chain bring ing a polished surf-and-turf experience to its KC location. EARL’S PREMIER takes Bronze , its surf-and-turf approach earning a loyal south-metro following. BEST SPORTS BAR/GRILL JOHNNY’S TAVERN has a long history of being where Kansas City goes to watch a game, with multiple metro locations and a formula that keeps things reliably straight forward: cold beer, solid bar food, and every game you care about on a screen you can actually see. THE PEANUT earns Silver — a sports-bar and wing institution going back to 1933. BECKETTS bursts on the scene to take Bronze as a Crossroads entrant that has built a following for its convivial ap A third Gold in this ballot for THE CAPI TAL GRILLE —following its sweep of the business lunch and dinner categories—con firms a level of institutional preference that accumulates only through years of consistent execution. Dry-aged prime beef, a deep wine list, and service choreography that keeps the guest at ease make it the go-to when the tab has to justify itself. 801 CHOPHOUSE earns Silver , its Downtown Kansas City and Leawood locations a genuine anchor of the metro’s upscale dining scene. GOLDEN OX takes Bronze —the West Bottoms steak house that opened in May 1949 in the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange building, closed in December 2014, and reopened under new ownership in summer 2018, known as the birthplace of the Kansas City strip steak. BEST SUNDAY BRUNCH HARVEY’S AT UNION STATION earns Gold in a setting that does much of the work before a plate even arrives, with se proach to the viewing experience. BEST STEAKHOUSE

lections to set your weekend finale right. THE BIG BISCUIT serves up Silver with its scratch-made, unpretentious comfort format that draws consistent weekend traffic across its metro locations. THE BRASS ONION , like Harvey’s, is a part of the Brancato suite of dining enterpris es and earns Bronze on the strength of its weekend cocktail brunch at Prairiefire. BEST NEW RESTAURANT 1587 PRIME —again–is a winner; the splashiest KC opening in recent memory earns Gold on its own merits as well as its mythology. CROSSROADS CANTINA earns Silver , adding to that neighborhood’s identity as a natural home for compelling independent restaurant concepts. PRIMA FACIE takes Bronze as a notable new ar rival earning its own reader recognition. BEST SERVICE The South Plaza Italian bistro at 5101 Main, OSTERIA IL CENTRO , earns Gold in the category that is hardest to fake and easiest to notice when it’s absent. Estab lished in 1995, the restaurant has earned a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence and a Zagat #1 Italian Restaurant in Kansas City designation, built on a no-reservations model and the conviction that the food and wine are so good they make the con versation even better. 801 CHOPHOUSE earns Silver for the service standard that matches its steakhouse ambition. BEST OVERALL RESTAURANT In the category meant to capture the full breadth of what a restaurant delivers, TREZO MARE takes Gold —its endur ing Riverside setting, dependable Italian American menu, and consistent execution across business lunch, outdoor dining, and overall categories on this same ballot speaking to a kind of all-around reliability readers clearly value. 1587 PRIME earns Silver , its first-year showing across mul tiple categories underscoring how quickly a well-conceived destination restaurant can establish itself. THE BRASS ONION rounds out the podium with Bronze —still a strong showing for Andrew Brancato’s Prairiefire concept. BEST ASIAN RESTAURANT VIETNAM CAFE has operated in the Columbus Park neighborhood since 1987, drawing diners from across the metro

to a modest setting that prioritizes the food above virtually everything else. The pho—slow-simmered broth, fresh herbs, bean sprouts, sliced jalapeños—is the draw for many, but the full menu of Vietnamese dishes rewards repeat visits. ABC CAFE earns Silver , ASIAN CAFE takes Bronze —the category’s competitive depth reflecting how substantially the KC metro’s Asian dining landscape has grown. BEST FRENCH RESTAURANT CAFÉ PROVENCE in Prairie Village earns Gold for the neighborhood bistro model it has perfected—intimate, consistent, grounded in classical French technique. LE FOU FROG earns Silver —the River Market institution with a whimsical Pari sian personality, a wine list built for explo ration, and decades of loyal following in Kansas City. That it finishes both here and atop the Most Romantic category speaks to the range of what the room delivers. AIXOIS takes Bronze as the French bistro that has been earning praise for its moules frites, weekend brunch, and genuine neigh borhood-anchor character for years. BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT Michael Garozzo opened his original Co lumbus Park restaurant on a self-described “wing and a prayer,” and more than three decades of consistent execution have built GAROZZO’S into this year’s Gold winner. The Chicken Spiedini—the restaurant’s own creation—has become a Kansas City signature dish. CASCONE’S earns Silver — the North Oak Trafficway roadhouse long in family hands, with roots as deep in KC’s Ital ian-American community as any restaurant in the metro. JASPER’S takes Bronze , the south metro Italian institution still drawing families across multiple generations despite its slip down the podium this ballot. BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT MI RANCHITO earns Gold , perhaps on the strength of seven locations on the Kan sas side and a reputation for regional Mexi can cooking in settings that feel genuinely lived-in. PONAK’S earns Silver —founded in 1975 by Vietnam veteran John Ponak on Southwest Boulevard, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, and recently acquired by longtime general manager Spencer Shaw as it heads into its second half-century. JA LAPEÑOS. a longtime anchor for Mexican rare in the Brookside neighborhood, serves up the Bronze .

38

I ng r am ’ s

Best of Business Kansas City 2026

Ingrams.com