Duluth’s Greatest Tables
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The Top 5 Duluth Restaurants
Bellisio's Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar
Bellisio's occupies a brick building at 405 South Lake Avenue in Canal Park, a block from the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge — the working lift bridge that frames every postcard of the city — and a short walk from the Dewitt-Seitz Marketplace. The dining room is divided across two principal spaces: a candlelit main room with white linens, exposed brick, and a long banquette running the south wall; and a separate wine bar with a sommelier-staffed counter and a glass-fronted cellar of two hundred reserve bottles. The cellar runs to four thousand bottles across five hundred selections, and Bellisio's has held the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence for twenty-five consecutive years — the longest unbroken run of any restaurant between Minneapolis and the Canadian border.
Va Bene Caffè
Va Bene Caffè sits on East Superior Street in the residential East End of Duluth, on a shelf of land that drops directly to the lake. The room's defining feature is its enclosed glass solarium — a heated, fully glazed extension that hangs out over the lakeshore — which gives every table along the east wall an uninterrupted view of Lake Superior, the Aerial Lift Bridge to the south, and the storm-front sky weather that the inland sea is famous for. The interior runs to white linens, low pendant lighting, dark walnut floors, and a small open kitchen at the back. Forty-five covers across the main room and another twenty-four in the solarium.
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar
Lake Avenue Restaurant & Bar occupies a corner of the Dewitt-Seitz Marketplace, the converted 1909 warehouse building at the head of Canal Park that also holds the Lake Avenue Cafe and a handful of small independent retailers. The restaurant itself sits in a high-ceilinged industrial room with exposed brick, timber posts, and a long marble bar that runs the south wall. Sixty covers across the main room and a small outdoor patio that opens to the boardwalk in summer. Lake Avenue is owned and run by the partners behind several of Duluth's most considered independent kitchens, and has been the city's leading chef-driven New American room since opening.
Restaurant 301
Restaurant 301 occupies the corner ground floor of the Sheraton Duluth Hotel at 301 East Superior Street, a block uphill from Canal Park and a block from the Aerial Lift Bridge. The dining room is compact — about forty covers — but generously fenestrated, with floor-to-ceiling windows that frame East Superior Street, a fireplace at the back, and a small bar facing the open kitchen. The cooking is run by a Northland-trained kitchen team that has held the room for several years and brings a quiet polish to a hotel-restaurant brief that most cities mishandle. Restaurant 301 was named one of Open Table's Top 100 Hotel Restaurants in the United States in its most recent rating cycle.
The Boat Club Restaurant & Bar
The Boat Club Restaurant & Bar sits inside the Fitger's Complex at 600 East Superior Street, the restored 1881 brewery building that has anchored the eastern end of downtown Duluth for the better part of two centuries. The dining room hangs directly over Lake Superior on a stone shelf: floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, a wraparound deck for summer service, and uninterrupted views of the lake horizon, the Aerial Lift Bridge to the southwest, and on clear days the Apostle Islands of Wisconsin twenty miles to the east. The interior runs to dark wood panelling, brass nautical fittings, white linens at dinner, and a long mahogany bar facing the lake.