Plonk

The Restaurant

Plonk anchors the 300 block of North Higgins Avenue, the main downtown commercial spine in Missoula, opposite the Wilma Theater and four blocks from the Clark Fork River. The building is a high-ceilinged former mercantile space with exposed brick on three walls, a long marble-topped bar running the length of the front room, and a quieter banquette-lined dining room at the back. Plonk has been the city's most consistent cocktail-and-food destination since opening in the mid-2000s, and it remains the room visitors are sent to first when they ask, on a single night in Missoula, where to eat.

The kitchen runs French-influenced New American cooking with locally sourced ingredients and seasonal rotation. Signatures include a beef tartare with cornichons and quail egg, a duck-fat-fried Brussels sprout with pomegranate, a hand-cut pappardelle with wild mushroom in autumn, a 12-ounce strip steak with bordelaise and pommes puree, and a kitchen-style coq au vin. The brunch menu on weekends is widely considered the best in the city. The cocktail programme is the room's other signature - house-batched Manhattans on tap, a serious mezcal list, ten or twelve seasonal cocktails that rotate every six weeks, and a depth of vintage spirits behind the bar that most cities five times the size of Missoula cannot match.

The wine list runs about 200 references across both old and new worlds, with a particular pull for European whites and Pacific Northwest reds. The marble bar accepts walk-ins for cocktails and a full menu and is the natural perch for solo travellers. The back dining room handles couples and small groups well, and the room handles birthday parties of six to ten with genuine grace. Service is more casual than at Porte Rouge or the Keep, more polished than at most college-town addresses. For a single evening in Missoula, Plonk is the most reliable answer.