Denali National Park and Preserve Restaurants

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The King Salmon Restaurant is located inside the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge but you do not need to be a guest to dine there. It has the atmosphere of a fancy, upscale restaurant with servers in tuxedos but all the patrons dress casually since the restaurant understands you are coming back from a day at a National Park. I ordered the King Crab Legs and it was the BEST crab legs I have ever had in my life!! SO DELICIOUS!! The meat was so fresh and buttery. My mouth is watering just talking about it! My husband had the salmon pasta dish and he really liked it too. For dessert, we had Alaskan blueberry ice cream and it was yummy! The service was wonderful! The atmosphere was wonderful! I highly recommend this restaurant! Reservations are also highly recommended.

Favorite Dish: Alaskan King Crab Legs

Along with a dearth of accommodations, there are few restaurants inside the boundary of Denali National Park. The one that exists is the Morino Grill. The grill is adequate, good for a hot meal after a long day of hiking.

Favorite Dish: The fare at the grill is mostly what you'd expect from a deli or burger joint. Be forewarned it is not cheap: you're not only dealing with Alaskan prices, but National Park prices as well. But they have a cheeseburger served on ciabatta bread which is good; and several paninis which are delicious. Every sandwich comes with either fries, carrots/celery, or potato chips, and a side of cole slaw. The food is good, but the prices can shank you.


Sample prices:
Cheeseburger: $10.95
Chicken with spinach panini: $11.00
Soda or juice: $2.00

The restaurant at the Grande Denali Lodge serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food was good but unremarkable. The salmon and halibut were fresh, but I ordered one of them seared (can't remember which meal) and it was fully cooked. They did have a nice selection of Alaskan Amber beers as well.

There are some nice views from here of the park and the mountain, on good weather days.

Favorite Dish: I had a bowl of hot clam chowder after the river rafting excursion. It was great, but that might have been because it was so hot and I was still shivering.

McKinley Creekside Cafe is right by Carlo Creek, a 20 minutes drive south of the Denali National park entrance. We had great dinner there and got coffee to go from there in the morning (their breakfast menu looked great too, but we had to leave early). Food and atmosphere were great, and prices not expensive as some other restaurants in Denali area.

There are no cafes or restaurants or even markets in the Kantishna area of Denali National Park, so you take all your meals at your lodge. All three lodges include 3 meals with the nightly rate. At Denali, breakfast and lunch were buffet style - or you could pack a sack lunch in the morning. Dinner was served family style in the dining room around large round tables. This was a good way to meet some of the other guests. We met many people from all over the country this way, including a family from Atlanta who just happened to be good friends of some of our good friends in Atlanta. Small world!

The food is superb and varied - my congratulations to the chef for pulling off so many consistently good meals day after day. The chef prepared, pork, beef, Mexican, Thai and numerous other dishes. The pastry chef was incredibly talented. As a vegetarian, I found no shortage of things to eat.

Favorite Dish: This picture was taken of our last meal - we had an early breakfast before we had to board the shuttle bus back to the park entrance. Normally, the dining room is packed because all guests eat at the same time. On this morning, we beat the crowds due to our early and regretful departure.

Good food, casual atmosphere, varied menu. We had dinner here, and breakfast the next morning. The reindeer sausage with breakfast was the best!

The name "Salmon Bake" is a little deceiving. It's not a group-style experience where everyone eats the same thing (like salmon-bake tourist activities in other areas), but a full-service restaurant, where you order off an extensive menu.

We had breakfast and dinner at The Perch, and also ordered box lunches from them to take on the Denali Park bus trip.

The breakfast was reasonably priced, and included lots of food! The restaurant is small, with maybe 10 tables inside. Service was prompt and friendly.

Favorite Dish: They have a glass case with a variety of yummy-looking desserts, so even though we were full from our dinner there, we each got a dessert to go.

We liked Panorama Pizza so much that we ate here twice. It's a very casual, relaxed atmosphere, and the food was very good.

Our kids could live on pizza, so they had basic pepperoni both times. I had a large meal-sized salad once. They also have burgers and sandwiches, and a good variety of microbrews.

You can eat indoors, or outdoors on the deck. Inside they have a good selection of games to play while you wait for your order, and the 4 of us played "Apples to Apples" before, during and after our meal. We didn't feel at all pressured to give up our table (it was mid-afternoon and they weren't busy).