10 Great Restaurants With Beautiful Views in the U.S.

A glass-walled restaurant on wildflower-covered hillside with rugged coast in background — By day, Sierra Mar on California’s Central Coast offers sweeping views of the Pacific, while nighttime brings stargazing through an impressive telescope.

A beautiful view takes a good meal to the next level. Think of tucking into a sandwich on a hike, or devouring ice cream at the beach, the water rushing to meet the sand. The experience of eating even something simple is elevated by your surroundings. There are many restaurants in the United States and around the world where the views are fantastic but the food bordering on mediocre. Not so at these 10 restaurants across the country where you’ll enjoy food as terrific as the views—of ocean waves crashing, clouds skittering over mountaintops, and a city skyline lighting up at the end of of beautiful day.

Sierra Mar

Location: Big Sur, California
Address: Post Ranch Inn, 47900 CA-1 | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner

The menu at Sierra Mar features influences from all over the world with ingredients from local producers, but the view from the Post Ranch Inn’s award-winning restaurant is purely Pacific. And we mean that in a literal sense: The restaurant’s clifftop setting, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and open-air balcony, looks out onto an infinite stretch of deep blue.

Besides looking onto a vast expanse of ocean, dinner guests are also treated to a close-up of the night sky; the Post Ranch Inn’s balcony, home to one of the largest hotel telescopes in the country, is a prime spot for stargazing.

The Oyster Bar

Location: Bow, Washington
Address: 2578 Chuckanut Dr., Bow | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner daily

Slurp ultra-fresh oysters overlooking the very waters they came from at the Samish Bay–facing restaurant only 25 minutes from Bellevue. Samish Bay is part of the Puget Sound, and from the Oyster Bar’s glass-walled dining room and its patio, you can look out at the San Juan Islands. The view is particularly striking at sunset.

Interior of bar/restaurant, with two long wooden tables and row of narrow windows overlooking coast

Welina Terrace

Location: Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i
Address: 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, 5520 Ka Haku Rd. | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Bar snacks (from 4 p.m.) and dinner

Welina Terrace is the perfect place to catch a gorgeous Pacific sunset. Located within the luxurious 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, the restaurant has spectacular views of Mount Makana and the namesake Hanalei Bay. On the menu are Japanese-leaning dishes meant to share (like karaage chicken and ahi rolls with local tuna), plus Hawaiian rums and Japanese whiskys.

The restaurant hosts occasional cocktail classes for guests to make and taste mai tais using local rums or taste tequilas and mezcals from around the world.

Barrel House Tavern

Location: Sausalito, California
Address: 660 Bridgeway | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner

The Barrel House Tavern in Sausalito, right next to the ferry dock, offers a view of the bay that’s well worth driving across the Golden Gate Bridge. Sit on the restaurant’s deck, perched on the water’s edge, and sup on oysters, salmon cakes, and clam chowder (or non-seafood options like wild mushroom ravioli or chimichurri steak). The deck looks out over the water where ferries and sailboats glide past, with Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge in the distance.

Rooftop bar with high-top tables and stools next to open wall of windows (L); overhead view of bar food and cocktails atop table, with hands of three diners visible (R) — For memorable views of mountainous landscape, head to the Montford in Asheville.

The Montford

Location: Asheville, North Carolina
Address: DoubleTree by Asheville Hilton Downtown, 199 Haywood St. | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Bar snacks (from 4 p.m.) and dinner daily and lunch on Saturdays

To see one of Asheville’s signature dusty blue sunsets, there are few better vantage points in town than the Montford, the rooftop bar at the DoubleTree by Asheville Hilton Downtown. There’s a spacious patio with views of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains, and a bar offering tasty small plates like the pretzel baguette, sourced from the nearby West End Bakery, and North Carolina cheddar fondue. Of the craft cocktails, try the Montford Mule, which puts a twist on the classic with spiced honey liqueur, local Devil’s Foot ginger beer, and North Carolina–distilled vodka.

Piste Mountain Bistro

Location: Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Address: Teton Village | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner during ski season; dinner only June 15 through September 7

Getting to this restaurant at the top of the Bridger Gondola in Teton Village is half the fun on the 12-minute ride that whisks you more than 2,700 feet up. The stunning panorama you can take in from the gondola continues at Piste Mountain Bistro, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlook Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and the entire valley beyond.

The restaurant is open for lunch in the winter and dinner in the summer, when the sun sets around 9 p.m. Its menu showcases the dozen-odd regional producers it works with, in dishes such as Idaho steelhead trout or a wagyu burger. Note: The restaurant is currently closed and scheduled to reopen December 10, 2025.

Restaurant interior, with white leather chairs, fireplace, and wall of tall windows overlooking water — The Tiller sits in a refurbished 19th-century building overlooking Maine’s Atlantic coast.

The Tiller

Location: Cape Nedick, Maine
Address: 591 Shore Rd.| Find on Google Maps
Open for: Brunch and dinner daily ; lunch only in winter

Although the Cliff House has been a Southern Maine icon since the late 1800s, over the years this classic New England inn has been transformed into a stylish retreat. The hotel’s primary restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows, is no exception. Much like the Sierra Mar’s uninterrupted views of the Pacific, the Tiller offers sweeping views of the Atlantic from a cliff’s craggy edge. Munching on a Maine-blueberry muffin with lemon curd as the morning light plays on the water or enjoying the sunset with cornmeal-crusted lobster fritters has never been so luxurious.

People eating at open-air restaurant overlooking red rock bluffs in desert — The view from Mariposa is particularly appealing during the golden hour, when the surrounding red rocks appear to change color.

Mariposa

Location: Sedona, Arizona
Address: 700 W. Arizona 89a | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner daily

Upscale Mariposa bills itself as “Latin-inspired,” and its menu encompasses shrimp ceviche, elote empanadas, and gazpacho, all served with a side of 360-degree desert views. Perched on a bluff surrounded by red-rock canyons, the restaurant and grill highlights its surroundings with a dining room that has floor-to-ceiling windows.

The restaurant also has an expansive outdoor patio from which alfresco diners can admire the natural landscape, observe large-scale art on the property grounds, and even gaze up at a night sky studded with stars.

Restaurant with wall of windows and orange and green metal chairs, overlooking river and Manhattan skyline — Laser Wolf in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has an unbeatable view and food to match.

Laser Wolf

Location: Brooklyn, New York
Address: The Hoxton, 97 Wythe Ave. | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Dinner daily, lunch on weekends

New York City has loads of bars and restaurants with great views of the surrounding skyscrapers or the Hudson or East rivers, but not all of them have great food. Laser Wolf, the NYC sibling to chef Michael Solomonov’s beloved eatery of the same name, is the rare rooftop restaurant where the food operates at the same high level as the views.

Here, on the roof of the Hoxton Williamsburg, you can feast on a bountiful salatim platter—decked with 11 little bowls of hummus, pickled vegetables, Tunisian potatoes, baba ghanoush—served with seemingly endless fluffy pita. The creative cocktail list incorporates Levantine ingredients, too, like arak or za’atar-spiced cocktail onions. The building sits a block from the East River, and sunset over the water and the Manhattan skyline is simply stunning.

Rooftop restaurant, with blue and white striped sofa, tables for four set for meal, high ceiling, and glass wall, overlooking lake — Cindy’s is the rooftop restaurant at Chicago Athletic Association, right across from Millennium Park.

Cindy’s

Location: Chicago, Illinois
Address: Chicago Athletic Association – The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, 12 S. Michigan Ave. | Find on Google Maps
Open for: Lunch and dinner

This Chicago restaurant and bar is an all-around hit. Cindy’s is relatively free of snobbery, the Continental food is tasty, and the sky-high location provides unbeatable views of some of the city’s greatest icons, like the Bean in Millennium Park, the Art Institute, and Lake Michigan. Even locals admit to loving this heavily touristy place, perched on the roof of the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel. The restaurant and bar sit inside an elegant glass atrium, and the patio has firepits where you can warm up on chilly fall evenings.

This article was originally published in 2018 and most recently updated on November 10, 2025, with current information. Sophie Friedman contributed to the reporting of this story.

Alina Polishuk

Alina Polishuk is a freelance writer from the U.S., now living in Queensland, Australia.