Restaurants in Cottonwood Heights

Nacho's Libre Mexican Restaurant taps into traditional Mexican culture through a varied menu of seafood and meat dishes wrapped in tortillas and paired with imported beers. After entering through the bright-pink façade, guests take in the dining room’s paintings and servers occasionally clad in a Mexican luchador’s traditional mask, cape, and Van Halen T-shirt. Chefs craft mole sauce in 10 variations of chilies, spices, and chocolate, and diners can create their own platter combinations of burritos, enchiladas, and chimichangas. Nacho's Libre also slings fare for quick delivery as well as catering for parties, meetings, and ocean-liner christenings.

Penny Ann’s Cafe dishes out plates of classic café fare whose “big, robust flavors” earned Penny’s a shout-out in City Weekly’s list of 2011’s Best New Restaurants. Chefs fold cheeses, veggies, and meats inside the fluffy walls of omelets and smother homemade buttermilk biscuits in sausage gravy and unconditional love. Lunch fare includes philly cheesesteaks, hand-pressed double cheeseburgers, and pasta noodles smothered in a choice of sauce. For dessert, multitudinous pies cradle fillings such as key lime, chocolate peanut butter, and banana cream inside crisp homemade crusts.

Named for the revered ancient river whose life-giving waters cascade through Ethiopia, Blue Nile brings vibrantly hued, flavorful tastes of Ethiopian cuisine stateside. The kitchen buzzes as chefs concoct traditional Ethiopian dishes using fresh ingredients such as red beets, whole brown lentils, and homemade sauces. Along with dishes featuring flavorful cuts of beef, chicken, and lamb, the menu also boasts many popular vegan and vegetarian dishes, each voted as such in their high-school yearbooks. Further proof of Blue Nile’s dedication to upholding Ethiopian culture is evidenced in the dining room, where the staff welcomes guests to chow down in the traditional manner of sharing meals table-wide and eating with their hands or scooping up bites with injera, a traditional Ethiopian flatbread.

A fragrant mélange of garlic, curried lamb, and imported spices greets diners as soon as they arrive at Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant, giving them a brief introduction to the menu’s assortment of fragrant Middle Eastern spices. Inspired by the cuisines from Lebanon, Morocco, and Armenia, the chefs sear entire skewers of marinated chicken, roast tagines of curried lamb, and layer open-faced flatbreads with herbs and spices.

Moorish archways, Middle Eastern lanterns, and tapestry-lined walls blend with the aromatic cuisine to evoke the feeling of dining amid the warm breezes of the Mediterranean. On Friday and Saturday evenings, belly dancers weave throughout the dining room and the hookah lounge, dazzling patrons with undulating dance moves and an ongoing prank war with local hula dancers.

A vine-laced trellis arches over the sidewalk that leads to Tiburon Fine Dining, an unassuming space that once housed a fruit stand within its brick confines. Subtle lighting and polished wood floors imbue the dining room with an understated elegance that extends to the menu. Chefs drizzle international meats and seafood with savory reduction sauces, and serve all entrees with a dollop of homemade sorbet garnished with a single snowman tear.