Idaho Restaurants

The menu at Bonsai Bistro and Sushi Bar draws on culinary traditions from a broad swath of East Asia, but many of its flavors get their start closer to home. Familiar recipes from Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Korea get a regional twist as chefs incorporate organic produce, sustainably sourced ingredients, and locally made tofu into each dish. This widens the scope of the already expansive menu to include such nontraditional items as sushi rolls with heirloom tomato or garlic-citrus sauce. To accommodate diets or personal tastes, the chefs can tailor the spice of virtually any entree, and they can modify many dishes to be vegan-friendly, vegetarian, or gluten-free.

In contrast to the eclectic menu, the restaurant's dining area embraces a spare-and-simple vibe. Concave windows overlook the waters of Lake Coeur d'Alene, and a creek-like indoor koi pond brings the natural world even closer as it wends between wooden tables and dawdling rays of sunshine.

When most little boys were hoping to unwrap G.I. Joes or dirt bikes on Christmas morning, Michael DePasquale had his fingers crossed for a Suzy Homemaker oven. From this iconoclastic start, Michael advanced from his toy oven to a job as a dishwasher, then prep cook, then lead cook—and then honed his developing skills at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. In his spare time, he adopted a loyal pet rhode island red chicken and taught it to chase frisbees. After graduating, he honed his craft as head and executive chef at several different restaurants before launching his own eatery.

Fifteen years later, Michael is still cracking eggs and sizzling sausage for the breakfast dishes his eatery serves all day long. Omelets—which convert to scramblers upon request—can be packed with fresh jalapeños, bacon, and sour cream. For sweeter creations, he slathers honey butter onto pancakes, as well as custard-style sourdough french toast. At midday, hand-pressed burgers enter the lists and don cloaks of spicy habanero or barbecue sauce. Diners can lounge on an outdoor patio on summery afternoons, and on colder evenings, they can savor chicken marsala and roasted tri-tip steak amid the dining room’s wood-paneled walls.

Located in the Davenport district, in the same refurbished brick building as the Montvale Hotel, Scratch Restaurant & Lounge blends contemporary cooking with a refined atmosphere of white tablecloths and black decor. Fresh aromas waft out of the open kitchen, where, true to the restaurant's name, chefs craft inventive dishes entirely from scratch. They draw on caches of seasonal ingredients such as herbs that only grow in a groundhog's shadow in February. Their USDA prime Angus steaks soak up flavors of smoked bacon and rosemary compound butter, while flaky halibut filets grill over smokey cedar planks.

Within the dining room, servers draw Washington and California wines from the rack that lines one exposed-brick wall. To further compliment the fresh fare, bartenders can shake or stir 32 specialty martinis.

Forty-One South crafts its menu of upscale American cuisine using many locally sourced ingredients. As diners nestle into the scenic lakefront lodge, servers ferry plates of pan-seared duck confit and mesquite-smoked filet mignon to linen-clad tables. Herbs picked from the eatery's onsite garden bolster the flavors of locally sourced game, and the eatery also stocks local coffee and honey procured from the region's wild Pooh bears. A panoramic view of Lake Pend Oreille calms observant diners. On Saturday nights, romantic music fills the dining area, and live music lights up the lounge on Thursday evenings.

Though James and Laura Heiberg count chef Ryan Lancaster among their good friends, that wasn't why they hired him to man the griddles at John Doe’s Grill. Instead, the brother-sister team of restaurateurs recognized that Chef Ryan's experience as head chef at The Dish and Square would help him infuse plates of casual pub fare with surprising twists. Ingredients such as rosemary au jus, sun-dried tomatoes, and homemade red hot sauce bedeck John Doe's traditional sandwiches and burgers, which nestle into diner-style red plastic baskets lined with checkered paper. Three large-screen high-definition TVs broadcast sports games in keeping with the laid-back vibe, and a game room invites patrons to shoot darts and billiards between sips of beer or rounds of hot potato with sizzling-hot quesadillas.

The aroma of freshly baked bread fills Souper Salad, and a rotating buffet nourishes diners with wholesome fare such as handcrafted soups and an expansive salad bar. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and sugar-free labels guide eaters of every ilk as they peruse deli favorites, including Tuna Skroodle pasta salad brimming with rotini noodles. Salads are created with more than 30 toppings, from zucchini to hot-and-spicy peanuts. Ladles fill bowls with different varieties of soup every day, including broccoli-cheese soup seasoned with white pepper. After dinner or before it even begins, a dessert buffet sates sweet cravings with gingerbread rolls, and oreo crumbles, caramel, and other toppings to cap soft-serve ice cream.