14 Best Restaurants in The Finger Lakes, New York

Well appointed but not overdone, the Aurora Inn is the spot for fine dining in town. The food is mostly classic American and the seasonal menu uses many fresh, local ingredients. Dinner could be veal Oscar (with crab cakes and béarnaise sauce), pan-seared scallops, or rack of lamb. The pastry chef whips up decadent desserts. You can eat inside or out: the formal dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows opens out onto a spacious patio overlooking Cayuga Lake. Breakfast is served daily.

A spectacular view of Keuka Lake awaits you at this breezy patio café, part of the Bully Hill Vineyards. The food is eclectic: Maryland crab cakes, buffalo burgers, or sage-and-prosciutto-stuffed chicken breast with three-cheese fettuccine. Lunch includes sandwiches and salads. Bully Hill wines are available, of course.

The chrome-trimmed diner, run by the Caratozzolo family, serves nothing except tasty comfort food. Eggplant Parmesan, linguine with clam sauce, and liver and onions are popular dishes. The lasagna is made from an old family recipe. The homemade pies—especially the coconut cream and raspberry—are glorious. Connie's is 3 mile west of Seneca Falls.

What started as a darling of the biker crowd has evolved into a regional hot spot for pork sandwiches, barbecued ribs, and, on most nights, live blues. Chicken, beef, and pork are prepared barbecue, Cajun, and even Cuban style. Try a side of salt potatoes for some local flavor. On Friday and Saturday, waits can run as long as 90 minutes; the full-service bar, with 17 beers on tap, helps pass the time. In July and August, you can eat at one of the sidewalk picnic tables.

Vintage signs and photos and tablecloths printed with Victorian-era newsprint add interest to this casual place on the north end of town. The menu is a mix of bar food, salads, wraps, and sandwiches: batter-fried shrimp, a Reuben, a chicken BLT, burgers, chips topped with shredded cheddar and bacon. The dinner menu adds entrées to the mix, such as beef tenderloin dusted with coffee, chocolate, and spices, pan-seared and served with a port wine sauce. Locals warm the stools in the front-room bar.

A brick building across the street from the Aurora Inn houses this tavern, a once-crusty bar now outfitted with dark-wood paneling, rough-hewn beams, and crackling fireplaces. The food is pub fare with a bit of flair. The most popular item is the burger, topped with raw or caramelized onions and a choice of cheese, served with hand-cut fries. Also on the menu are pulled-pork sandwiches, spicy black bean burgers, and barbecue chicken sandwiches with apple-smoked bacon. A TV resides over the bar and there's a pool table in back.

A cozy spot with checkered-tile flooring, mismatched silverware, and an open kitchen, this restaurant serves up rustic-elegant meals without pretension. The chefs, Philly transplants, use local locally grown produce, grass-fed beef, and cheeses from local dairies. The menu changes monthly, but past diners have tucked into cheddar-and–Ithaca Nut Brown Ale soup, pâté made in-house on baguette toasts with Dijon mustard, jam, and cornichons and grilled hanger steak with hand-cut fries and malt-vinegar aioli.

A giant wreath with a shamrock beckons from a hill, making this family-owned restaurant, in operation since 1933, hard to miss. The menu has mostly seafood, steak, and chops: filet mignon, scallops in cheese-and-cream sauce, and Irish surf and turf (with lamb chop and langostinos). Open-air dining is an option on the deck and terrace.

This casual spot—one of the best choices in the area for lake views—occupies an 1880s cottage on the west side of Keuka Lake. The food is American: prime rib, fried shrimp, bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin, barbecue chicken, a variety of steaks and chops, and a Friday fish fry. Outside, a fire pit and 150 seats overlook the bluff of Keuka Lake.

Opened in 1956, the family-owned and -operated restaurant has retained a Happy Days feel. Place your order and the cashier yells it out amid the din. Burgers topped with Schaller's secret hot sauce are the most popular choice, followed by a Rochester specialty, white hot dogs, also known as "white hots" (sausage-size, natural-casing dogs made with pork, beef, and veal). The restaurant, west of Ontario Beach Park in the town of Greece, is particularly popular with the beach crowd. Take out on a sunny day or eat in the bright dining room.

The original 1807 tavern, rustic compared with the elegant dining room, is perhaps the best place around to experience Old Skaneateles—meaning pre-1980, when the village was more of a cozy bedroom community for Syracuse than a vacation destination. Menu favorites include traditional Yankee pot roast and crab cakes with scallop mousse. Seasonal offerings might be seafood bouillabaisse or chicken-and-biscuits. An enclosed porch lined with windows is open in warm weather.

Steak and seafood feature prominently on the menu at this country inn about 5 miles east of downtown. Baby back ribs are simmered in a house barbecue sauce, a buttery London broil is served with baked stuffed shrimp, and haddock is baked and topped with tomatoes, olives, capers, and raisins. Sit in front of the fireplace and sip local wine under the watchful gaze of the deer heads mounted on the walls.

A wraparound porch overlooks the gorge and a waterfall at this restaurant within Letchworth State Park. American and European fare on the seasonal menu might include entrées such as chicken breast over spinach fettuccine in a garlic-cream sauce, salmon with a barbecue maple glaze cooked on a cedar plank, and slow-roasted prime rib with fresh horseradish. The dining room is in keeping with the Victorian style of inn; large windows take in the park setting.

The clientele—from suit-wearing execs to hoodie-clad students—is as varied as the menu at this pubby restaurant with wooden booths and brick walls. Specials fill five 4-foot-square blackboards, change daily, and feature many fish dishes, such as basil-pesto-crusted salmon fillet. The regular menu includes sandwiches and soups, which make for a cheap but filling meal. Diners spill onto a patio in summer.