Photography by Jared Kinley, Rachel Maucieri, Josh Masterson, Starving Artist Co. and Selena Romero
All eyes are on Oklahoma City. I know I say it every year around this time, but as someone who has lived all over the country and travels multiple times per month, there’s no place like OKC. That’s true of so many aspects of my adopted hometown, from its booming arts scene and its impending colossal coliseum to its characteristic neighborhoods, year-round events, world-class hotels and metropolitan developments. And the world is taking notice. Thanks to this year’s Route 66 centennial, bringing road-trippers from across the globe to our fair city, visitors are getting a real taste of what OKC is about. Coupled with our NBA Championship team and the 2028 Olympics, which OKC is co-hosting with Los Angeles, it’s hard not to take notice.
For me, that sentiment is more than just a headline. On my travels, from Alaska to Australia, I’m increasingly hearing rave reviews about OKC—from people who have visited, and those who want to. Dusty stereotypes and preconceived notions are being replaced with respect, curiosity and awe. And our restaurant scene is a big reason why. Each year, our restaurants and bars earn coveted James Beard Award nominations, catapulting our chefs into the national spotlight, while new concepts continue to diversify the melting pot of cuisines and dining styles. In the past year alone we’ve seen everything from a Korean steakhouse and French bistro to wood-fired bagels, Caribbean cooking, oyster bars and Tuscan pastas. When I travel, people tell me they’ve heard amazing things about OKC’s restaurant scene. Now that more eyes are on our city, people are seeing what we’ve known all along. These are the best new restaurants of 2026.
Carletti’s
1226 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City
Like something out of an Italian fairy tale, Carletti’s might be a swanky new Italian restaurant, but its roots run deep. Describing the restaurant as a museum of Oklahoma history, co-owner and historic preservationist Gina Foxhoven is the great grand-daughter of Giovanni Carletti, who worked with Roberto Ravaioli in running C&R Grocery in Haileyville, Oklahoma. The two patriarchs were fast friends, and eventually family members, when Carletti’s daughter married Ravaioli’s son. Decades later, and that story of love, friendship and heritage is baked into every part of Carletti’s. The space originally stood as a speakeasy-style bar, The Kentucky Club, during Prohibition. Today, it’s a gorgeously designed historic property with a new iteration of The Kentucky Club in the rear lounge, featuring expansive skyline views from its hilly perch. The menu showcases “sacred family recipes,” like Nonna’s Lasagna and Ravaioli Bolognese, while the bar serves “Thoroughbred”-inspired cocktails like Wintergreen Juleps with mint syrup and powdered sugar. “I treat this as a museum, as much as a restaurant,” Foxhoven said, “where you can get lost in a little bit of storytelling along the way.”
Bar None
801 N. Hudson Avenue, Oklahoma City
The wine scene has been on the rise around here in recent years, culminating in one of the most exciting new bars from one of the most lauded restaurants. Bar None is located right next to its bigger sister, Nonesuch, carving out its own space with a minimalist lounge and a menu projected on the wall. Said menu rotates readily, highlighting esoteric glass pours, intricate cocktails and quirky bar bites (think pho-spiced pecans and egg salad sandwiches). What’s distinctive about Bar None is its dedicated focus on North American wine, and particularly those from unexpected regions beyond California, Oregon and Washington. On any given evening, you might find an Albariño from Colorado or a pour from Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe. Down the hall, guests can peruse the curated bottle room for more varietals rarely seen around these parts.
Le Parisien
440 NW 11th Street, Oklahoma City
My new date night obsession, Le Parisien is the French bistro of my dreams. Flickering with candles and adorned with vintage French art, it’s at once cozy and impossibly chic, right down to the crispy frites, bubbling French onion soup and buttery bone marrow. It’s all thanks to the visionaries behind it: Alain Jeu and Dustin Lancaster. The longtime friends designed the space themselves, transforming it from Cafe Do Brasil into an authentic love letter to Parisian brasseries. “We are really happy with the way it turned out,” said Jeu, an ever-present sight greeting guests at the restaurant. “The chef, the look of the place, our staff is great. We’re really happy to be here.”
La Buca
605 NW 28th Street, Oklahoma City
2026 has been a big year for Italian restaurants, with each new entry defining its own niche. In the Paseo Arts District, one such niche is La Buca, an intimate, Tuscan-influenced grotto from Italian native Milan Karadzovski. With a name that means “hole in the wall,” La Buca draws inspiration from tucked-away wine cellars in Florence and basement restaurants in New York City. Nostalgia is another key ingredient, from the rustic-chic chairs to the menu of Tuscan lasagna, chicken Parmigiana and tableside tiramisu. Other dishes, meanwhile, hew closer to Tuscan traditions, like crispy porchetta with salmoriglio sauce and ribollita soup with Tuscan beans and smoked Italian sausage. Served in a space that feels swanky and spirited, where Karadzovski dabbles as DJ and couples share pasta on candlelit tables, La Buca is the “hole in the wall” we’ve been craving.
Kaizume
1501 NW 23rd Street, Oklahoma City
Richard Ly is fast becoming a frequent fixture on these end-of-year lists. A few years ago, he dazzled diners—including me—at Awaji Izakaya. And this year, he strikes again, with a French-infused Japanese restaurant that plumbs new depths of sushi, seafood, noodles and steaks. The restaurant, in the former Syrup space on NW 23rd, is decked out like the hull of a ship, replete with wood paneling, maritime artwork and pinstriped tables that look like yacht attire. Whereas Awaji is a more traditional izakaya, traipsing through street food traditions in Tokyo, Kaizume charts a different course. “We created a menu that’s more like Japanese-French fusion,” said Ly, whose dishes run the gamut from creamy crab bisque to tuna tartare with yuzu ponzu and goat cheese. “We wanted it to be different. We wanted this to be more of a new test kitchen.” Yes, it has some of the freshest sushi in the city, but you’ll also find plenty of surprises along the way, like the Pear Pressure roll made with spicy tuna, pear, balsamic glaze and chive oil.
Dougla Kitchen
100 NE 4th Street Oklahoma City
You know it’s been a banner year for OKC restaurants when some of the standout bites include cassava dumplings, smoked octopus ceviche and rum-glazed lamb skewers. A taste of the Caribbean in Deep Deuce, Dougla Kitchen represents the most personal project to date for OKC’s most acclaimed chef. Caribbean ingredients often pop up on menus at his other restaurants, but for Jamaican native Andrew Black, Dougla is the first time he’s opened a restaurant fully immersed in his heritage. The word “Dougla” is a Caribbean term that means mixed, which Black chose to honor his father’s Indo-Caribbean lineage, and his mother’s African history. Aptly, the menu fuses Caribbean cuisine with Indo flavors, from smoked octopus coconut ceviche to pimento- and tamarind-glazed goat ribs with Indian cucumber and mint chutney. Whatever you do, don’t miss the curried goat with plantain gnocchi, or the pitch-perfect piña coladas, made with fresh juice from a sugarcane machine behind the bar.
Juliette Oyster Bar & Steakhouse
121 E. Main Street, Norman
Nowadays, fresh seafood is as commonplace in OKC as steak. And at one particular Norman newcomer, you can have the best of both. Juliette Oyster Bar & Steakhouse, from husband-wife team Theron and LeRhonda Jessop, is an upscale nautical addition to Norman’s historic Main Street. Outfitted with exposed brick, cozy booths and a lavish wooden bar, it’s got a menu to match the elegant motif, including some of the freshest oysters I’ve slurped in Oklahoma. Surf & turf is where Juliette really excels, seamlessly marrying seared scallops with wood-grilled filet, or a Wagyu strip steak with crab beurre blanc. Even the sides and salads are staggering, like fluffy potato croquettes with gochujang honey and remoulade and broccolini almondine flecked with sea salt.
Duckie’s Woodfire
310 N. Klein Avenue, Oklahoma City
If there’s one glaring void I’ve bemoaned about OKC’s food scene, it’s bagels. Yes, they exist here, and they can be quite good (shoutout to Old School Bagel Cafe). But our options pale in comparison to many other cities. This year, mercifully, a new contender stepped in to fill the void and schmear it with whitefish salad. Duckie’s Woodfire is a colorful all-day cafe in the former Fair-Weather Friend brewery space, offering housemade bagels and bialies, smoked fish, schmears and an evening menu of wings, bagel sandwiches, bialy pizzas and house-brewed beer. Not only are the wood-fired bagels legit and delicious, but whimsical options include the Sunshine Stacker with sausage, roasted egg, graham cracker schmear and sharp cheddar on a plain bagel.
La Loba Cantina + Grill
23 W. 1st Street Edmond
Located in the Edmond Railyard, La Loba Cantina + Grill is the first full-service restaurant from Robert and Lori Black, who also own Cafe Evoke, Twisted Tree Baking Company and Bluebird Books. Bedecked with vibrant Mexican artwork and chile ristras, La Loba eschews Tex-Mex tropes for authentic, regional Mexican cooking, criss-crossing the country from the coast to the south for a menu more focused on vegetables and seafood. Describing their food as “casually awesome Mexican,” they’re offering the kind of dishes they love to eat, like empanada-style quesadillas with housemade masa; guacamole dotted with toasted pepitas and pomegranate seeds; and Oaxacan-style braised pork shoulder with mole negro, cilantro rice and fried plantains. What stemmed from a personal love for Mexican cuisine, and a diligence for authenticity, has blossomed into one of the truest—and most distinctive—Mexican restaurants the metro has seen in years.
Mezzo Bakeshop
1100 N. Walker Avenue, Oklahoma City
Yet another marquee moment in OKC’s Italian glow-up of late, Mezzo Bakeshop marked its hotly anticipated debut in Midtown toward the end of summer. The restaurant, located in the vaunted Brown’s Bakery space, hails from husband-wife owners Chad and Tori Arnold, who harkened to their cherished family vacations to Italy as they designed the concept. With a name that nods to the leisurely intermezzo—or in-between—moments they share in Italy, the lofty bakeshop serves a scratch-made menu of breads, pastries, breakfast and lunch, along with a top-shelf espresso program and a melange of spritzes and espresso martinis. The food, like the sandwiches served on house-baked schiacciata and pancakes enriched with housemade ricotta, serves to accentuate the atmosphere of the space, which is designed to transport guests to Italy. One of those “I can’t believe this is in OKC” spots, there’s something transfixing about the ambience that feels so sincerely European.
MAHT
519 NW 23rd Street, Oklahoma City
At this point, it feels almost cliche to include a steakhouse on our Best New Restaurants list. After all, we’re certainly not lacking in filets and rib-eyes around here. And yet, just when we think we’ve exhausted every imaginable style of steakhouse, along comes one of our most acclaimed local chefs to utterly reinvent the wheel. Courtesy of chef Kevin Lee, MAHT is described—somewhat modestly—as a modern American steakhouse. But there’s more than meets (meats?) the eye here. Pulling from his own upbringing and the food he shared with his family, Lee infuses his menu with Korean inspiration, from kimchi béarnaise and crab and scallion pancakes to duck breast glazed with Bokbunja fruit wine. “We’re cooking food that people really crave, and they’re familiar with, but it’s different and unique,” Lee said. Add in the kimchi-kissed martinis and a moody dining room bedecked with gilded tigers, and you’ve got a steakhouse worth raving about.
