The Grey is located in the city’s formerly segregated Greyhound bus depot. There are a couple different ways to eat here, all serving dishes that feel effortlessly connected to the city. In the main dining room, you’ll find a prix-fixe menu focused on seafood and whatever is in season, which might include smoked pork with hominy or purloo Carolina Gold rice with salted fish. For something more casual, The Diner Bar in the Art Deco waiting room has an a-la-carte menu with similar dishes.

Husk has been a pretty successful restaurant in Charleston and Nashville for a while, and they opened this newest location in Savannah in 2018. The space feels appropriately special, with a large dining room inside a converted home filled with intimate tables around the chandelier-lit bar priming you for the big fancy dinner to come. The menu is all about seasonal dishes that use ingredients native to the south, so expect to see things like oysters and yellowfin tuna with Carolina Gold rice.

Ukiyo is the newest and best Japanese restaurant in Savannah. The casual izakaya opened in the Starland District in 2022 with a great selection of Japanese whiskeys and sake and plenty of worthwhile dishes. Go with a couple of friends so you can share everything, either at a table in the dining room decorated with Japanese tapestries and art or at the yellow-lit bar and counter overlooking the kitchen. Get things like the okonomiyaki cabbage pancake, wagyu beef bun, and tonkotsu ramen.

While there are plenty of soul food spots in the historic district, Sisters of the New South is an option we really like in Victory Heights, with its bright blue tables and a tree mural on the wall. They serve dishes you might expect to see at a family gathering or holiday, like fried chicken and slow-cooked oxtails, all made from recipes that have been passed down for generations. It’s perfect for a casual lunch or dinner, especially if you add on some of the standout seafood options.

Narobia's Grits & Gravy expanded their simply-styled dining room during the pandemic to make room for all the people stopping by for the restaurant’s breakfast, coastal, and Lowcountry dishes. The crab stew is one of the best options, made with a rich sauce and served on a bed of creamy grits, but you also can’t go wrong with fluffy biscuits and gravy, french toast dusted with plenty of powdered sugar, and flaky crab patties.

You’ll have to line up outside this 1943 boarding house for the city’s best family-style Southern food. That’s because the restaurant is only open on weekdays from 11am-2pm, but if you’re even hesitating at the word “line,” know that Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room is definitely somewhere to prioritize. The menu changes by season, with candied yams and apple salad in the fall and snap beans in the summer. But you’ll always find our favorites: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and black-eyed peas.

The appropriately-named Olde Pink House is easy to find, with its iconic shade of pink, right across from Reynolds Square. The classic art-filled dining room with patina walls feels like you’re traveling back in time, while the menu includes Southern classics with the occasional twist, like fried green tomatoes, fried chicken with macaroni and cheese, and shrimp and grits “sushi.” We like this place best for dinner, when they serve more substantial plates.

Crystal Beer Parlor started as a family-run grocery store and Prohibition-era speakeasy. These days, photos of past customers cover the walls, and the place feels relatively unchanged from the early days. While the burgers and beers no longer cost under a dollar, they’re still great—whether you’re going with the classic option, or the Mountain Jam that comes topped with beer cheese and grilled onions. Consider ordering the crab stew and pimento pig sandwich if you’re really hungry.

Leopold's is an old-fashioned ice cream shop on Broughton Street that pretty much always has a line during summer. A Savannah icon since 1919, the shop feels out of a different era, especially because all the employees still wear old-school bowties and hats. Flavors include butter pecan (with Georgia pecans) and Tutti Frutti’s candied fruit and rum ice cream, which has been on the menu since they opened.

Ask any Savannah College of Art and Design student and they’ll tell you how many evenings they’ve spent at Vinnie Van Go Go's, a Neapolitan pizzeria near Ellis Square named after Vincent Van Gogh. The heaping $4 slices drape over the sides of the plates and make for a perfect quick and affordable meal that doesn’t sacrifice quality for the not-so-starving artists. If you’re with a group, order a whole pie (we like the white pizza) to eat on the patio with a couple of beers.

Sandfly BBQ used to operate out of a Streamliner trailer, but now has a brick and mortar between downtown and Isle of Hope that’s become a destination in its own right. They specialize in Memphis-style BBQ, but also showcase other dishes like St. Louis ribs and Brunswick stew (said to have been invented in nearby Brunswick), and fries topped with hand-pulled pork for the south’s version of poutine. You should always leave room for sides, including fried okra, baked beans, and coleslaw.

Originally a laid-back fish camp on the water, a couple from Atlanta purchased the property in 1983 and made it what it is today: The Original Crab Shack. Tables sit underneath a gnarled tree, providing some much-needed shade to enjoy super fresh local seafood like deviled crab and stew, Lowcountry boil, and boiled peel-and-eat shrimp. And if you time things right, you might run into an aspiring pirate, in town for an annual Buccaneer Ball that’s been in a bunch of TV shows and movies.

A husband-and-wife team opened Back in the Day Bakery in the Midtown area of Savannah in 2002, and it quickly became one of the city’s most popular breakfast spots. The pastel-hued shop has a large case full of pastries, thick and fluffy biscuits, cakes like tres leches, and chocolate chip cookies you shouldn’t miss. Take them with you for a snack while you walk around the artsy neighborhood, and absolutely grab some of the stocked jellies and jams to take home.

The Collins Quarter is an Australian-inspired cafe that opened in 2014 and should be your destination for petal-sprinkled lavender lattes and smashed avocado toast with beet hummus. While they have seats inside and out, we love the light-filled indoor space with vases of flowers on every table, especially at brunch. While their Forsyth Park location is bigger, there’s nothing quite like people-watching at the cafe tables downtown.

After a big night out on River Street or before a day relaxing on the beach at Tybee Island, come to The Breakfast Club. Counter seats and tables along the tight row of booths can be hard to come by on weekends, but that’s because the diner really excels in breakfast, including crispy hashbrowns, stuffed-to-the-brim omelets, pecan-filled waffles, and creamy grits. The burgers are another highlight, cooked to perfection on the griddle and topped with bacon and cheese.

Big Bon Bodega in the Starland District serves Montreal-style bagels out of a converted auto garage, and seeing as the chef ran a mobile pizza oven, this is a place that knows their way around carbs. The bagels are hand rolled and boiled in honey water before getting baked in the wood-fired oven, at which point you can build your own or choose one of the existing options, like the Vietnamese-inspired Bon Mi or the 912, a New York-esque bacon, egg, and cheese.