The Food Scene

Everybody loves Cheever’s. Its pleasant dining room screams elegance and fine dining, and so does the food. But it’s a comfortable place to be, and that, plus the warm welcome, will delight diners. The food, though refined and beautifully plated, will appeal to those who delight in comfort food. After all, their most famous entree is chicken-fried steak – and it’s delicious. 

Like Cheever’s, Copper Dome will please all diners, but on different days. Thursdays are Bento Night, a cocktail and small bite evening featuring a limited menu of eclectic bar foods. Friday and Saturday feature a $90, seven-course tasting menu. The complex, labor-intensive, meticulously thought out and carefully plated dishes rival any fine dining establishment in Tulsa. But the staff – three young, passionate chefs – know what it’s like to be on a budget, so on Sundays, they offer a more casual spread: $28 for all-you-can-eat.

It’s bright, it’s brash, it’s splashy, it’s as full of energy as a 1950’s cartoon. (And, in fact, 1950’s cartoons and pop icons inspire much of its decor.) “My love language is celebration,” says the owner, Hailey McDermid. The drinks – which are the restaurant’s main focus – are glorious, served in pint glasses full of fruit and color and swirling flavors. The food complements the prevailing mood; a sandwich named after Elvis has peanut butter with bananas Foster flambeed in the kitchen, but is also meticulously prepared by barbecue whiz Justin Carroll and his staff.

Aimee Hunter came to Tulsa on a whim. She had done the New York restaurant scene with panache, creating pop-up picnics in Central Park. She’d cooked for ranch hands on a big Colorado spread. She came to Tulsa for a week, fell in love, and hasn’t left. She set up a communal garden in the mansion-studded heights north of downtown, and then a restaurant to go with it. There are lunchtime sandwiches made with whatever her farmer friends grow, and occasional dinner pop-ups that might be inspired by the cuisine of Oaxaca, Lebanon or who knows where. “I want to make things people will be excited to eat,” she says.

Justin Donaldson has worked for some of New York’s most revered chefs, but fortunately for us, he’s Oklahoma born – and Barons in downtown Tulsa is where he’s come home to roost. The dishes he serves, and their quality, reflect all his rarefied career experiences. Soups, a mix of swirling colors and surprising flavors, are poured tableside. Lamb rack is cooked to perfection and elegantly plated, with mushroom fricassee, smoked cabbage and a rich demi-glace. After trying some foie gras “lollipops,” you might opt for black cod tandoori, with coconut and curried lentils. All dishes pair well with one of beverage director Alex Calderwood’s fresh, vibrant drinks, many created with house-made shrubs.

Malfi is a bright, cheerful, brand-new restaurant on Brookside with glamorous movie star photos, candy striped walls and delicious food. It’s a collaboration between Elliot Nelson of McNellie’s and Sheamus Feeley, the man behind downtown Tulsa’s Mexican staple, Noche. The chef, Joe Schnell, spent three years working at Quince, a Michelin three-star restaurant in San Francisco. You’d expect great food from this impressive lineup, and Malfi delivers. There are decadent, delicious pastas such as tagliatelle Bolognese and bucatini with basil cream and whipped burrata, as well as entrees like wine-braised short rib. Try the ricotta cake drenched in a rich cream sauce for dessert.

Sunday breakfast? Tuesday lunch? Monday late-night dinner? The Avery is open to serve you. This newly renovated restaurant inside the downtown Hyatt Regency is named after Cyrus Avery, instrumental in building Route 66, and has a menu inspired by the cities the Mother Road passes through. There’s an Italian beef sandwich for Chicago and green chili stew for New Mexico, as well as many other dishes, such as ginger-crusted halibut with lime pineapple ponzu.

This pleasant, Mediterranean-inspired space welcomes all, whether you’re in search of a $3 beer or a $300 bottle of cabernet. It’s meant to be fun. It’s run by Jeremiah and Brandi Esterline, longtime restaurant workers who, during COVID, decided to create their own business. For years, they ran a wine cart at the farmers market. Their new brick-and-mortar space focuses on wine, but there’s also cocktails and beer, as well as food offerings including kofta skewers, seared tuna with chimichurri and a stunning charcuterie board.

Kevin Lee, in his words, “dropped out of school and started cooking at 18 and never looked back.” For years, he worked at restaurants owned by others. He was executive chef at OKC mainstay the Jones Assembly. In 2022, he opened his own restaurant, Birdies, which served fried chicken in a casual setting. In 2024, a complete remake of the restaurant kept only the name. The new Birdies is a glitzy Korean steakhouse with appealing ultramodern decor. It’s not your typical steakhouse, and arguably the steaks, though excellent, take second place to inventive dishes that marry Korean and American cuisine, including sweet potato presented three ways, and Korean rice cakes with an Italian-inspired ragu. 

Sandwiches! Beers! Cocktails! Those are the first words you see when you open the Goose’s website, and that’s what you get in this big modern dining space, whimsically decorated with a mural of a hat-wearing Labrador. Italian heroes, New Orleans muffaletta, corned beef – there are lots of great options. There are also vegan offerings such as a cucumber-pepper sandwich held together with hummus. Plus hot sandwiches (fried chicken!), burgers and salads. And, as advertised, lots of beers and cocktails to choose from.

Raven is an upscale steakhouse with a unique focus on vegetables. Yes, there are big glorious cuts of meat, as in any steakhouse, and they are cooked on a woodfire grill, but where else can you find a steakhouse that sides its dishes with sunchokes, Lion’s Mane mushrooms and nasturtiums? Chef Timothy Abell has worked on both coasts, but he’s thrilled by the bounty that local Oklahoma farms offer.  It’s upscale dining, but Abell does his best to make it, in his words, “like a really fun friend’s living room.”

The dining room is sleek and modern; it took two years to build. But food is the star here, dishes so transcendent that some reviewers consider Akai not only the best sushi restaurant in OKC but also the best restaurant in OKC. You can find the finest, freshest nigiri here, including bluefin tuna. But chef Shinichi Okamoto goes beyond sushi, offering creative delights such as slow-cooked eggplant with miso and chives; A5 Japanese wagyu topped with caviar; a crispy taco with wagyu in a tomato ponzu; salmon in a sauce made with miso, mustard, mirin and wasabi; and cod cooked with miso and shishito peppers. 

Palo Santo is a welcoming, unpretentious bar that some say serves the most creative craft cocktails in the city. With Later Bye, the owners of Palo Santo have upped the game. It bills itself as a neighborhood bar, but it’s sleek and elegant enough to be a stop during a night on the town. Wildly inventive cocktails have names like “Gone for Smokes”  and “Money on the Dresser.” There are pleasant tapas-inspired snacks such as mint-laden zucchini julienne, anchovies with pepper and parsley, and goat cheese sandwiches with manzanilla sherry fig jam. 

There’s marble, murals and chandeliers. It’s a worthy setting for James Beard award-winning chef Andrew Black’s newest outpost. Black’s hallmark is dishes that take months to create and hours to make. A butter bean and tomato appetizer is so meltingly delicious you can eat it with a spoon. More substantial dishes include lavender duck with wild mushroom cream; and pan-seared hake with beetroot ink pasta, cockle clams and red pepper saffron broth. Whatever you choose, you’ll be dazzled by chef’s creativity.

You have impossibly high expectations for a new restaurant by nationally famous, four times James Beard nominated chef Jeff Chanchaleune. With Bar Sen, Chanchaleune delivers. At Ma Der Lao, he lovingly recreated the cuisine of his parents’ homeland, Laos. Here, at a black granite bar lit by yellow neon, he takes the ingredients and techniques of southeast Asia and melds them with his vast knowledge of French and Japanese techniques to create dazzling dishes that transcend national identity. There are even cocktails to pair with every dish.

Featured photo credit: Perle Mesta, OKC; photo courtesy Perle Mesta