Char
CITY GUIDES | THE SOUTH
Jackson's Restaurant Scene Is Having a Moment, and Here's the Proof
By Kelly McMurtry | April 2, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs over the years, from daily newspaper writer to middle-school math teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s reviewed Michelin-starred fine-dining to gas station barbecue.
Jackson is one of the cities I keep having to revisit for work, and every time I do, my list changes. I go thinking I’ve got a handle on the best restaurants, only to find some menu has tightened up, some dining room has found its groove, or some longtime favorite has reminded me why it made the cut in the first place. It would be easier if the city would sit still. Instead, Jackson keeps giving me reasons to eat my way back through it.
That is not a complaint. The fun of eating here is that the restaurant scene feels like it has some movement to it. There are old-school Jackson restaurants that still know exactly why people love them, and there are newer places that keep pushing the city forward without making a show of it. For anyone wondering where to eat in Jackson, Mississippi, that makes the job pretty pleasant.
These are the best restaurants in Jackson, Mississippi, right now.
Aladdin Mediterranean Grill
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Yoseph Ali opened Aladdin on Lakeland Drive in 2004, and the restaurant still does what neighborhood restaurants are supposed to do: feed people well, charge fairly, and make regulars feel smart for returning. The menu is sprawling in the useful way, with lamb shawarma, tabbouleh, hummus, falafel, baklava, and even breakfast omelets like the haloumi version sautéed in garlic and olive oil and finished with feta. Jackson has flashier places, but not many that have earned this kind of long-haul trust.
Best for: A reliable neighborhood meal
Big Apple Inn
$$$$$ | MAP | INSTAGRAM
Big Apple Inn is one of those where the signature order tells you a whole city story in about three bites. The Farish Street institution still serves the pig ear sandwich Juan Mora turned into local history, along with smokes and tamales. Mora’s great-grandson, Geno Lee, is now the fourth-generation of a restaurant that traces its roots to 1939. Plenty of restaurants talk about legacy; this one can wrap it in paper and hand it across the counter.
Best for: A taste of Jackson history
Brent’s Drugs
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Brent’s Drugs has been doing the soda-fountain thing since 1946, which would already be enough, but then somebody had the good sense to put The Apothecary in the old pharmacy storeroom out back. Up front, the menu still leans into diner breakfast, biscuits, burgers, shakes, malts, and a root beer float, which is exactly what a place called Brent’s Drugs should be doing. The trick here is that it never feels preserved in amber; it feels lived in, like Jackson has kept one of its best old rooms in circulation.
Best for: Breakfast and a little nostalgia
Bully’s Restaurant
$$$$$ | MAP | INSTAGRAM
Tyrone and Greta Brown Bully built something lasting when they opened their namesake restaurant in 1982. Tyrone Bully and his father, both masons, built it themselves, and the food still lands where it should: oxtails, neckbones, chitterlings, mac and cheese, greens, and the rest of the soul-food canon done with the kind of authority that got it a James Beard America’s Classic award. There is no need to dress this one up with fancy language; Bully’s already did the hard part years ago.
Best for: Soul food with real authority
Char
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Char remains one of Jackson’s dependable grown-up dinners, an employee-owned steakhouse in Highland Village that still understands the value of a dark dining room, a proper bar, and a menu that does not need to invent itself every six months. The draw is USDA Prime steak and fresh seafood, but the crab, shrimp, and andouille gumbo, the no-filler crab cakes, and that house-made pecan pie are what keep it from reading like just another special-occasion template. It has been part of the Jackson restaurant conversation for years for a reason: this is the kind of place that knows exactly what people came to eat.
Best for: A polished steakhouse dinner
CS’s
$$$$$ | MAP | INSTAGRAM
CS’s has been locally owned since 1978, and that fact alone tells you a lot about whether this is some decorative nostalgia act or a place that actually matters to people. Owner Pat Boland’s burger list still includes the Inez Burger, built with homemade chili, nacho cheese, and jalapeños, plus house standards like the Suzy and Joe B that sound like they were named by people who spend real time at the bar. The room is a dive in the best sense of the word, which is to say nobody has wasted a second trying to sand off its personality.
Best for: A burger and a beer
Elvie’s
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Hunter Evans has built Elvie’s into the kind of place that makes Jackson look sharper than a lot of bigger cities, an all-day Belhaven café with French bones, Southern product, and the good sense not to overplay either one. The menu right now runs from smoked redfish tartine and escargot hushpuppies to redfish almondine, Gulf Coast bourride, and a steak frites that knows exactly why steak frites became a classic in the first place. It is named for Evans’ New Orleans grandmother, and that little thread of memory running through the room helps explain why the place feels polished without ever turning cold.
Best for: The city’s most polished meal
Iron Horse Grill
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Iron Horse Grill is part restaurant, part Mississippi music shrine, and in a downtown full of history that can sometimes sit there like homework, this place at least gives it something to do. The building dates to 1906, the current version rose after years of abandonment, and the menu is pitched straight at crowd-pleasers: charcoal-grilled fajitas, shrimp and grits with Delta grind grits and crawfish, seafood dip, queso, and all the rest of the stuff people actually order. It is not trying to be delicate, which is probably why it works.
Best for: Live music and a casual night out
Johnny T’s
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Johnny T’s knows that a night out on Farish Street should involve music, a drink, and food substantial enough to keep the whole operation from turning into background scenery. The menu includes shrimp and grits with sautéed Gulf shrimp, andouille, mushrooms, cheddar grits, and crawfish cream sauce, while the upstairs lounge and weekend live music give the place its actual reason for being. It is part dinner spot, part nightlife anchor, and in this case that split personality is the point.
Best for: Dinner with live blues
Lou’s Full-Serv
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Yes, Lou’s relocated to Ridgeland, but it’s still worthy of the 15-minute drive north because Louis LaRose’s classic Southern cooking. The menu runs from crawfish fondue and butterbean hummus to bronzed Gulf redfish with crab butter, short rib with “hasherole,” and a Thursday plate of pork chops with andouille dirty rice. LaRose is a Jackson native, and the restaurant has that useful quality of feeling informed by the city.
Best for: Creative Southern cooking
The Manship
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
The Manship is the restaurant you get when chef Alex Eaton and sommelier Steven O’Neill decide that Jackson could use a little more fire, a little more Mediterranean influence, and a little less caution. The menu moves through wood-fired oysters, smoked tuna dip, fried green tomatoes with crabmeat, charcuterie, pizzas, and the kind of Southern-Mediterranean crossover that could have become a mess in lesser hands. Instead it feels confident, which is usually what happens when a chef knows exactly what the restaurant needs to be.
Best for: Wood fire and big flavors
La Presa
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
La Presa opened in Highland Village in November 2025, and chef-owner Cristian Rodriguez wasted no time turning it into one of the city’s buzziest spots, with nightly waitlists and the kind of immediate attention most new places spend years chasing. Rodriguez, who previously worked at Babalu, The Manship, and Aplós, built the restaurant with Alex Eaton around Tex-Mex that has backbone, from warm salsas and enchiladas to quesabirria, pork al pastor tacos, ancho-glazed redfish tacos, esquites, and fajitas. It doesn’t strike me as a restaurant with a borrowed concept; it feels like a chef finally getting to cook his own story.
Best for: A new-school Tex-Mex dinner with momentum
Pulito Osteria
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Chaz Lindsay brought Pulito home to Belhaven after nearly two decades cooking in some very important kitchens, including Craft, Colicchio & Sons, and Eleven Madison Park, and the place has the confidence of a restaurant that knows exactly what it is. The menu leans into handmade pasta, wood-fired pizza, and smart Italian-American dishes like the Caesar, pork-and-ricotta meatballs, bucatini alla gricia, and my fave item on the menu: a roast chicken with a parsley-heavy salsa verde that cuts through the richness the way a dish like that ought to. It already has a 2025 Michelin Recommended designation, which sounds lofty until the food arrives and makes the case without any help.
Best for: A polished night out with real pedigree
Saltine
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Saltine gives Fondren its oyster bar, with a kitchen that treats Gulf seafood with a little swagger. The restaurant stays rooted in oysters, seafood, and craft cocktails, and the menu has long pushed beyond standard po’ boy territory even while keeping one foot in that New Orleans lane. It helps that the whole thing is run with enough energy to make seafood in Jackson feel less like a novelty and more like a permanent part of the city’s dining life.
Best for: Oysters and Gulf seafood
Walker’s Drive-In
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
After taking over ownership in July 2025, Joseph Cravens has continued Walker’s history of putting out dishes that far exceed any other restaurant I’ve been that has “drive-in” as part of the name. Expect classics, including Redfish Anna with lump crab meat, but also new creations like pan-roasted scallops with shrimp and feta risotto, wood-grilled shrimp and paella, and a prime filet aged 45 days. What makes Walker’s matter is that it has managed the trick almost nobody pulls off: a real handoff to a new owner without losing the restaurant I kept coming back for.
Best for: A classic Jackson dinner
The Minnesota Michelin Guide: 12 Restaurants That Should Make the Cut
These are the Michelin-worthy restaurants across Minnesota, from Bib Gourmands to places with star-level ambition.
