CITY GUIDES | ALABAMA

The Best Restaurants in Auburn, Alabama, Beyond Game Day

By Rebecca Thompson | Aug. 5, 2026

1856 – Culinary Residence

AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs, from newspaper writer to middle-school teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s reviewed the Michelin-starred to gas station BBQ.

On fall Saturdays, Auburn swells with tens of thousands of people who arrive ready to roll Toomer’s Corner, yell inside Jordan-Hare Stadium, and eat whatever can be acquired before kickoff. The rest of the year reveals a restaurant city shaped by James Beard-recognized chef David Bancroft, Auburn University’s ambitious culinary program, and a downtown where tasting menus, Gulf seafood, barbecue, and Chinese bao all exist within a few blocks. Figuring out where to eat in Auburn, Alabama, now involves a Michelin-recommended teaching restaurant, old-school breakfast counters, and chefs who’ve given this college town a reputation far beyond football. These are the best restaurants in Auburn right now.

1856 – Culinary Residence

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Auburn University students prepare dinner alongside Joël Antunes, the French chef who opened Michelin-starred Les Saveurs in London and later led kitchens in Bangkok and Atlanta. Dinner unfolds as a tasting menu, with herbs and vegetables coming down from the rooftop garden and wines selected by Thomas Price, a master sommelier. Michelin added 1856 to its recommended list in 2025, making it the first teaching restaurant in the country to receive the distinction.

Best for: Seeing what Auburn’s next generation of chefs can do

Acre

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David Bancroft grew up hunting and fishing in South Alabama, spent part of his childhood in San Antonio, and taught himself to cook somewhere along the way. At Acre, he turns those experiences into fried green tomatoes layered with pimento cheese and Gulf crab, house-cured meats arranged on an Alabama oak board, and whatever the restaurant’s garden happens to be producing. Bancroft collected his fifth James Beard semifinalist nomination in 2025, 11 years after opening the restaurant.

Best for: Auburn’s most accomplished chef

Amsterdam Cafe Auburn Alabama Best Restaurants

Amsterdam Café

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Before David Bancroft opened Acre, and before Adam Evans won a James Beard Award at Automatic Seafood, both spent time in the kitchen at Amsterdam Café. The restaurant has been around since 1991, which explains why generations of Auburn students remain loyal to the turkey wrap with avocado and smoked Gouda, the rum salmon salad, and those lobster egg rolls. There are now three locations, though the original on Gay Street carries the history.

Best for: Revisiting an Auburn classic

Bow & Arrow

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David Bancroft’s Bow & Arrow is a collision between a South Texas smokehouse and an Alabama potluck. That’s evident when brisket and jalapeño-cheddar sausage show up beside collard greens and tater tot casserole. The truly committed can order a burrito packed with pulled pork, rice, borracho beans, queso, collards, brisket bark, pickled jalapeños, and hot sauce. It arrives looking like something that ought to require structural reinforcement.

Best for: Barbecue reimagined by one of Auburn’s most talented chefs

Byron’s Smokehouse

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Byron’s starts serving biscuits at 6 a.m., then pivots to barbecue before most people have finished their second cup of coffee. The restaurant has been feeding Auburn since 1989, raising generations on chipped-pork sandwiches, ribs, smoked chicken, Brunswick stew, fried potatoes, and macaroni and cheese. Come football season, the line fills with people making the sensible decision to eat before joining 88,000 others inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Best for: A pregame biscuit or barbecue plate

The Depot

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Auburn’s first train depot was built in 1847, while the Romanesque building that stands today dates to 1904. The restaurant now serves oysters, whole fish, and Maine lobster, with chef de cuisine Walker Hughes leading the kitchen and founding partner Scott Simpson serving as strategic culinary advisor. The Depot was also the first Alabama restaurant named a James Beard Smart Catch Leader for its responsible seafood sourcing.

Best for: Seafood in a city far from the sea

The Hound

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Jana and Matt Poirier opened The Hound in 2012, filling a brick-walled downtown space with mismatched chairs, old signs, communal tables, and a patio that draws nearly as much attention as the bourbon list. Chef Robbie Nicolaisen’s menu moves through chicken and dumplings with black-pepper dumplings and roasted chicken jus, blackened Gulf shrimp over heirloom grits with andouille cream, and fried Brussels sprouts with feta and sherry-shallot vinaigrette. Weekend brunch adds French toast, omelets, and biscuits, while lunch includes salads, burgers, and a rotating meat-and-three.

Best for: Southern cooking and a deep bourbon list

The Irritable Bao

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Whitley Dykes and Kunyu Li began with a food truck named Dumps Like a Truck, an excellent indication that this was never going to be a solemn dumpling operation. Their brick-and-mortar restaurant now draws lines down Magnolia Avenue for rice bowls, pork-and-cabbage wontons in house-made chile oil, and pillowy bao stuffed with Chinese barbecue, Buffalo chicken, and occasional contributions from other Auburn kitchens. The menu changes daily, appears on social media, and disappears as items sell out.

Best for: Eating bao while admiring a first-rate pun

Lucy’s

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Lisa van der Reijden named Lucy’s after the childhood nickname her father gave her, then filled the restaurant with striped awnings, bright colors, and a neon sign encouraging several activities, including kissing and shouting. Chef Brian Paolina backs up the cheerfulness with Gulf shrimp aguachile with pickled watermelon rind, snapper with sweet-corn purée, and a porterhouse poached in beef tallow. Brunch brings lemon-ricotta hotcakes and a pimento-cheese biscuit under Conecuh sausage gravy.

Best for: Brunch with significantly better food than necessary

Olivine

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From the sixth floor of the AC Hotel, Olivine looks across downtown Auburn and the university campus, a view that will presumably appear in the background of several thousand graduation photos. Chef Rick Yockachonis takes his cues from Campania, sending out saffron arancini, smoked mussels, handmade pasta, and pizzas blistered in a wood-burning oven. The Italian theme continues with blood-orange tiramisu and the Vesuvio, a smoky cocktail finished with volcanic salt.

Best for: Pasta above the Auburn rooftops

Pannie-George’s Kitchen

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The daily decision at Pannie-George’s Kitchen begins in front of a cafeteria line filled with fried chicken, meatloaf, oxtails, catfish, collard greens, field peas, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread. Choose a meat, collect the vegetables that speak to you, and accept that someone farther down the line may have ordered better.

Best for: A meat-and-three before somebody takes the last oxtail

Sushiya Japanese Restaurant

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The menu at Sushiya contains enough rolls with names such as Flying Sea Monster, Party in Your Mouth, and Baby New Orleans to fill an Auburn intramural roster. Look beyond those creations and there’s an extensive selection of nigiri, sashimi, chirashi, hwe dup bap, bulgogi, and yakisoba. The chirashi, a bowl of seasoned rice covered with assorted raw fish, offers a particularly direct route through the sushi counter.

Best for: Sushi with or without a ridiculous name