Taste Track: Midyear, 2025

Spotify has “Wrapped.” We have Taste Track.

Just as Wrapped rounds up a listener’s habits and highlights, Taste Track is our midyear restaurant recap, reflecting how we ate dinner out in the first half of 2025. As strategic, analytical types, we turned the lens on ourselves: when and where we dined, how often, which new places stood out, and which restaurants earned or kept a place in our regular rotation.

By the Numbers

How many places did we go? We dined at 50 different restaurants between January 1 and June 30.

How often did we dine out? Drum roll: 77 dinners out over 181 days. That’s roughly three times per week on average, or 42% of our dinners.

What days did we eat out? Saturdays and Wednesdays topped the list. Until early May, Arlene was a full-time ad agency executive, so we generally anchored one dinner out on Saturday and one midweek. We’ll be curious to see whether and how that shifts in the second half of the year.

About the Restaurants

First-time vs. repeat visits. We try to balance supporting our favorites with checking out new (or new to us) places. Of the 50 different restaurants, 22 were first-time experiences – so we made it to a new one almost weekly, on average. The remaining 55 dinners were at places we’d dined before.

Counts by cuisine. Nearly a third of our dinners (23) were at Italian restaurants. (Not a huge surprise – about 1 out of every 6 restaurants in Las Vegas is Italian!) The rest of the top 5: Japanese (9), French (7), and a tie between Thai and wine bars (6 each).

Location, location, location. Most meals (54) took place in Las Vegas, where we live. The remaining 23 were spread across London, New York, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Orlando.

How Did They Stack Up?

We assessed each dinner based on whether it met (or reset) our expectations:

• 31 visits were to restaurants we consider favorites – places we recommend, revisit, and root for.
• 21 were occasional spots – enjoyable, but not in our steady rotation.
• 4 were special occasion dinners at extravagant establishments.
• 1 was a food and wine event (Vegas Unstripped)
• Sadly, 2 restaurants (one a first-timer and one a repeat) fell into the not going back category. In both cases this was due to unacceptably poor service.

First-Half Hall of Fame

• Our most-visited restaurants this half-year were all local favorites that continue to deliver and delight:
  • Tied for 1st: Al Solito Posto (pictured at the top of this post) and La Strega
  • 3rd place: Sen of Japan
  • Tied for 4th: Ada’s Food & Wine and Jipata
• First-time standout: Tamba, which immediately joined the “definitely return” list.
• Most exciting design: Shirokuro in New York City (pictured here). We loved the food, too!

The wildly inventive interior at Shirokuro was created by artist and art director Mirim Yoo. She spent three months carefully hand-painting every surface – floors to furniture – in a 2D sketchbook style. More info here.

Sip Stats

As longtime wine enthusiasts, we often bring our own bottle if a restaurant offers corkage. When we did order off the list, these programs particularly stood out to us:

• Wine Bar George (Orlando) for offering over 200 selections by the glass, bottle, and – in some cases – even the ounce.
• Jipata (Las Vegas) for its sharp selection and superb value (including many bottles under $50).
• Le Club by Partage (Las Vegas) for its impressive Champagne lineup by the glass, half-bottle, bottle, and/or magnum – including over a dozen Special Club labels (IYKYK).

Halfway Through, and Still Hungry

If our midyear 2025 restaurant recap is any indication, there’s plenty more to savor over the next six months.

• Our most anticipated Vegas openings:
  • Braseria a French concept from the team behind EDO and Anima by EDO, opening in September across from Hughes Center, a few blocks south of the Convention Center
  • Cote, the Michelin-starred New York Korean steakhouse, opening in October at The Venetian
• Out of town places we’re most hoping to revisit:
  • Antico Nuovo in Los Angeles
  • Coqodaq in New York
  • Kadence in Orlando

This midyear snapshot offers one view into our habits at a time when dining out in the US appears to be on the decline. Per GWI, the percentage of US adults who say they dine out at a restaurant more than once a week has fallen over the past year, from 11.0% in Q2 2024 to 10.1% in Q1 2025. In real terms, that’s about 2.5 million fewer people. Those numbers matter.

We’ve always been thoughtful about how we spend our dining-out dollars: not just for the food, but for the full experience. Dining out brings us real joy. As engaged industry observers with hearty appetites, we’re eager to support the FOH and BOH teams who create those memorable experiences. We’ll keep tracking our patterns, discoveries, and go-to spots as the rest of the year unfolds.

A bit more behind the numbers

• This post includes every dinner we ate out at restaurants, whether solo or as a couple.
• We pay our way. While a chef or team may occasionally send out a small extra – a dessert, a pour, or a dish they’re excited for us to try – we never ask for or expect those.
• We’ll begin tracking lunches and coffee shops and will include those in the year-end edition.

Featured image courtesy of Al Solito Posto.