Restaurant
1. Faithful Pilot Café & Spirits
2. DJ's Steakhouse
3. Antonella's Pizzeria & Ristorante
3. Granite City Food & Brewery
3. Johnny's Italian Steakhouse
Best restaurant
Best fine dining
The Faithful Pilot Café & Spirits
It can seem tough in this town sometimes for us foodies. Sure, chains are ubiquitous anywhere you go in the country. But for the Quad Cities' secret little society of gastronomes, the ratio here seems tilted a bit too far in favor of the usual, the expected, the unsurprising - the previously frozen. I have nothing against the Applebee's of the world, really. They clearly have a market hungry for their product. But give me attention to detail, attention to nuance, and above all, attention to flavor. Mix that with a locavore consciousness, fresh, seasonal menus, and something really interesting to fill the stemware. According to the voters in this year's Best of the Quad Cities poll, the place to find all of these things is The Faithful Pilot Café & Spirits in LeClaire - which won the "best restaurant" and "best fine dining" categories and placed in the top three for seafood, desserts, and Sunday brunch. After a recent date-night visit with my girlfriend (not our first, by any means), I can attest that Reader voters know what they're talking about.
