Branson for first-time visitors

Best restaurants

Branson eats the way it entertains, which is to say it plays to a crowd. The strip along West 76 Country Boulevard runs on family chains and buffet-scale kitchens, the Landing on the White River leans on view tables and national names with local addresses, and the older grid around Main Street quietly keeps the more serious rooms. That mix is the honest map of the town's restaurants: a Mexican kitchen out by Shepherd of the Hills, a sandwich counter up in Branson Hills, a steakhouse on Main, a fish house on Bass Pro Drive, a taproom facing the water. The 12 rooms below are ordered by how well they pay for their address, not by how loud their sign is. Most sit inside the 65616 postal area, several open before the theatres do, and a few stay open past the last curtain call. If you want a single rule for eating here, it is this: let the strip feed the kids on the way in, save the Landing for a slow lunch, and spend at least one dinner on Main Street with a steak knife in your hand.