12 ROMANTIC OMAHA RESTAURANTS PERFECT FOR VALENTINE'S DAY
Whether you want to impress a new fling with a fancy dinner or enjoy a lovely evening with your significant other, a romantic restaurant is the perfect way to spend time with someone you care about. And Omaha has a lot of places to show someone they’re special.
These 12 restaurants combine upper echelon ambience, attentive service, exquisite plating, and fantastic flavors to create experiences you and your date won’t forget any time soon.
Au Courant
With a tasting menu that changes every week, you never know what’s coming next at Au Courant. Every immaculately arranged plate elicits thrill and wonder when it hits the table, and the real fun begins once you dig in. From unctuous short rib to nestled pasta, expertly seared duck breast, and decadent strawberry shortcake, each dish is a somehow an improvement on the last.
What makes Au Courant great for a date is its pacing. The six courses (along with an amuse bouche) are tiered out, giving you time between dishes to converse. Then the next plate arrives and a new adventure begins. The courses work together to tell a cohesive story, giving you and your date plenty to marvel about both during the meal and in the days following.
The Boiler Room
It’s hard to beat the romantic atmosphere at The Boiler Room. The building, which was provided heat for another nearby business (hence the name) is over 100 years old, and it still has many of the same exposed girders, steel posts, and brick walls. You feel like you’re dining in another era.
But you’ll completely forget about your surroundings once the plates start arriving. Executive chef Tim Nicholson is a three-time semifinalist for a James Beard award, and it only takes a few bites to see why. He and his team create dishes that pair perfectly cooked proteins, clever sauces, roasted vegetables, and creamy risotto and polenta. Sitting on the restaurant’s top floor also allows you to look down into the open kitchen and watch your masterpiece come to life. Dinner and a show; sounds like a great date night, right?
Casa Bovina
From the upscale atmosphere to the brilliant tasting menus, dedication to wine, and top-of-the-line proteins, no Omaha restaurant can quite match the elegance of Casa Bovina. That’s why I’m cheating a bit and including this Lincoln destination—it’s more than worth the 45-minute drive.
The restaurant is a part of the Certified Piedmontese empire, so the beef—short rib, tomahawk steaks, filet minon, ribeyes—is the star of the show. But with chefs that left Michelin-starred restaurants to come to Nebraska, it also offers excellent pasta, seafood, and desserts. The level of playfulness and creativity on this menu is unmatched in the state, and quite honestly, the Midwest.
A Foreign Taste
A relative newcomer to Omaha, A Foreign Taste makes its name with wines and plates that transport you to different areas of the planet. You won’t find a sommelier more passionate about global wines than JT Aegnor, who’s proficient at pairing drinks from South Africa, France, Italy, Australia, and more with your meal.
The food, too, moves you from continent to continent, with dishes from Australia (lamb chops) to Italy (seafood pasta) to South Africa (roasted duck). Order the tasting menu with wine pairings and you’ll have an elegant evening you and your date will reminisce about for months.
Avoli Osteria
There’s something romantic about homemade pasta—it’s somehow elegant, yet familiar and homey all at once. Few in Omaha do pasta better than Avoli Osteria, where the embrace of Northern Italian fare and a comfortable, low-lit dining room promote romance.
And these aren’t the heaping bowls of spaghetti and meatballs you’ll find at most Italian places. Avoli subs out the gut-busting mountains of carbs for more manageable portions, allowing you to comfortably enjoy wherever date night takes you next.
Dante
Dante offers the best of all worlds, from both atmosphere and cuisine. Wanna get dressed to the nines and make googly eyes at each other from across the table? Great. Wanna wear jeans and share drinks and laughs at the bar? There’s room for that, too.
The restaurant is best known for its pasta, and for good reason—no one in Omaha crafts pasta quite like Dante. But this continually changing menu also offers various wood-fired proteins, meats fresh off the smoker in the back, decadent desserts, and Neapolitan pizza cooked in its giant wood-fired oven. The versatility at Dante allows you to craft whatever date night you want.
Koji
If you’re a fun-loving foodie couple, Koji is your spot. One of Omaha’s best new restaurants, it’s most known for yakitori, kabobs of various chicken cuts cooked over a special charcoal grill. No one else in the city employs this technique, and Koji executes it with aplomb.
What makes this place perfect for date night is its wide range of small plates, which allow you and your date to share all kinds of wildly creative dishes. From crispy fried rice to crudo, sushi, a fun take on the Runza, and handrolls with snow crab and crab fat, this menu is a foodie’s playground.
V. Mertz
No Omaha restaurant makes you feel like you’re on vacation more than V. Mertz. Located in the passageway in the Old Market, you’re completely cut off from views of the outside world, making you feel like you’re no longer in Omaha. Your senses tell you you’re in a foreign wine cellar, and few pair wines with plates better than sommelier Matthew Brown.
The plates here are adventurous as they are exquisite. The menu changes often, but you’ll always find some variations of pasta, seafood, cheese plates, lamb, and steak. Whether you opt to share small plates or go all out with the tasting menu, V. Mertz offers an upscale experience that will make your forget about the outside world and focus on each other—and the food, of course.
The Committee Chophouse
The Committee Chophouse would be an ideal romantic dinner destination even if it existed alone. The steaks and seafood are spectacular, and the Baked Alaska—lit aflame at the table—is as delicious as it is entertaining. The stunning dining room has an upscale 1930s vibe that takes you back into a bygone era. And unlike most steakhouses, it’s also well-lit to create an energy and sense of fun.
The Committee Chophouse is also connected to the historic Cottonwood Hotel, allowing you to turn the night into a staycation if you please. And you can step across the hall into The Cottonwood Room, a swanky, contemporary bar serving up some of the best cocktails in the city. Dinner is great at The Committee Chophouse, but it also offers plenty of good times after the last bites are consumed.
Le Bouillon
Omaha’s premier French restaurant, Le Bouillon offers elegance without being stuffy. From the open, well-lit dining room to the giant wine cellar you can peruse for that night’s bottle, Le Bouillon feels both fancy and entirely approachable.
The menu offers sophisticated takes on plates you’ll scarcely find elsewhere, such as cassoulet, frog legs, beef bourguignon, and savory cheese caneles. You’ll probably have to be adventurous and order something you’ve never had, but that makes for a fun, memorable experience. And while the dishes may not seem familiar at first, the flavors are so spectacular you’re likely to find some new favorites at this unpretentious restaurant.
Saffron Urban Indian Kitchen
The vibe at Saffron Urban Indian Kitchen is like if you mashed an Indian restaurant with a swanky art gallery. The space is gorgeous, with unique Indian decor and the vibrant Bombay Bar at the restaurant’s center. From the minute you walk in, you know this dinner is going to be fun.
The playful elegance extends to the menu, where classic Indian dishes meet modern techniques. Curried salmon, naan stuffed with chicken and cheese, and beef vindaloo dot the menu along with Indian classics like biryanis, tandoori chicken and chicken tikka, offering diners the choice of a unique or classic Indian dish. If you want a fun, unique dining experience with great drinks, this is your date spot.
Spencer's for Steaks & Chops
To many, old school steakhouses are the epitome of date night dining, and in that case it’s hard to beat Spencer’s for Steaks and Chops. Chef Glenn Wheeler is one of the most influential chefs in Omaha’s history, and it’ll make the evening news if anything other than a perfectly-cooked protein emerges from Spencer’s kitchen.
With dim lighting, gigantic red booths, and a litany of fancy knives displayed on the walls, the atmosphere screams “steakhouse”, and Spencer’s elevated takes on beef can make any date night special.