The Best Culinary Resorts in the United States

At some hotels, food is an afterthought: Breakfast buffets are bland, in-room mini bars are stocked with generic snacks, and lobby bars are lackluster. But other resorts understand that we don’t simply factor food into an itinerary; many people plan their entire trip around eating, hoping to get to the heart of local cuisine and dine at the area’s best restaurants without ever leaving the property. These culinary resorts will help you build an entire vacation around great meals. If you want to get your hands dirty, resorts on working farms have guests harvesting produce that will end up on their dinner plates that night, and some properties send visitors off on fishing and foraging expeditions to find their own meals. Other spots keep it more low-key with award-winning restaurants, special wine tastings, and wellness-minded retreats serving homegrown juices. No matter how you want to engage with the food that will power your trip, these 10 culinary resorts are the best places in the U.S. to have a truly delicious stay. Partner content from Acura Acura has always done things its own way. We believe the best experiences are created through intentional choices, thoughtful craftsmanship, and the confidence to pursue a different approach. This spirit is reflected in our philosophy of Precision Crafted Performance. Learn more. Wildflower Farms, Auberge Collection Gardiner, New York Made up of 65 freestanding cottages, Wildflower Farms gives guests a taste of farm life — albeit an incredibly chic version. Guests can start the day with a complimentary tour of the 6-acre farm and a visit to feed the resort’s Icelandic sheep and chicken, then pick up a few eggs to bring over to the on-site restaurant Clay for an incredibly fresh breakfast. Other food-focused activities include suiting up in beekeeping gear to learn how to make honey, taking a guided foraging walk, or stirring up a cocktail using ingredients grown on-site in a class hosted in the resort’s cooking school barn. Clay serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner in a cozy dining room that centers a massive wood-burning fireplace. The menu changes seasonally to feature lamb and pork raised just steps from the kitchen, plus a selection of the 14,000 pounds of fruit, vegetables, and herbs that the farm produces annually. The beverage program also has local roots: Wine director Vanessa Price has built a 7,000-bottle cellar that shines a light on New York’s often-overlooked Finger Lakes and North Fork wine regions, and ingredients like carrot eau de vie show up in martinis. Quercus Gay, Georgia With just four cabins situated on 3,800 acres of working ranch, Quercus is a small culinary resort that punches well above its weight. Chiara Visconti di Modrone and her husband Angelos Pervanas originally launched Quercus as a regenerative farming project an hour outside Atlanta before teaming up with acclaimed Atlanta restaurateurs to morph it into a full-scale culinary escape. Now the all-inclusive experience features private saunas and cold plunge pools, holistic wellness consultations, and activities like horse training or kayaking in the Flint River. Guests are encouraged to kick off their visit with a garden tour so they understand the property’s commitment to biodynamic farming principles and recognize the rare varieties of turmeric and uncommon peppers that will later appear on their plates. The resort offers three meals per day, along with snacks like beef jerky and gochujang okra chips stocked in each room. Each meal can be enjoyed in the restaurant spaces on the property or delivered in a wicker picnic basket through the resort’s charming take on room service. Uberto is the pinnacle of Quercus’s culinary experiences, a 10-plus course tasting menu helmed by chef Ryan Smith, whose Atlanta restaurant Staplehouse earned a Michelin star. The menu changes with the seasons, but mainstays like clarified curry made with lemongrass and galangal from the farm’s tropical greenhouse showcase an essential truth: Chefs spend all week in the kitchen and fermentation lab crafting each dish, but the garden has been working on dinner all year. Mii Amo Sedona, Arizona Mii Amo is an adults-only wellness resort tucked into the red rocks of Sedona’s Boynton Canyon vortex, which is supposedly one of the most powerful hubs for spiritual and healing energy in the area. It has everything one would expect at a luxury wellness retreat: lodging in one of 23 cozy casitas, a daily credit to book treatments at the 40,000-square-foot spa, an array of sound baths and meditations, and guided hikes and mountain bike rides through the canyon. But unlike some other wellness resorts, Mii Amo has a top-notch culinary program as well. During all-inclusive stays ranging from three to 10 nights, guests get three meals per day at the on-site restaurant, Hummingbird, along with unlimited juice bar visits to pick up protein-packed smoothies, ginger shots, and sleep tonics. While menus are rooted in seasonal