Come for the great outdoors, stay for the great pasta, prime rib, and local fish in Idaho’s glitziest getaway
Sun Valley, Idaho, has been a clutch winter travel destination since the 1930s. But with fewer than 25,000 full-time residents in the whole of Blaine County, the local restaurant industry relies almost exclusively on tourism dollars year round. Ernest Hemingway was famously a fan of the summer fishing season, and today, the appetites of vacation homeowners like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill and Melinda Gates are more than enough to maintain a food scene that’s surprisingly vibrant considering the low headcount. In Sun Valley as well as the neighboring towns of Ketchum and Hailey, winter and summer visitors can fill up on mushroom poutine and Korean fried chicken, as well as plenty of local goodies like trout, salmon, beef, elk, and bison.