You've just arrived in Reno-Tahoe. You open your usual apps. You get a list of chains, casino buffets, and places that closed two years ago. No Michelin guide comes here. No food critic makes an annual pilgrimage. For years, if you wanted to know where to eat in Reno-Tahoe, you had to know someone who lived here.

Now you do.

Reno has always been a place where people came to reinvent themselves — and where the city itself keeps doing the same. The Basque shepherds who built boarding houses that became institutions. The Italian families whose red sauce is still simmering. The ranchers and the casino builders and the people who just believed in this place before it was easy to. Around here, we call what's happening now The Renossance™ — and it shows up in every room worth walking into.

Walk into Kowboi Izakaya on a Friday night and you'll feel it. Or R Town Pizza, where Marvin Kinney has built something out of Detroit-style pizza and pure joy that is entirely his own. The legacy and the new aren't in tension here. They never were.

This guide exists to help you find the best of both.

— David Rodriguez, Reno News & Review columnist, Edible Reno-Tahoe & Nevada magazine contributor, 25+ years at this table