Gatlinburg’s best restaurant

***Update as of January 2026 this restaurant is closed..
Twelve hours later, we arrived in Gatlinburg to a sea of people and the overwhelming smell of weed. It has been 4 years since I was in Tennessee, Gatlinburg specifically, and it no longer feels home. To be fair, it was never home. The Smoky Mountains has always called to some deeper part of me, which I know sounds stupid however, seeing the mountains brought on a kind of joy I didn’t know I could still feel. Not this time though.

We anticipated crowds and crazy holiday traffic, we are from central Florida so that is nothing new to us. Once we were actually there though, it felt like Gatlinburg wasn’t meant to be a tourist area. After walking the downtown once and not finding anything that didn’t have well over an hour wait for sit down, we stumbled upon Taco Trail.

I am a fiend for Mexican food, or at least the stuff America passes off as Mexican food. At this point, I am 0% upset about having tacos. We walk in and the place is empty. Not really a great sign on a Saturday night when every where else is hopping. We order and have a seat. I ordered a rice bowl and my husband ended up with three different flavored tacos.

Guys….. You. Are. Missing. Out.

This was amazing food. Now, don’t get me wrong, going to a sit down Mexican restaurant is better but for this being fast-casual dining – O.M.G. So naturally, we ate here three times during our trip and it was by far our favorite. During our trip we ate at Howard’s(meh), a random funnel cake place for sausage and peppers, Dollywood, Cielito Lindo(best ever), El Soñador(meh), and then Taco Trail a whole bunch.

I really need everyone to go eat at Taco Trail so they stay open. They have wonderful reviews on Google but every time we went, there was only one or two other people in there. If my glowing review isn’t enough, they have $6 margaritas. Now, prior to this year, I never drank but it’s been a year and the glass calls to me. Well, the slightly woozy and warm feeling calls to me. I tried their strawberry, mango, and lime margaritas and they were all fabulous. Mango with a salt rim was my favorite. I even bought a margarita t-shirt. Partially because their 60 degrees and Florida’s 60 degrees are vastly different and I packed expecting cold and ended up sweating in my thin long sleeve shirts.

What we ate at Taco Trail

Day 1 – Veggie rice bowl with chips and queso, Gringo taco, steak taco, Korean BBQ taco, and a strawberry margarita. Everything was really good. Queso had good flavor with a hint of spice, veggie rice bowl had flavored rice, lots of vegetables, and a divine poblano cream sauce.

Day 2 – Veggie nachos (split), lime margarita, and mango margarita. I am really glad we split these nachos because there were so many! Very similar ingredients to the rice bowl but with nachos underneath of it. Even sharing these, we didn’t finish them.

Day 3 – Steak fajitas, Korean BBQ taco, Smashburger taco, Pork carnitas taco, mango margaritas x2. Again, delicious. Forgot to take a photo before we ate because we were so excited to eat at Taco Trail one last time before leaving.

Everything else we ate in Tennessee

Howard’s – This was recommended on several blogs I read before heading up and they have a sign outside listing them as a top rated restaurant. On Saturday when we arrived, this is where we went. The wait was too long for how hungry we were so we came back on Sunday for lunch. I ordered a French Dip and my husband ordered their Nashville Chicken Sandwich (the whole reason we came here). My French dip was flavorless but the French fries were delicious. He said his Nashville sandwich was “pretty good” but he didn’t seem overly enthused about it. Overall, for the hype this place gets, it wasn’t that great.

Dollywood – I will write up a whole other post on this adventure but food wise, it was pretty good. We only ate from the holiday food kiosks but everything we had was tasty. Was it worth the amount we paid? No. We ended up with the

• Christmas Punch – This was super gross, it was a weird lemonade but the flavors didn’t pair well.
• Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Potato – Fine but not worth what we paid for it. My husband said it was too much unflavored potato and not enough of the yummy stuff on top.
• Chicken Cassoulet – Pretty good, would like to learn how to cook this at home and make a couple changes to it.
• Jambalaya – We eat the Zatarain’s boxed version of this frequently. This one was pretty basic. Not a ton of flavor but also not super spicy.
• Stuffing Stacker – By far the best thing we ate. Learned I like cranberries.

Cielito Lindo – This Mexican restaurant is in Pigeon Forge kind of tucked away. We stumbled upon it the last time we were here and have literally talked about it many times since. It is our favorite Mexican restaurant. When we started toying with the idea of going back to Gatlinburg this year, this was the first thing my husband mentioned. Can confirm, just as good now as it was four years ago. He had fajitas and I had a chimichanga.

El Soñador – This is right on the main strip that runs through downtown in Gatlinburg, perched on a third floor overlook. It was pretty close to our hotel so we went there for lunch one day after a little nap. Their chips and salsa were good and my husband said their street corn was tasty. I had enchiladas and they were fine. They weren’t overly flavorful but they also weren’t flavorless. it was weird.

Turns out we really like Mexican food. In a very “southern” state where we probably should have found some bbq to try (which would be pointless because Granny’s here in Florida is the best), we mostly ate Mexican food. To be far, the non-Mexican foods that we ate weren’t really anything amazing.