Turquoise Room at La Posada Hotel

The Turquoise Room at La Posada Hotel in Winslow is Route 66's most extraordinary restaurant, serving sophisticated Southwestern cuisine inside one of America's most historic hotel dining rooms. La Posada itself was designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter — the genius architect behind many Fred Harvey Company masterpieces — and opened in 1930 as the last great Santa Fe Railway resort hotel. After decades of near-ruin, the hotel was painstakingly restored beginning in the 1990s, and the Turquoise Room emerged as its culinary centrepiece. Chef John Sharpe draws deeply on the culinary traditions of the Navajo and Hopi peoples who have inhabited the surrounding Colorado Plateau for centuries, incorporating blue corn, tepary beans, juniper ash, cholla buds, and native herbs into thoughtfully constructed dishes. The blue corn crusted rainbow trout and Navajo fry bread drizzled with wild honey are signatures that appear on nearly every table. Breakfast, served daily, is a destination in itself — the Painted Desert plate of eggs, tortillas, and local chiles sustains travellers on the long stretches of I-40 east and west. The dining room preserves Colter's original Southwestern design details: hand-painted murals, terracotta tiles, and ironwork that feel entirely of a piece with the surrounding high desert landscape.