The Blue Lion

About The Blue Lion

The Blue Lion has been serving dinner from a converted historic house on Millward Street since 1976, which makes it one of the older continuously operating fine-dining rooms in Jackson. The New American menu leans toward game and local ingredients: a New Zealand rack of lamb anchors the entrees at $68, alongside an elk tenderloin finished with a wild mushroom port sauce and mashed potatoes ($54), a beef tenderloin with crab au bleu sauce ($55), a 12-ounce Little Belt Cattle Co. New York strip ($62), and a cornmeal-crusted local trout ($40). There's also an elk Bolognese ($34) and a coq au vin ($32) for diners who want something a notch below the tenderloins, plus seared scallops ($55). Starters include French onion soup, stuffed mushrooms, gnudi, and elk meatballs, and the kitchen makes a point of noting it fries in 100% beef tallow and has cut back on seed oils across the board — a detail aimed at the increasingly common diner question about how food is actually cooked. The bar builds its own cocktail list, including drinks called the Elk Hunter and the Lion's Den, alongside an extensive wine list.

The restaurant is at 160 N Millward St, a few blocks off Town Square, and is open nightly from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Reservations run through Resy or by phone, and the restaurant is part of the Blue Collar Restaurant Group, which also handles catering and private events out of the same kitchen. Fifty years in, this isn't a restaurant chasing trends — the menu is built around the kind of dishes (rack of lamb, tenderloin, trout) that have anchored a Jackson Hole special-occasion dinner for decades, served in a house rather than a purpose-built dining room, which gives the space a smaller, more residential feel than most fine dining in town.