2025 is ready for her curtain call, and 2026 is waiting in the wings to take her place. For some, it’s been a blockbuster year. For others, the finale can’t come soon enough. A host of top local spots are getting ready to help you ring in the new year in style. Bring your main character energy and your supporting cast to wine and dine your way through this year’s closing scenes. Here is a star-studded lineup of New Year’s Eve favorites, including both ticketed and non-ticketed events, worthy of a standing ovation.
Julie Porter Scott
Posted inFood & Drink
Classic Cuisine
Sometimes a restaurant arrives that you didn’t know was missing. It seems so obvious now: of course Midtown needed a cute French bistro. Cozy and informal, Le Parisien is a place to post up with a small group of friends for appetizers and wine before kicking off the weekend. It also feels like a perfect […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Family Favorites
Carletti’s1226 NE 63rd Street405-286-1594carletties.com The building at 1226 NE 63rd Street has already lived several lives. Carletti’s opens not as a reinvention, but as a revelation. The restored Kentucky Club—once a Prohibition-era speakeasy, later a neighborhood landmark—now holds an Italian restaurant built on memory, migration and meals that have survived more than a century. Where […]
Posted inNews
Live Free, Locally
Live Free Oklahoma is part of a national effort to rethink public safety, but its work unfolds at street level—in neighborhoods where gun violence, trauma and systemic neglect intersect daily. Originally launched in 2023 in northeast Oklahoma City, the organization represents a localized expression of Live Free USA, a national movement that has spent more […]
Posted inNews
Mission Driven
You have probably heard of Bethany Children’s Health Center. Maybe you’ve driven past it on historic Route 66 or seen their inspiring stories appear on your social media feed. You might know that the innovative leader in pediatric rehabilitation has been around for 125 years. But until you have a chance to visit, it’s hard […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sacred Soil
Jakian Parks was almost apologetic as he spoke to the small group of local press assembled for a media preview of his solo exhibition, “The Black Land.” “I’m very nervous speaking in front of a crowd.” His smile seemed to be equal parts uncomfortable jitters and profound delight as he shifted in his square-toe cowboy […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Merry Mary
Though apparently frowned upon by parenting experts these days, when I was little, our parents bribed us all the time. If we could keep it together for Thanksgiving dinner with our Oklahoma grandparents, our folks would load us up and head to the movie theater for a late-night viewing of whatever blockbuster had just been […]
Posted inGazedibles
Gazedibles
Holiday hosting always sounds like such an excellent idea. You have so many plans—such vision! And then, suddenly, the day has arrived. How can you possibly have it feel as lovely and fun as you meant for it to? The panic sets in: you’ll never be able to pull it all off at this late date. Unless, of course, you outsource the most important part: the food. It’s always a good call—for your guests’ experience and your increasingly tenuous hold on sanity. For everyone’s sake, here are some local spots that always come in clutch.
Posted inFood & Drink
Mediterranean Magic
When Maggie Howell and Christine Dowd purchased Mediterranean Imports, Deli & Gastro Goods in December 2020, they were coming off of a major loss. They had closed their family catering business in early 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aunt Pitypat’s Catering had been a mainstay in the Oklahoma City metro for more […]
Posted inMetro
Banking on Resilience: The Kirkpatrick Legacy
How one Oklahoma family’s bold decisions across a century still shape banking today