Start from 64 curated places around Buffalo, NY, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Las Puertas
Chef Victor Parra Gonzalez's West Side tasting-menu room blending Mexican tradition with French technique, the menu rotating every few weeks. A James Beard semifinalist's kitchen and the city's most ambitious Mexican cooking. For a special dinner, not a casual taco run.
Ristorante Lombardo
Long-running Hertel Avenue Italian that makes its own pasta and cured meats and chases local ingredients rather than red-sauce cliches. The handmade pasta and the cured-meat board are the things to order. The Little Italy special-occasion default.
Trails & outdoors
Tifft Nature Preserve
264-acre reclaimed habitat on the Outer Harbor minutes from downtown, with about five miles of flat trails and boardwalks over marsh and ponds. The boardwalk birding and the easy water loops are the draw. Easy, family-doable, urban-edge nature.
Hoyt Lake
The walkable loop around Delaware Park's lake past the Marcy Casino and below the Buffalo AKG, the city's classic urban evening walk. Flat, shaded, and central, with skyline and museum views. Easy, anyone, any fitness level.
Things to do
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
The former Albright-Knox, reopened in 2023 with a major OMA-designed addition, holding a deep modern and contemporary collection beside Delaware Park. The architecture of the new wing is as much the draw as the art. For a half-day indoors, any weather.
Shea's Performing Arts Center
Restored 1926 movie palace downtown with a Tiffany-designed interior, now the city's main touring-Broadway and concert house. The opulent room is worth seeing even apart from the show. For an evening of theater in the Theater District.
Landmarks & sights
Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House
Wright's 1905 Prairie-style estate for businessman Darwin Martin in the Parkside neighborhood, restored over two decades including the rebuilt pergola and conservatory. The art-glass windows and the long horizontal lines are the reason architecture people make the trip. Best for anyone who cares about design even a little.
Richardson Olmsted Campus
H.H. Richardson's 1880s former state asylum with twin towers, set on Olmsted-designed grounds, now partly a hotel and tour site. The Romanesque sandstone facade and the landscape history are the draw. Good for a one-hour guided walk, not a full afternoon.