Start from 25 curated places around Frankfort, KY, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Bourbon on Main
Frankfort's flagship Kentucky River dining room at 103 W Main Street — a two-story outdoor deck overlooks the river and the State Capitol, the bar carries 100+ bourbons, and the kitchen does solid American comfort with seasonal specials. The sunset deck seat is the most coveted table in the capital city.
Serafini
A lively Italian bistro with views of the State Capitol grounds, serving pasta, pizza, and Southern-inflected Italian plates alongside an extensive bourbon collection. The Governor's Hot Brown Sandwich — Frankfort's nod to the Louisville classic — is the house local-pride dish.
Trails & outdoors
Cove Spring Park
A 240-acre park with 6 miles of mixed-surface trails through wetlands, forested ravines, and spring-fed streams — including the 25-foot Hurst Waterfall, a boardwalk wetland loop, and the Sky Trail overlook above the city. Frankfort's best urban nature walk.
Salato Wildlife Education Center Trails
Four miles of trails on the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife campus surrounding outdoor enclosures for bison, black bears, bobcats, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, and elk — a wildlife walk unlike any state park trail system in the region. Open March through mid-November.
Things to do
Buffalo Trace Distillery Tours
America's oldest continuously operating distillery runs free 75-minute public tours through its limestone warehouses and production facilities six days a week. The self-guided gift shop and grounds tour is an additional free option for drop-ins who did not book ahead.
Capital City Museum
A compact but well-curated city history museum in downtown Frankfort tracing the capital's story from the 1780s through bourbon history, the 1900 gubernatorial assassination, Civil War episodes, and Kentucky cultural traditions. One of the better small-city local museums in the state.
Landmarks & sights
Buffalo Trace Distillery
America's oldest continuously operating distillery, in production since 1775 and a National Historic Landmark. Free 75-minute tours wind through century-old limestone aging warehouses where bourbon is being made exactly as it has been for 250 years. The source of Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Blanton's, and Pappy Van Winkle.
Castle & Key Distillery
A restored 1887 castle distillery on a 110-acre estate along Glenns Creek, producing bourbon, rye, gin, and vodka. The grounds include a sunken garden, botanical trail, and springhouse — the most visually dramatic distillery setting in Kentucky.