Best Restaurants

Best Restaurant: Chester's Kitchen & Bar

Last year, Chester’s Kitchen & Bar was voted Rochester’s Best New Restaurant. Only 12 short months later, it takes top honors as Rochester’s Best Restaurant, period. One major reason for the restaurant’s popularity, says general manager Jeffrey Hovland (who kindly filled in the blanks on our questions), is that the restaurant doesn’t cut corners on food. “In this day and age of quick and easy, we don’t do quick and easy. We make our food fresh every day.” Chester's head chef is Derek Jensen. Chester’s is owned by Nova Restaurant Group’s Pat Woodring and Scott Foster, who also own Rochester’s Pescara, winner of this year’s Best New Restaurant.

Our seating capacity is 190.

The typical bill for a single diner at lunch is $8 to $12.

The typical bill for a single diner at dinner is $18 to $30.

The most popular dish on our menu is rotisserie chicken.

The most popular dessert on our menu is chocolate cake.

Our ambience is lively, modern, and metropolitan.

Our approach to cuisine is layers of flavor.

The customer is… We like to say ‘guest.’ We welcome guests from the area and around the world.

Guests often tell us that we are a welcome addition to downtown Rochester. Also, that our food has great flavor!

When we found out we’d been voted ‘Rochester’s Best Restaurant,’ we jumped for joy and celebrated with our team members.

One way that we’ve changed since we opened is that we’ve conformed the menu to guests’ needs with more frequent special changes. Also, we added more seating. (The restaurant includes patio and atrium seating.)

Rochester diners are very knowledgeable in cuisine choices.

A little-known secret about us is that all of our music is hand-selected. No auto-play lists or Internet services.

The key ingredient to our success is training. It’s all about our people and giving guests the best possible dining experience.

One thing we’re trying to do better is raising the bar on our food and being progressive.

Our restaurant group’s next restaurant in Rochester will be… We are working on that…

Runner-up: Prescotts