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This coming June, travelers from around the world will descend on Kansas City for the 2026 World Cup, with local matches being played at the 76,416-seat Arrowhead Stadium—the same place where American football fans usually cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs. The city is no stranger to international attention and the heavy flow of traffic that comes with it. KC’s historic love for liquor and jazz and its tree-lined City Beautiful boulevards and parks once led Prohibition-era journalists to proclaim it the “Paris of the Plains.”
Tourists still come here for jazz, blues, and booze. But Kansas City might be better known these days for the cheers bleeding out of its riverfront soccer stadium—the first in the country purpose-built for a women’s professional soccer team—or the wood smoke coiling up from hundreds of barbecue pits.
While Kansas City serves as a gateway to both the West and South, the city itself is thoroughly Midwestern, and its cowtown roots shine through in its barbecue pits, old-school steakhouses, and cowboy-lite aesthetic. Hospitality is a specialty, and everyone’s welcome here—just try to remember which side of the state line you’re on: While KC straddles the Missouri-Kansas border, the bulk of the metro and its attractions are on the Missouri side. To help you navigate the best of both sides of the state line, here are our recommendations of where to eat, stay, and play during your visit, according to a KC local.
How we choose our recommendations of where to eat, stay, and play in Kansas City
Every recommendation on this list has been given by a Condé Nast Traveler journalist who knows the destination and has visited that activity. When choosing things to do, restaurants, and hotels, our editors consider landmarks and experiences that offer an insider’s view of a destination, keeping authenticity, location, service, and sustainability credentials top of mind.
The best time to visit Kansas City (outside of the World Cup)
The most pleasant time to visit KC is in the fall shoulder season (from September through November), when the sticky summer weather has begun to fade and color starts to creep into the city’s leafy boulevards. It’s also ideal for sports fans, as the local MLB, NFL, MLS, and NWSL teams are all still playing ball. Culture-chasers have plenty of options, too, with the Heartland Book Festival, the Plaza Art Fair, and the Kansas City Renaissance Festival in full swing. And many of Kansas’s lush sunflower fields—a popular photo backdrop—are in bloom just a short drive from the metro area.
Where to eat and drink in Kansas City
Barbecue
Barbecue is an everyday affair in Kansas City: a workingman’s (and workmanlike) tradition that prioritizes adaptation over aesthetics. Here, brisket is likely to be thin-sliced and lean when it isn’t being chopped into the city’s signature offering: burnt ends. No matter what you order, expect a side of tangy and assertively spiced sauce. For the best view into the city’s barbecue tradition, line up at the charmingly retro Gates Bar-B-Q on Brooklyn Avenue—though you’re more likely to catch a glimpse of 94-year-old patriarch Ollie Gates, who still runs the restaurants, at the Emanuel Cleaver location just off the streetcar line. Char Bar, a sprawling, fratty-looking restaurant in the Westport neighborhood, quietly serves some of the city’s best burnt ends and smoked chicken wings. For a Saturday-only special, weekend pop-up Night Goat Barbecue inside Fox & Pearl bistro serves up spoon-tender pork belly with artisanal sides like house-fermented pickles and flights of batch-made hot sauces. And newcomers like Thai-inflected Buck Tui, in the sprawling suburb of Overland Park, and the single-subject Turkeyleggman, a nationally recognized barbecue joint with little tourist traffic, show how the style continues to evolve.
Beyond barbecue
For a non-barbecue lunch, join the long line of locals outside Kitty’s Cafe and order one of the city’s signature sandwiches: a modestly sized, maximally crunchy tempura-breaded tenderloin. On the Kansas side, blocks of taquerias and trucks form the tourism-bureau-approved KCK Taco Trail. Start with the al pastor at Carniceria y Tortilleria San Antonio and the Sinaloa-style grilled chicken from El Pollo Guasave.
While the Taco Trail is worth exploring, two of the city’s best Mexican eats are actually on the Missouri side. For snacks and souvenirs, prioritize Yoli Tortilleria, the first tortilleria in the country to win a James Beard Award. Yoli’s charming shop in the historically Latino Westside neighborhood offers grab-and-go burritos, a spectrum of jarred salsas, and lithe Sonoran-style flour tortillas to stuff in your suitcases. A few blocks away, Tacos Valentina offers an irresistible take on the “Kansas City taco,” which is served in a fried corn tortilla and dusted with parmesan.
