Lamb’s Grill Cafe

** THIS RESTAURANT IS PERMANENTLY CLOSED **

A grand old diner / coffee shop in the heart of Salt Lake City, Lamb’s Grill Cafe is a square meals bastion that seems never to change. Even after the family that started it nearly a century ago sold the place back in 2011, subsequent visits have confirmed that it’s the same straight-shooting eatery. Enter through a long front room that takes you past an interminable counter with thick upholstered stools and you will find yourself in a rather romantically-lit dining room where the tables are covered with thick white cloths and the room tone is as serene as a tabernacle.

It is a place to eat such comfort-food fare as Greek chicken with lemon caper sauce, triple lamb chops, mountain trout or chicken-fried steak with garlic-tinged whipped potatoes. Meals come with sesame-seeded Greek bread, which is at once wispy and chewy — great to use for mopping gravy or for eating with or without butter.

If Utah has one distinguishing culinary characteristic (other than scones and fry sauce to accompany French fries), it is a love of sweets. You will appreciate that at Lamb’s in the dark, chocolaty five-layer cake thick with icing, in the aromatic baked apple, and in the unusually al dente rice pudding heaped with powdered cinnamon.