Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel restaurant just priced out a ton of visitors
Dinner at the near-century-old Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park is about to get a major upheaval. Starting April 23, the swanky hotel's dining room will transition from an a la carte dinner menu to a prix fixe menu, priced between $95 and $125 per person, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle (the Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms).
"Inspired by historic menus once served at The Ahwahnee, the Dining Room is unveiling a reimagined prix fixe dinner experience that honors the hotel's legacy of craftsmanship, hospitality, and grandeur since its opening in 1927," Aramark spokesperson Sheena Weinstein said in a statement to SFGATE (the company that manages Yosemite's hotels and restaurants).
Previously, the restaurant served a dinner menu of a la carte items such as black truffled deviled eggs ($10), hanger steak au poivre ($54) and butternut squash risotto ($37) to middling Yelp reviews. A sample menu of the new $95 five-course prix fixe features more modern, cheffier dishes: Tajin-infused black diamond watermelon (a large, heirloom variety of the fruit), Dungeness crab meat with a citrus St. Germain whip and parsley oil, duck confit with crispy rice, roast elk tenderloin with sunchoke puree and a Danish twist on capirotada for dessert (bread pudding with goat cheese anglaise, cajeta, drunken figs and candied almonds). Diners may also opt for a $125 seven-course menu, for which a sample menu featured pan-roasted halibut with charred cabbage and yuzu-miso sauce and tomato water gelée with masago.
The dining room is also offering full vegan menus at both price points. A sample menu of the vegan five-course prix fixe features the same watermelon dish, roasted jackfruit pods, olive oil-poached Vidalia onions, roast eggplant "loin" and hazelnut chocolate cake. The vegan seven-course adds on a quinoa cake with tomato jam and yuzu-miso sauce, and a vegan version of the tomato water gelée. An optional wine pairing is $40, and a children's menu is also available. Reservations are "strongly recommended."
"The menus are designed by the culinary team to highlight seasonal ingredients, intentional pacing, and a cohesive progression of flavors," Weinstein wrote.
Breakfast and lunch, meanwhile, will continue to be offered a la carte. The dining room's kitchen recently underwent renovations, part of a $31.6 million federally funded project that included major seismic upgrades to the entire hotel.
In recent years, the Ahwahnee has struggled with maintenance issues. Last year, SFGATE reported that Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of Aramark Corporation, received a scathing "unsatisfactory" 2024 annual performance review from the National Park Service. The review called out rodent activity, improper food storage, lapses in facility maintenance and other public health concerns, and revealed that public health officials had flagged food safety issues and rodent infestations in the Ahwahnee bar and kitchen.
In 2025, Aramark's senior vice president of corporate affairs, Debbie Albert, told SFGATE in a statement, "We take this rating seriously, and in working closely with the NPS, we have and continue to make improvements at Yosemite to ensure high standards are met for park guests."
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