Vail Restaurant Reservations: 30 Days to a Year, Room by Room

Vail’s restaurants all use the same app and agree on nothing else. On OpenTable, in one valley, Sweet Basil lets you book 30 days ahead, Montauk 60, Splendido 90, Mirabelle 121, Alpenrose 151, and Left Bank a full year. That spread is the most useful fact about eating here in winter. The same February Saturday can be long gone at one room and not yet on sale at the next, and most people planning a trip check them all on the same afternoon and conclude the whole valley is full. This guide sorts Vail Village, Lionshead, Beaver Creek and Cascade by how far each book reaches, as of October 2026.

One app, seven kinds of calendar

Of the fifty-one Vail Valley restaurants this guide draws on, fifty book on OpenTable. The exception is Zuma, inside The Sebastian, on SevenRooms. So the platform question that dominates our Aspen guide barely exists here; the question is the calendar. Almost every Vail book is a rolling window with no release hour: one new date joins the far end each day as the clock passes midnight Mountain time. Two sibling rooms are the exception, with a published hour (more on them below). How OpenTable releases tables covers the mechanics in general.

How far each book reaches on October 27

Counting forward from the date this guide was published, here is roughly where each tier’s calendar ends. Nothing past that date can be booked yet.

• About 30 days, so to late November: Sweet Basil, Mountain Standard, Matsuhisa Vail, Tavernetta Vail, Makoto Vail, Elway’s, Lancelot, Swiss Chalet and most of the Village’s casual rooms.
• About 60 days, so to the Saturday after Christmas: Montauk Seafood Grill and Alpine + Antlers.
• About 90 days, so to late January: Splendido at the Chateau, Hooked, Ludwig’s, Gessner, Charter Steakhouse and Beaver Creek Chophouse.
• About 121 days, so to late February: Mirabelle and Almresi.
• About 151 days, so to late March: Alpenrose and La Bottega.
• 181 days or a full year, so the whole season: Fattoria, Sakaba and Northside Kitchen at 181; Left Bank, Juniper and Pepi’s at 365.
• A whole month at once, on the 1st: a different kind of book. Vista at Arrowhead opens each month one month ahead, Ridge + River two, WYLD at Bachelor Gulch three, and Grouse Mountain Grill eight, so all of its winter is already open, per OpenTable’s schedule in October 2026.

What the spread means for the weeks you want

Christmas to New Year’s. Christmas Day is a Friday and New Year’s Eve a Thursday this year. Every book of 90 days or more already covers the whole fortnight, and has for weeks, so at Splendido, Mirabelle or Left Bank you are now looking at what is left or what comes back. Montauk’s 60-day book reached Christmas Eve on October 25 and reaches New Year’s Eve on November 1. The 30-day rooms are the only ones where the holiday is still ahead of you: Christmas Eve opens on November 24, New Year’s Eve on December 1. The holiday-week guide has the same math for other towns.

MLK and Presidents’ Day weekends. For MLK Saturday, January 16, the 90-day rooms opened on October 18, Montauk opens on November 17, and the 30-day rooms on December 17. For Presidents’ Saturday, February 13, Mirabelle’s 121-day book opened on October 15, Splendido and Hooked open on November 15, Montauk on December 15, and Sweet Basil on January 14. Four dates for one dinner.

Spring break. For mid-March, the 151-day rooms are already on sale, Mirabelle opens around November 12 and the 90-day rooms around December 13. If you are booking lodging for March now, book the long-window dinners in the same sitting. The holiday weekend guide and how far ahead to book dinner for a ski trip go further on timing.

The 9:00am pair

Sweet Basil and its sibling tavern Mountain Standard are the two Vail rooms with a published hour, and they print the same sentence on their sites: “Reservations open at 9a mountain time, 30 days in advance.” That is 11:00am in New York and 8:00am on the West Coast, and it means Christmas Eve at either opens at 9:00am Mountain on November 24. Unlike the midnight books, these put everyone in the same queue in the same minute, so be signed in with your party size and a second time chosen before nine. When reservations open explains how a fixed hour changes the competition. Both are closed for the autumn: Sweet Basil reopens for dinner on November 12 and Mountain Standard on November 19.

The rooms, village by village

Vail Village

• Sweet Basil (OpenTable, Vail Village). A Village fixture since 1977 and a Michelin Guide recommended restaurant, creative American cooking in a bistro-like room. Thirty days out at 9:00am Mountain. Book Sweet Basil with SeatSwiper →
• Mountain Standard (OpenTable, Vail Village). Sweet Basil’s tavern, most of the menu cooked over an open wood fire. Same 9:00am, 30-day rule, and the same autumn break, reopening for dinner a week after Sweet Basil. Book Mountain Standard with SeatSwiper →
• Matsuhisa Vail (OpenTable, Vail Village). Nobu Matsuhisa’s cooking in Solaris Plaza, about 30 days ahead with no release hour, the same window as its Aspen sibling. Book Matsuhisa Vail with SeatSwiper →
• Tavernetta Vail (OpenTable, Vail Village). The Four Seasons’ Italian room from Frasca Hospitality Group, the team behind Frasca in Boulder and Tavernetta at Denver’s Union Station, both in our Denver guide. Crudo, handmade pasta and large plates to share, about 30 days ahead. Book Tavernetta Vail with SeatSwiper →
• Zuma Vail (SevenRooms, Vail Village). Robata and sushi in The Sebastian, opened in summer 2026. Its site says it reopens on November 25, 2026 and is already taking reservations from that date; no window is published. Book Zuma Vail with SeatSwiper →
• Left Bank (OpenTable, Vail Village). Jean-Michel Chelain’s classic French room, everything made from scratch, Dover sole meunière to côte de boeuf. Its book runs a full year, so the competition is less the morning a date opens than everyone who booked months before you. Book Left Bank with SeatSwiper →
• Alpenrose (OpenTable, Vail Village). Schnitzel, Kässpätzle and strudel at long shared tables, about 151 days ahead. Its private gondola dining books separately from the restaurant, so check both. Book Alpenrose with SeatSwiper →

Lionshead and Cascade

• Montauk Seafood Grill (OpenTable, Lionshead). Lionshead’s seafood house and oyster bar since 1987, about 60 days ahead. Its site sets the rules plainly: online booking for up to six, a phone line for seven or more, walk-ins welcome in the dining room, and the full menu at the bar first come, first served. Book Montauk Seafood Grill with SeatSwiper →
• Makoto Vail (OpenTable, Cascade Village). Edomae-trained Makoto Okuwa’s modern Japanese room at Grand Hyatt Vail, the brand’s first resort outpost, about 30 days ahead. Book Makoto Vail with SeatSwiper →

Beaver Creek

• Splendido at the Chateau (OpenTable, Beaver Creek). Brian Ackerman’s American-European cooking, Michelin Guide recommended, with a double-sided fireplace in winter. About 90 days ahead. Book Splendido at the Chateau with SeatSwiper →
• Mirabelle (OpenTable, Beaver Creek). Belgian chef Daniel Joly’s French restaurant, cooking partly from its own greenhouse. About 121 days ahead; its site says it reopens on Thanksgiving, November 26, and opens Tuesday through Saturday, so Sunday and Monday are not an option. Book Mirabelle with SeatSwiper →
• Hooked (OpenTable, Beaver Creek). Seafood and sushi in a recycled-wood room, fish sourced from dedicated fishing families. About 90 days ahead. Book Hooked with SeatSwiper →
• Grouse Mountain Grill (OpenTable, Beaver Creek). Contemporary American cooking with slope views and a deep wine list. OpenTable’s schedule opens it a whole month at a time, eight months ahead, so the entire season is already on sale. Its own page adds two rules: walk-ins are welcome first come, first served, and in winter every reservation needs a card, with a $75 per person charge for cancelling inside 48 hours. Book Grouse Mountain Grill with SeatSwiper →

Getting in after the long books fill

A year-long or 151-day book fills with people who plan far ahead, and plans made that far out are the ones most likely to change. Grouse Mountain Grill’s 48-hour card policy gives anyone cancelling every reason to do it before that line, so two or three days out is the time to look. Montauk’s bar and Grouse’s walk-in door are the honest fallbacks when the app says no, and how walk-ins work at hard tables covers doing that well. Vail Mountain opens on November 13 and Beaver Creek on November 25, according to Vail Resorts. Down-valley, Avon and Edwards have long books of their own (Fattoria and Northside Kitchen at 181 days, Juniper at 365), worth booking the same afternoon as the famous rooms.

Letting software keep the calendars

The spread that makes Vail confusing is also what makes it a good job to hand off. SeatSwiper watches for the night you want, so one watch on Presidents’ Saturday can book the first matching table when Montauk’s calendar reaches it on December 15 or Sweet Basil’s does at 9:00am on January 14, or catch a Left Bank cancellation in the meantime. It books on your own OpenTable account, in your name (or SevenRooms, for Zuma), and nothing is resold or transferred. Your first booking is free, then a flat $5 only when it actually books the table, with no subscription, and a cancellation watch costs $1 to start, charged when the watch begins even if no table opens. It covers Resy, SevenRooms and OpenTable only, it needs your account connected, and on a 9:00am morning at Sweet Basil it can lose the race. It is never a guarantee.