Surprisingly good!
Salt Lake is a great place for hearty, robust, American food. (I don’t recommend you go there for ramen.) It is chuck-full of burger joints which are not chains, or at least not national chains. They all seem to have enormous menus with burgers, pastrami, gyros, fries, tots, fries & tots, sweet potato fries, fries & tots & sweet potato fries, fried mushrooms, fried zucchini and Adephagia only knows what else. None of the ones we tried really stood out much more than the others but they all knew how to make a good burger.
We found some solid hits for fried chicken; the best was a place called Curry Fried Chicken.
There it is, on the shores of Lake Shwarma. 
Serious props for the table art.
Their curried fried chicken was unique and delicious. Very crispy (even a tad overdone) and very flavorful. They don’t sell a bucket per se but you can get as many pieces as you want at $2/piece.
Pretty Bird in downtown Salt Lake also had the best Nashville hot chicken we’ve had since Nashville.
Look at all that fancy stuff on the sandwich! 
I wonder if the pickles ever thought this was how they’d end up…
Not quite as hot or as tasty as our favorite Music City destinations, but scrumptious all the same. The sides, especially the Mexican street corn salad, were especially good.
In the northern Salt Lake area, we went to Vito’s for cheesesteaks. This was a really unique place. The line for counter serve was long but moved quickly. You order, the cashier tells you how much it costs and then – you put the money into the payhole yourself and get your own change from the change bucket. Yes, there’s a payhole. They don’t even watch you when you do it.
And, their cheesesteaks were filling and flavorsome.
Yep, that’s garlic. 
Du fromage bleu, etc.
For a deluxe takeout desert, I would highly recommend Crumbl Cookies. You know what, caution to the wind – I DO highly recommend it!
Some of the tastiest breakfast we’ve had were found at Hruska’s Kolaches.
Humbly located in a tiny strip mall. 
Time to make the kolaches. 
Little bundles of gooey joy.
Flavors like egg and bacon, sausage and gravy, Monte Cristo and strawberry yield a never-ending tongue kaleidoscope of shards of rotating flavor crystals.
Our fanciest meal was at High West distillery – but I’m going to discuss that in the drinks section.