Inside/Outside State College: Excellent Restaurants Outside of Downtown

Inside/Outside State College is a regular column by Jeff Deitrich offering views on downtown and the outdoors within a 30-minute driving distance.

In this column, I’ve expressed chagrin about the lack of higher-end restaurants in a downtown as dynamic as State College. While that’s true, there is good news outside of downtown.

The greater area has seen an increase in such restaurants. I’ve been to most of these and have enjoyed all of my experiences. While I am no food critic, some were better than others, either in the flavors or the variety or the ambience, but I appreciated and would go back to every one of them.

The closest include Grace at Toftrees, Barrel 21 Dining & Distillery, American Alehouse, Gigi’s Southern Table and Faccia Luna. A little farther out brings you to Flour & Stone, Pine Grove Hall, Duffy’s Tavern, Kelly’s Steak and Seafood, and Fillmore Farm Café (formerly RE Farm).  For a longer drive to a great meal, try Studebaker House, the Hublersburg Inn or Revival Kitchen.

It is important to remember that most restaurants since COVID are not open every day of the week, and some only at certain times of the day. Be certain to check out their hours before making plans.

Grace at the Carnegie House is certainly the most elegant of any State College area restaurant.  Even if you had your eyes closed, you could tell by the conversations of the clientele next to you.  It has been the place to impress the best out of town visitors for a long time. While the dress code is business casual, guests frequently wear their best here while dining. Virtually all other restaurants in our area have a far more relaxed feel. For the ambience, the prices of the dishes are certainly very reasonable. It may be the best place around for filet mignon.

Barrel 21 has unique dishes that pair well with their own distilled spirits, so it makes its own impression. The façade doesn’t match the interior in terms of charm and style. Once inside, you definitely feel like you’re in a different place, and the large circular bar catches your eye. First, thank you for having poutine on the appetizer menu. With a wild mushroom stir fry leading the way, their menu has a nice variety of upscale options with steaks at the core and a wonderful short rib and oxtail ragu that is featured on the 2026 PA Beef Trail. Scrumptious!  

American Ale House is the standard for accessible finer dining in the American tradition. The outdoor seating options and glass-enclosed spaces offer an airy feel, and inside feels more upscale than most places in town. Adding the bar area and piano/live music keeps the place hopping well into the evening. They have a variety of steaks and a good selection of seafood, including grouper, garlic crusted salmon and swordfish, but I think the standout is their duck ragout.

Gigi’s is indeed a different menu with a southern flare. A sit-down dining area is primarily separated from the bar and a fair amount of outdoor seating is available for nicer weather. It’s another great place to go to impress, and it’s one of the few restaurants in town open on Mondays. Southern is always good food, and they have both the half-chicken Crispy Fried Roost Dinner and Gigi’s Signature Shrimp & Grits to prove it. Throw in their Signature Low Country Boil, and you have yourself a way down-home feast. Creole, Cajun, charred and blackened, collard greens and sweet potatoes. Gumbo and she-crab soup. You know you’ll love it! 

Faccia Luna is simply the best pizza in State College. But they have more Italian dishes than pizza, and you owe it to yourself to give them a try if you’re a fan of that cuisine. They are known for their 14 varieties of creative woodfired pizzas in three sizes each, but they have wonderful seafood as well, such as their P.E.I. mussels marinière and oven-roasted sea bass. And they make their own cannoli! While we wait for a nice Italian restaurant downtown, Faccia Luna is absolutely the best option.

Farther out of town, I have been absolutely delighted to see the changes in Pine Grove Mills to go along with our long-time favorites in Boalsburg. Flour & Stone is delightful with an elegant, refined atmosphere. We don’t have many places that serve lamb, so their lamb pappardelle is a sumptuous treat. The duck a l’espagnole and the pricier Moroccan ribeye are fantastic as well.  They also have a wonderful wine list and Mediterranean style cocktails.

Its partner next door, Pine Grove Hall, also offers good food with a seasonal flair that changes periodically. At the moment, they are featuring “Havana Nights” with dishes inspired by head chef Brittney Pereda’s Cuban heritage and Miami upbringing, like their masitos de puerco, a crispy marinated pork dish. They sometimes have entertainment; it’s one of the few places around to hear good jazz. With both a main level and upstairs seating, it’s darker and cozier than Flour & Stone. Great to have two good atmospheres next to each other.

Duffy’s has been the standard in Boalsburg for longer than I’ve been alive. You can’t go wrong here. Your parents will like it, too. It has a very cozy, old Americana feel. They have lots of pub-style fare but a nice selection of classic American dishes, like filet mignon, scallops and ribeye steak.  My favorite is the Ibérico pork tenderloin. The prices are moderate, and they also have a delightful French onion soup and crab bisque.

While Kelly’s says it’s a steakhouse, it’s also one of the best places for seafood in our area. Yes, the large bovine on the roof can make one think of a country restaurant, but inside the ambience is wonderful, and there are plenty of steaks and seafood to choose from. In fact, Kelly’s easily has the broadest menu in the area with at least eight steak and eight seafood main dishes, plus surf & turf options. Add to that a variety of crab, shrimp and lobster steam pots, and the worst problem is choosing which of the many options you’re most in the mood for. And they have several pasta dishes, including a lobster ravioli.  

Then there is the transition in Fillmore near the airport to the Fillmore Farm Café and Gardens. Something wonderful about this place is the direct connection to the outdoors. Kids come and play in the yard off the patio, and the views from the patio are simply spectacular. I feel most like I am in Europe when I sit outside and watch the sun dapple the far hills for breakfast or watch the sunset over a delightful dinner. Yes, the Café is open now for breakfast and lunch on some days with more traditional offerings, and I highly recommend the crepes in the morning. Dinner entrees include a good looking pork piccata, pan-seared steelhead trout and lasagna bolognese.

Another phenomenal recent addition to our upscale options near town is Studebaker House. Sitting on the banks of Standing Stone Creek near McAlevy’s Fort, the drive is certainly worthwhile. It’s a classic farmhouse feel. One feels charm and elegance whether dining indoors around the fireplace or streamside on the patio. They have a wonderful brunch on the weekends and what they call the Full Chef’s Tasting Menu for dinners. It is indeed pricier than most of our restaurants, but where else can you try picarones pancakes, chancaca and whipped salted mascarpone, just to name a few of the many. You may want to do a little research on what each item on the menu is before you go, because it is not standard American fare. It’s a place to broaden your palate for sure. And you can even stay the night in their guest house!

When the Hublersburg Inn reinvented itself about 20 years ago, I was amazed. I went to church just up the street for my entire childhood, and never once did my family consider going there.  When I moved back to town around 1999, it was a bit of a biker bar. Wow, what a difference!  Now they have special wine tasting nights, an absolutely beautiful and nostalgic décor at Christmas time, an outdoor patio with live music and terrific food, too. Some is a bit more on the pub fare side than most of the restaurants listed here, but they also have dishes like honey miso salmon and gnocchi pesto alla trapanese. Their prices tend to be lower than the others. There are private rooms upstairs as well for special occasions.

Revival Kitchen outside of Reedsville is certainly unique for our area. The last time I tried marrow was the only time, and it was there. Like Fillmore Farm Café, they are strong on farm-to-table productions with exceptional creativity and use of different products as a strong component of their menu. The menu changes month-to-month and is served in five prescribed courses, so you’ll want to make sure you double check the menu online first. July’s main course, for instance, is hickory smoked bay leaf cured duck. 

I’ll add that I very much enjoy two additional places a little farther down the road on Route 45 east of State College. While it is not considered fine dining, Elk Creek Café is a wonderful spot with its own beers, a small-but-interesting menu (one of the few places where you can get fried oysters) and, frequently, live music.

Then a good destination restaurant is the Rusty Rail in Mifflinburg. It’s a micro brewery with an upstairs full of games, good beer and pub food and with a number of guest rooms that bridal parties frequently use. However, the downstairs has wonderful dining options. The pork osso buco was my go-to for years until it left the menu, but now the blackened ahi tuna and coastal linguini are fantastic. And their Wolf King Stout brownie sundae is so tasty.

I call Rusty Rail a destination restaurant, because there is so much to do right there. There is a gravel rails-to-trails bike path just off the back patio, so you can go for a ride in the morning, pause for lunch and a refreshing drink on the patio, play games upstairs all afternoon, then stop downstairs for a fine meal. Afterward, if you’re in the bridal party or just planning to spend a romantic evening with your significant other, you can adjourn upstairs to your room.

In more good news, as I was finalizing this column, I read that Bellefonte’s Gamble Mill will open a new restaurant called Grist Woodfired in late September! The announcement promises an “upscale, casual restaurant featuring scratch-made small plates, woodfired pizzas, seasonal entrees, weekly features, and a full bar.”

It’s wonderful to see so many places outside of downtown that truly are fantastic dining options.  It is only up to you to choose which impression you want to make on your spouse or your guests.

Bon appetit!

Jeff Deitrich is a retired hotelier and outdoors writer living in State College. He welcomes comments at psumohs@yahoo.com.