The Best Soup in Billings

On a cold, gloomy day, nothing hits the spot quite like a hot bowl of soup.  And Billings has some great local restaurants that are serving up some sumptuous choices.  Here's my picks for the 5 Best Soups in Billings.

First, a disclaimer, there is a restaurant called the Soup Place in downtown Billings that's pretty good.  However, they don't serve French Onion soup.  In my opinion, you can't name your establishment the Soup Place and not offer French Onion.  That's blasphemy.  Although their Minestrone is tasty, they are automatically disqualified from my list due to their incomplete menu.  Note to the Soup Place: step up your game and start making French Onion soup.  You're better than that.

With that in mind, the Beer Cheese soup at Jake's is, hands down, the best soup in town and one of the best soups I've ever had.  I don't know what they put in it, but it's cheesy, spicy and savory.  Tragically, they only serve the Beer Cheese on Wednesdays.  Which is a shame, because I could eat a gallon of it.

Second on my list is the French Onion soup at the Rex.  The flavors are much richer than your standard, run of the mill, french onion soup.  It's loaded with sweet onions and melted cheese and prepared with a more traditional method than you would expect to see in a city of our size.  Although I could use a little more cheese, the broth is so good, it's worthy of the #2 ranking on this list.

The Fieldhouse is a quaint, upscale restaurant on the wrong side of 1st Avenue in Downtown Billings that prides itself on serving locally sourced cuisine.  Although it's housed in a great old building, their location would be difficult for any restaurant to succeed.  Unlike some other places, the Fieldhouse doesn't have one signature soup, they offer a daily soup of the day that's consistently excellent and is one of the more reasonably priced items on a relatively expensive menu.  If you are lucky enough to catch them on the day they serve their Coconut Curry soup, you won't be disappointed.

4th on my list is Bistro Enzo on the West End.  Specializing in northern Mediterranean and Italian cuisine, it is one of the very best restaurants in Billings.  Similar to the Fieldhouse, Bistro Enzo's soup of the day changes regularly.  Frankly, this place would rank higher on my list if their other dishes weren't so damn good.  As tasty as their soups are, they are not the stars of BE's outstanding menu.

Rounding out my list of the Top 5 Soups in Billings is the Quattro Formaggio at The Burger Dive downtown.  We all know how awesome their burgers are, but if you get the chance to try the soup, do it.  It's cheesy and hardy, loaded with potatoes and bacon.  The only problem you'll have with this dish is saving room for a big juicy burger and some fries. Unfortunately, they only serve the Quattro Forgaggio a couple times each week.  If you miss it, their other daily soup specials aren't half bad.

That's my list, how about yours?  If I left someone off the list who deserves to be considered, drop me a line and I'll check them out, rick.roddam@townsqauremedia.com.