It’s a brand new year, and if you’re like us, you’ve put 2024 in your rear-view mirror and are already cruising with the top down into 2025.

As has become tradition, we’ve assembled our annual list of 12 Alabama restaurants to put on your 2025 calendar — one for every month, from January through December.

This year’s culinary road trip takes us from the Wiregrass to the Black Belt, from Orange Beach to Florence, with stops in Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville along the way.

So, happy new year, and here’s hoping our paths cross somewhere down the road.

January: Zack’s Family Restaurant in Dothan

A longtime Wiregrass favorite that AL.com named Alabama’s Best Meat-and-Three in 2017, Zack’s Family Restaurant reopened in a new building this past November, more than two years after a devastating fire forced longtime owners Zack and Dianne Whaley to close and rebuild the business they started in 1995. Most of the dishes at Zack’s are from old family recipes, and the steamtable menu offers a daily selection of six meats (including fried chicken, pork chops, catfish and country-fried steak) and about 12 vegetables (from collard greens and creamed corn to sweet potato casserole and fried green tomatoes). “We do the real Southern food,” Dianne Whaley says. “It’s my mama, (Zack’s) mama and sister, and me and Zack and some little church ladies (who) gave us recipes.”

Zack’s Family Restaurant is at 1495 Headland Ave. in Dothan, Ala. The phone is 334-673-9225. For more information, go here and here.

READ MORE: Famous Alabama meat-and-three reopening after fire

February: Valentina’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar in Madison

New York native Joe Carlucci started working in his first pizzeria when he was 14, and he later honed his pie-making skills after meeting and befriending world champion pizza maker Tony Gemignani. Since moving to the Huntsville area and opening Valentina’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar – named for his daughter, Valentina – about four years ago, Carlucci has upped his pizza game even more, earning a No. 31 ranking on a list of the Top 50 pizza places in the U.S. last year. Valentina’s signature pie – the pizza de resistance, if you will – is “The Godfather,” a mighty, meaty pizza that piles on chorizo, Spanish sausage, pepperoni, Italian sausage, ground beef, Soppressata cured sausage, bacon, and meatballs made from a recipe handed down by Carlucci’s grandmother. It is, as AL.com’s Matt Wake says, “pizza perfection.”

Valentina’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar is at 25783 Huntsville Brownsferry Road in Madison, Ala. The phone is 256-325-2240. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: Inside the mind of North Alabama’s lord of the pies

March: The Alabama Grill in Greenville

The Alabama Grill, which first opened in 1947 in the Butler County seat of Greenville, had been shuttered for nearly two decades before Resa Bates (from Greenville’s Bates House of Turkey family) and Allan Bloodworth (a former owner of Montgomery’s El Rey Burrito Lounge) brought the iconic downtown building back to life, reopening it in 2019. “It’s just something that (Greenville) needed,” Bates says. “Maybe they didn’t know they needed it, but I knew they needed it.” The cozy restaurant seats about 50 diners inside and another 12 out back, and on weekend nights, it’s typically packed. The regulars rave about the Alabama Grill’s parmesan-crusted snapper with lemon caper sauce and the Greek-style Liveakos pizza, named in honor of the restaurant’s original owner, Greek immigrant Mack Liveakos.

The Alabama Grill is at 109 West Commerce St. in Greenville, Ala. The phone is 334-371-4745. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: Restoring a piece of history at the Alabama Grill

April: Rock House Eatery in Guntersville

Made of stone and built to last, Guntersville’s Rock House Eatery has been serving its inspired Southern cuisine since the restaurant opened on downtown’s Gunter Avenue in 2009. The dinner menu features a hand-cut, bone-in ribeye and a pecan-and-panko-encrusted chicken breast, as well as such small plates as lime-drizzled coconut shrimp and fried pork rinds with house-made pimento cheese and an onion-bacon jam. At lunchtime, the signature sandwiches include the Rock Star, with slow-roasted sirloin, jalapeno slaw and melted provolone on a grilled French roll, and the Tomato Melt, with fried green tomatoes, provolone, applewood bacon, spring mix and Granny Smith apple slices on a toasted brioche bun.

Rock House Eatery is at 1201 Gunter Ave. in Guntersville, Ala. The phone is 256-505-4699. For more information, go here.

May: Voyagers at Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach

One of six on-site food and beverage options at Orange Beach’s Perdido Beach Resort, Voyagers is the resort’s crown jewel, a fine-dining restaurant that offers fresh-caught seafood, aged prime steaks and spectacular views of the Gulf of Mexico. Chef Brody Olive, a Birmingham native and recent Great American Seafood Cook-Off winner, oversees all the food-and-beverage operations at the resort, but running the kitchen at Voyagers lets him flex his culinary muscles with such house specialties as “chicken-fried” lobster and pan-roasted red snapper. The Voyagers menu also showcases such local food products as Fairhope’s Bill-E’s Small Batch Bacon, which Olive uses in a blue cheese mac ‘n’ cheese and in his oysters Rockefeller, and Bon Secour’s Bayou Cora Farms heirloom grits, which he features in an Aleppo chile grits dish.

Voyagers is at 27200 Perdido Beach Blvd. in Orange Beach, Ala. The phone is 251-981-9811. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: How a bad day fishing inspired Alabama chef’s Great American Seafood Cook-Off win

June: The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar in Mobile

Alabama chef Jim Smith, the former executive chef at the Alabama Governor’s Mansion and a past Great American Seafood Cook-Off winner, opened The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar, a charming and inviting seafood-centric restaurant in midtown Mobile’s Oakleigh neighborhood, in early 2020. And if you still haven’t eaten lunch, brunch or dinner with him, it’s high time you paid him a visit. The Hummingbird Way menu showcases fresh and local ingredients from Alabama farmers and fishers, including Murder Point oysters, marinated Alabama blue crab claws, pan-roasted tripletail and grilled quail Creole and grits. The heirloom tomato and Chilton County peach salad, available only in the summer, is a delight.

The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar is at 351 George St. in Mobile, Ala. The phone is 251-408-9562. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: Guy Fieri loved this Mobile restaurant – and its neighborhood

July: Lannie’s Bar-B-Q Spot in Selma

Four generations of family members have stoked the fire at Lannie’s Bar-B-Q Spot in Selma, where the late Lannie and Will Travis started barbecuing hogs in a cinder-block pit next to their Minter Avenue home in 1944. Last summer, nearly a year after tearing down their old restaurant, the family reopened Lannie’s in a new, larger building that will continue the Lannie’s barbecue tradition in the same neighborhood where it started for years to come. The menu includes pork plates, ribs, wings, catfish and cheeseburgers, but the pulled-pork sandwich, which is doused with a fiery barbecue sauce and topped with crispy barks of pork skin (when available), is a must-try on your Alabama Barbecue Bucket List.

Lannie’s Bar-B-Q Spot is at 2115 Minter Ave. in Selma, Ala. The phone is 334-874-4478. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: Historic Alabama barbecue restaurant reopening in new building

August: Bayonet in Birmingham

The vibrant downtown Birmingham dining scene is about to get even livelier, when six-time James Beard Award semifinalist Rob McDaniel and his wife, Emily, open their second restaurant, the seafood-focused Bayonet, next door to their contemporary Southern grill Helen. The new restaurant is expected to open early this year. The Bayonet menu will feature fish and oysters not just from the Gulf of Mexico but also from the Atlantic and Pacific, McDaniel tells AL.com. “Raw oysters will play a large role,” he says. “But there’s also a ton of stuff out there that I want to work with. I want to get lobsters in. I want to get Dungeness crab in.” Bayonet will open for lunch and dinner service, with some dishes available on both menus.

Bayonet is opening in early 2025 at 2015 Second Ave. North in Birmingham, Ala. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: James Beard-lauded Alabama chef opening his second restaurant

September: River in Tuscaloosa

Overlooking the Black Warrior River and close enough to the University of Alabama campus to hear the roar of the crowd at Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Tuscaloosa’s River restaurant is a favorite of T-Town residents and UA students and alumni alike – be it game day or any other day. The seasonally inspired and locally sourced menu includes fried or seared Alabama catfish with grits and collard greens, a sausage board with Conecuh and Monroe sausage and house pickles, and stuffed mushrooms from Tuscaloosa’s own Underground Forest.

River is at 1650 Jack Warner Parkway in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The phone is 205-632-3801. For more information, go here.

October: The Grille at Botanic in Opelika

With its garden center, specialty food market, coffee shop and open-air bar, Botanic – the inspiration of Chicken Salad Chick founder Stacy Brown and her husband, garden expert King Braswell of the former Auburn staple Blooming Colors & Crepe Myrtle Café – is a food and nature lover’s paradise smack dab in the middle of hustling, bustling Opelika. Botanic has lots of food options – from al fresco dining in The Garden to coffee and pastries in The Market to small bites at The Patio Bar – but for the full Botanic experience, let us recommend dinner with executive chef James Jolly at The Grille. The menu features such shareables as pork belly burnt ends and Mississippi pot roast bao buns; entrees such as chicken-fried chicken and blackened salmon; and desserts that include key lime pie and banana pudding cheesecake.

Botanic is at 1702 Frederick Road in Opelika, Ala. The phone is 334-748-9082. For more information, go here.

November: D’Road Cafe in Montgomery

From its humble beginnings as a small, six-table eatery on the eastern side of the city in 2011, Montgomery’s D’Road Café grew up fast, moving into a larger building (and the former home of Montgomery’s iconic The Elite restaurant) five years later. D’Road Café owner and self-taught chef Janett Malpartida, a native of Venezuela, has helped broaden the Capitol City’s culinary horizons with a menu that includes such Venezuelan dishes as arepas, empanadas and the popular pabellón criollo, a house specialty with seasoned brisket, black beans, rice and plantains. Also, on Fridays, Malpartida hosts a reservation-only international dinner, with dishes from whatever country inspires her that night.

D’Road Cafe is at 121 Montgomery St. in Montgomery, Ala. The phone is 334-328-2938. For more information, go here.

December: Odette in Florence

The home turf of Americana musicians John Paul White and Ben Tanner and internationally famous fashion designers Billy Reid and Natalie Chanin, Florence is a cultural oasis in the northwest corner of Alabama, a college town with a creative soul. A happening, artistic city like that needs an exciting, innovative restaurant, and Odette, on North Court Street in the heart of downtown, is just such a place. A long, narrow restaurant with a comfortable, energetic vibe, Odette is named for founding owner Celeste Pillow’s paternal great-grandmother, whose portrait hangs on a wall at the back of the dining room. Executive chef Josh Quick, who has helmed the Odette kitchen since the restaurant opened in 2013, and chef de cuisine Kyle Ogden, the reigning Alabama Seafood Cook-Off champion, collaborate on a menu that changes with the seasons. Some of the mainstays include crispy potato gnocchi with confit chicken, steak frites with chimichurri, pimento cheese-and-bacon and red curry deviled eggs, and the signature Odette cheeseburger with Bear Creek Farm beef and caramelized red onion. In addition to the original Florence restaurant, Odette has opened a second location inside Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater.

Odette is at 120 North Court St. in Florence, Ala. The phone is 256-349-5219. For more information, go here.

READ MORE: How this Florence restaurant became an Alabama must-do