10 of CT’s most Instagrammable restaurants

Elm Street Diner

Stamford

Elm Street Diner in Stamford has been around since 1987, but owner John Moshos and his team have harnessed social media in the past decade to call attention to its outrageously decadent plates: milkshakes stacked high with lollipops, cookies and whole slices of cake; curly fries topped with lobster macaroni and cheese; Nutella churro peanut butter cup French toast. The restaurant has 102,000 followers on Instagram and 25,000 on TikTok.

“We’ve become more of a destination, than just a local place. I have people who are driving one to two hours [to eat.] I’ve had people from California, Australia,” Moshos told Hearst Connecticut in August.

Moshos said he gets his ideas in a variety of ways, and often he’ll build a dish around one particular flavor or ingredient. He keeps notes on his phone and even scribbles ideas in a notebook. But he sticks by one rule: whatever Elm Street crafts has to taste as good as it looks.

463 Elm St., 203-325-1141, @elmstreetdiner.