Smart grids, which constitute intelligent infrastructure in smart cities, provide reliable, energy-efficient, and high-quality power to improve the standard of living while maintaining a sustainable environment. For self-healing, restoration is considered an effective and intelligent way to ensure that parts of the system remain active and even reconfigure automatically with external failures or attacks. Restoration has recently received considerable attention from researchers and engineers. Regarding the technical route of restoration, this survey reveals some common properties and identifies the research gaps in modeling frameworks, reconfiguration technologies, and optimization approaches. It presents a summary of the challenges and opportunities in restoration of smart grids. It is expected to facilitate the researchers in the advancement of effective and intelligent restoration of smart grids.