The Best Places to Eat Near Valentina's Pizzeria & Wine Bar, by the Record

The igloo-shaped Neapolitan oven is the anchor, but this Madison pizzeria runs a wider game than that. The chef, a Tony Gemignani protégé, turns out New York, Detroit, and by-the-slice styles alongside the Neapolitan, which is the rare pizza-school flex that actually makes sense on one menu. A wine list, beers, and cocktails round things out. It landed at number 12 on 50 Top Pizza USA, plus a special nod for its dessert list.

1. 50 Top Pizza #12 · 50 Top Pizza USA
2. 50 Top Pizza 2026 · Best Dessert List · 50 Top Pizza USA Special Awards

1. AAA Four Diamonds

House-made cornbread arrives in a cast iron skillet with honey butter and smoked salt, which tells you something about this downtown Huntsville New American restaurant's instincts. The chef's Mexican background and time in Asian kitchens both show up on a menu that wanders confidently, from ossobuco to pork belly over mole. It's the kind of cooking that makes a mid-size Alabama city feel like it's been quietly overachieving for years.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A family-run barbecue spot in the Lincoln Mill district, with white walls and high ceilings that keep things unfussy while the menu goes in several directions at once, pulling in bao sliders and ginger slaw alongside the core smokehouse work. That prime-grade brisket, cooked overnight, cuts like custard and needs nothing added to it. The Michelin Guide has it listed, which tracks for a place confident enough to let the meat argue its own case.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant