The Best Places in the United States

Everything at this Palestinian live-fire restaurant in Navy Yard passes through a roaring open hearth before it reaches the table, and the renovated dining room leaves the kitchen's fire in full view. Michael Rafidi, a James Beard Outstanding Chef winner with a Michelin star, draws on his family's Ramallah roots while working with mid-Atlantic seasons. The tasting menu is the move, though the wood-fired lamb pies and hummus hold their own à la carte.

The beignets come out warm, filled with ricotta, and draped with Benton's ham, and the question of how many is too many has no clean answer. This is Aaron Bludorn's easygoing neighborhood bar and dining room, wrapped in dark wood with a gleaming open kitchen visible from most seats. The menu runs from pasta to half chicken to devil's food cake, all built for sharing. A Michelin Guide selection, and the kind of place that makes a Tuesday feel like a reasonable excuse.

Bardot is a Michael Mina brasserie tucked inside Aria, a windowless black-and-white room where it's always a flattering 8 p.m. and fresh flowers cover every surface. A shellfish cart rolls past, a martini program has its own national press, and at brunch someone sings Shania Twain over the croissants. It's a dressy-casual, mid-to-upper price French spot, and it holds three AAA diamonds.

The menu cites lumberjacks as inspiration, which sounds like a joke until the food arrives smelling of juniper and pickled elderberries. This is a French American neighborhood restaurant on Nicollet, where the chef works a distinctly Upper Midwestern palate, finding fall vegetables worthy of a special occasion without making the room feel like one. It won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant and landed on the New York Times Restaurant List. The pommes dauphine are, regulars will tell you, really just very good Tater Tots.

A Michelin-starred bistro in the Arts District where the steak au poivre and golden frites hold their ground alongside some genuinely inventive plating. The kitchen leans French but isn't reverent about it, which is part of the appeal. The Provence Martini made Esquire's list of the finest in the country, so the bar pulls its weight too. It fills up fast and the open kitchen keeps the room loud and kinetic.

Red brick walls, local art, and wood worn down by decades of good evenings set the tone at John Currence's Southern restaurant and bar on Oxford's courthouse square. The menu turns with the seasons but stays close to the region, running from fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade to the shrimp and grits that regulars treat as non-negotiable. Portions are built for sharing, and the bar earns its own reputation, landing on Wildsam's list of essential American bars.

A barely-there sign on Beacon Hill marks this casual Guamanian restaurant and bar, which is either accidental humility or the universe's way of filtering out TikTokers (it has not worked). The menu follows the chef's biography through Filipino chicken adobo tacos and Guam-style corn soup, but the achiote-orange empanadas, stuffed with raisined beef and served in a pool of fina'denne', are what drew a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025.

Reservations are scarce at this compact Japanese-influenced restaurant, and the walk-in line forms early. Chef Trevor Moran's menu is built around sharing plates with a precision that feels almost theatrical, from beef tartare hand rolls to rotating kakigori shaved into powdery, sculptural blocks. A Michelin star and a James Beard semifinalist nod signal the ambition; the laidback, buzzy room suggests nobody here is taking themselves too seriously.

Floral barstools, a patio that catches every bit of the La Jolla sun, and tiki drinks that mean it, this is a destination restaurant where the tropical theme actually does the work rather than just hanging on the walls. The kitchen leans into it too, with local ingredients pulled in Asian and tropical directions. The robata-grilled coconut shrimp is a good signal of the mood: familiar enough to order without thinking, specific enough to make you glad you did.

The dining room was overhauled in fawn and sage, the ceilings soar, and there is velvet, which tells you exactly what kind of evening you're walking into. Quince is a tasting-menu restaurant in Jackson Square where the kitchen draws heavily from its own farm, and the chef holds three Michelin stars and a James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. Service runs seamlessly without tipping into ceremony, which at this level is the harder trick.

A player piano sets the tone at this Montrose dining room, where the dress code is "go ahead and try" and the menu leans toward Mayfair via Paris. The kitchen runs British-French, which means duck Wellington and oysters at the bar feel equally at home. The Marigold Club is the kind of place where ordering a martini first is not just acceptable but expected, and Esquire has already taken their side on the matter.

The menu at this Uptown Mexican restaurant isn't fully translated into English, which the staff treat as a feature rather than a bug. Chef Erasmo Casiano's cooking runs from dry-aged hamachi crudo to duck carnitas tacos, and the cocktails lean on prickly pear, tomatillo, and jicama. Esquire named the Martini Cochinero among the best martinis in the country, which tells you something about where the bar program sits.

Paper lanterns and candles keep things moody at this night-market-style Chinese-Thai restaurant on SE Stark, inspired by Bangkok's Chinatown. The team behind Langbaan runs a freewheeling room where wide rice noodles and double-fried chive cakes share space with a kangaroo martini that landed on Esquire's list of the best martinis in America. The New York Times put it on their 2024 restaurant list, which is the kind of thing that happens when the food is this alive.

The Carousel Bar in the lobby actually revolves, one full rotation every fifteen minutes, which tells you almost everything about the Hotel Monteleone's commitment to a good time. This old-school French Quarter institution has marble floors, brass fixtures, and enough chandeliers to give the lobby its own weather system. A rooftop pool and full spa mean you can stay put, which, given the address on Royal Street, is a genuine temptation.

The glass-roofed Garden Court, with its original chandeliers and marble columns, stops people mid-step every time. This grand old San Francisco luxury hotel has been around forever, and the sprawling rooms, redone with a designer's eye for marrying ornate architectural bones to quiet modern comfort, don't feel like a museum or a renovation. The Court may inspire you to dress for dinner, though whether that means a gown or a very nice hoodie is apparently a local judgment call.

Parked at the foot of Rodeo Drive, this grande dame hotel has been a soft landing for Hollywood royalty since forever, most famously a long-term residence for Warren Beatty back in his bachelor years. Rooms run to white and pastel blue, Wolfgang Puck's CUT steakhouse anchors the ground floor, and the pool is the Mediterranean-fantasy kind that makes you feel famous even if no one recognizes you.

The six-acre pool deck alone gives you some sense of the scale here. This resort on the Strip draws from its Miami Beach namesake but runs considerably larger and louder, with a vast casino, a 3,800-seat theatre, and a spa that requires its own navigation. Rooms are plush without apology. The dining lineup reads like a celebrity-chef roll call. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Recycled wood, river stone, and living moss walls set the mood at this eco-minded luxury hotel on the Embarcadero, steps from the Ferry Building and whatever the farmers market left out this morning. The 186 rooms lean bright and airy, a contrast to the moody lobby, and the Bay Bridge sits right there in the window. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Thatched-roof bungalows on a field of black lava beside a crescent bay: it sounds like fantasy, but that's just the view from your kauhale at this Rosewood resort on the Kona Coast. After a decade-long closure following a tsunami, it reopened to 81 acres of volcanic landscape, basalt rock furnishings, and coconut husk sidings that make the whole place feel grown from the ground. It holds a Forbes Four Star and three Michelin Keys.

Tucked behind a grove of quaking aspens on a quiet back street, this 32-room boutique lodge sits close enough to downtown Jackson to be convenient and far enough to feel like a different world. Rocky Mountain timber and stonework meet custom Italian linens and soaking tubs inside. The Body Sage Spa handles post-ski recovery with some authority, and the Wild Sage restaurant looks out toward East Gros Ventre Butte. A Forbes Four Star property.

The exterior is blanketed in ivy, which tells you everything about this hotel's priorities before you even check in. A high-design, sustainability-forward luxury stay on Demonbreun, 1 Hotel Nashville trades neon and boot-scootin' for reclaimed wood, organic textures, and views over downtown that some terraced rooms get all to themselves. The Bamford spa, a rooftop bar, and a farm-to-table restaurant round things out. It holds a Michelin Key.

A sharp-angled modernist building on the Southwest Waterfront, a short distance from Capitol Hill but feeling nothing like it. This 131-room hotel from the Montage group holds a rooftop bar with a circular bar and Potomac views, an all-day Latin American restaurant with water vistas, and a moody ground-floor bar wrapped in navy and gold palms. Check-in happens seated, at a desk by a fireplace, which sets the residential tone. It holds a Michelin Key.

Eight private cottages and a Tournament of Roses suite signal what kind of hotel this is before you've even seen the pool. Set on 17 acres in Pasadena, the Langham Huntington is old-money grand, the kind of place with multiple historic ballrooms and two gardens, where tennis courts get lit at night and the spa has its own philosophy. Forbes Four Star. Summer afternoons tend to dissolve at the pool bar.

A skybridge connects this Ritz-Carlton directly to Tysons Galleria, which tells you something about the clientele and their priorities. The hotel sits in Fortune 100 territory about fifteen miles from D.C., making it a logical base for both boardroom visits and wine country day trips. Upper-floor rooms look out over the Tysons skyline, the spa leans contemporary, and the wine bar runs live music. Forbes Four Star.

Liberace's mirrored Nickelodeon piano sits in the lobby next to a hovering Holos sculpture and a cluster of pink elephants floating in painted bubbles, which is a normal amount of art for a hotel check-in. The Conrad is the largest in its brand, a full-service Las Vegas hotel tower where the rooms lean into the same bold palette. The casino, a 5,000-seat theater, and 40 places to eat and drink are all on the same campus.

Crystal chandeliers run the full length of the marble lobby, which makes entering feel like an event before you've even checked in. This grand Waldorf Astoria hotel has been around forever, and the bones show it, from the vintage timepieces anchoring the corridor to the historic Sazerac Bar just off the lobby. The rooms are plush and numerous, the staff quietly expert at making famous guests disappear.

Shingled walls, porches aimed at the water, bocce on the lawn, and a private beach on Quonochontaug Pond: Weekapaug Inn has been a summer retreat on Rhode Island's southern coast for as long as anyone's grandparents can remember. Antiques and coastal touches fill the rooms, sailing and bird-watching fill the days, and the whole thing holds a Forbes Five Star without feeling the need to remind you of it. Old New England ease, genuinely unforced.

The vaulted ceilings and carved stone arches of a 19th-century bank are still very much the point at this Penn Quarter hotel, and the Michelin Guide recognized it with one Key. The bones are stately, the renovation decidedly less reverent, with D.C.'s history reinterpreted as design inspiration rather than preserved under glass. It lands somewhere between grand civic institution and a hotel that knows it's allowed to have fun.

The lobby is as big as a city block and designed, without apology, for people who will open a laptop in it. Ace Hotel Brooklyn is a Michelin Key hotel sitting on the edge of Boerum Hill, where the industrial bones and deliberately low-key atmosphere draw the kind of guests who prefer brownstone streets over Midtown. The Brooklyn Heights Promenade is a short walk, and the ground floor bar handles the rest of your evening.

Anguilla is famously flat, which sounds like a liability until you realize it means unobstructed views in every direction and beaches that stretch without interruption. This Forbes Five Star resort sits between two bays on the island's northwest shore, its Mediterranean architecture doing exactly what you'd want from a luxury resort: framing the Caribbean rather than competing with it. The crowd comes here to do absolutely nothing, and the property is very good at facilitating that ambition.

Kelly Wearstler's maximalist redesign of an old private club turned this 147-room hotel into something you'll spend a full check-in trying to take in. Original monogrammed doorknobs, hidden messages embedded in the art, a sweeping lobby mural by Abel Macias, rugs and tiles pulled from Turkey, Morocco, and Mexico. Two restaurants, three bars, and a rooftop pool mean you can stay busy without leaving. It holds a Michelin Key.

The kiva fireplace in the lobby is going year-round, and the handcrafted doors are so heavy they make every entrance feel vaguely ceremonial. This Rosewood hotel sits a block from the Santa Fe Plaza in a pueblo-style building that reads more like a serious local artifact than a luxury property, with vigas overhead, local art on the walls, and a restaurant that takes New Mexican culinary tradition at face value. It holds a Michelin Key.

A 17-million-gallon lagoon sits outside the door, and guests spend their days kayaking, paddleboarding, or simply floating around what amounts to a manufactured beach in landlocked Orlando. The Conrad is a Forbes Four Star resort with 433 rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and two Jack Nicklaus golf courses competing for attention with the water slides. Walt Disney World is less than three miles away, so the clientele write themselves.

Wood-paneled lobby, fresh flowers, chandelier light, and parlor furniture that signals you've arrived somewhere that takes comfort seriously. This West End hotel runs on the classic Ritz-Carlton formula: big rooms by D.C. standards, Frette linens, soaking tubs, and Asprey products in marble bathrooms. The minibar comes stocked with champagne, which is either indulgent or practical depending on your afternoon.

Two blocks off the Strip, this all-suite hotel skips the casino floor entirely, which means no slot machines, no cigarette fog, and no one blocking your path with a yard-long cocktail at nine in the morning. The 64-story gold-and-glass tower is exactly as understated as it sounds, with Swarovski chandeliers and marble lobbies doing the heavy lifting. Good option if you want Vegas proximity without full immersion in the spectacle.

Eight suites, twenty-four guests at a time, and a thousand acres of Clark Fork riverfront along the edge of Lolo National Forest: RiverView Ranch keeps the headcount low on purpose. This Forbes Five Star all-inclusive ranch outside Missoula covers everything from airport transfers to meals to fly-fishing, with horses, snowmobiles, and hiking trails filling the gaps. The kind of place where the wilderness is the amenity and solitude is the whole point.

The façade is modeled on the Ritz Paris, which tells you exactly what you're in for at this Forbes Five Star resort in the Pennsylvania countryside. Inside, vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and white-gloved butlers on the club level set the tone. The grounds, though, are where things get interesting: two golf courses, Polaris off-road adventures, and, yes, actual zoo animals wandering the property.

Spanish-revival arches and Turkish rugs set the tone at this Forbes Five Star resort on its own private island off the Georgia coast. The original building came from Addison Mizner, the architect who shaped Palm Beach, and the Mediterranean bones are still intact. A raw bar handles the post-beach oysters; the Georgian Room handles the formal Southern dinners. Families with sandy kids and couples in linen share the same long driveways without it feeling awkward.

Three championship golf courses roll right up to the guestrooms at this Forbes Five Star lodge on St. Simons Island, styled after an English manor with hardwood floors, exposed beam ceilings, and private balconies facing either the fairways or the Atlantic. Forty-three rooms and suites keep things intimate, and the Golf Performance Center draws the kind of guest who brings their own glove. Sister property The Cloister, just nearby, adds a spa and beach club to the itinerary.

A converted 1901 factory building in Williamsburg with 13-foot ceilings, original wood beams, and floor-to-ceiling windows framing the Manhattan skyline. The Wythe holds a Michelin Key, and the in-house credentials are real: Le Crocodile, the French brasserie downstairs, draws its own crowd, and Bar Blondeau on the sixth floor has views that make the room feel optional. Industrial-chic without the irony quotes, and about as Williamsburg as a hotel gets.

Casitas scattered across 40 desert acres make it easy to forget the other 209 guests exist. This Forbes Four Star, Michelin Key resort sits at the foot of Pinnacle Peak, where saguaros do the landscaping and Troon North's two golf courses are practically at the door. The pool is a genuine refuge from the Scottsdale heat, the spa runs Four Star as well, and Talavera handles dinner. Phoenix is a short drive whenever the desert quiet starts feeling too quiet.

The only adults-only hotel on the sprawling Boca Raton resort grounds, the Yacht Club is an all-suite property where champagne meets you at check-in and a floor butler handles the rest. All 112 suites have private balconies facing the marina, the lake, or the Atlantic. A Forbes Five Star. The top-floor restaurant is exclusive to guests, and the wider resort's beach, golf, spa, and pickleball courts are all yours.

Porthole windows punched into a bright white facade give this boutique hotel the silhouette of an elegant liner docked in Coconut Grove. The Cipriani family designed it around the idea of a modern yacht club, so the nautical theme earns its keep rather than feeling like a theme park. A rooftop Italian restaurant, a science-focused spa, and bay-adjacent surroundings round things out. It holds a Michelin Key.

A Greg Norman-designed golf course and a 40,000-square-foot spa suggest this Forbes Four Star resort has no real interest in competing with the theme park circus a few miles up the road. The JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes sits on its own landscaped grounds with a waterpark for the kids and a reimagined lobby lounge for the adults who pretend they don't also enjoy a waterpark.

The clock in the lobby and the gilded Peacock Alley lounge are lifted straight from the New York original, which is either charming or slightly unsettling depending on your relationship with theme parks. This Forbes Four Star resort earns its keep with a nature preserve on one side, a golf course on the other, and genuinely attentive service throughout. Magic Kingdom is fifteen minutes away, but the pool makes it easy to forget that entirely.

The hotel has its own resident dog, Georgie, available for guest cuddles, which tells you something about how seriously the Fairmont takes its wellbeing pitch. This Georgetown hotel is a comfortable, upscale base for the city, with spacious rooms and a three-floor wellness center running a 50-foot saltwater pool, sauna, steam room, and spin classes. A renovated lobby and courtyard bar draw the power-lunch crowd even when they're not staying over.

A 52-floor tower built from the ground up in Streeterville, a few blocks east of the Mag Mile and a short walk to Navy Pier. The hotel leans into Chicago's architectural legacy with design choices that feel considered rather than corporate, and a 75-foot lap pool and rooftop lounge raise the stakes for an urban stay. Business travelers and weekenders both find their footing here without too much awkward overlap.

The hotel sits inside Water Tower Place, which means stepping off the elevator lands you in a shopping mall with over 125 stores, and stepping outside puts Chanel, Cartier, and the Art Institute within a few blocks. It's a luxury hotel on the Magnificent Mile, so the Gold Coast energy is built in. Rooms run at Ritz-Carlton prices, and the location does a lot of the justifying for them.