The Best Places to Drink and Stay in the United States

Mules come topped with torched marshmallows and rosemary here, which tells you immediately that this is not your average neighborhood bar, even if it very much looks like one. Mismatched vintage sofas, a fireplace, and bartenders who seem genuinely happy to see you give The Nook the feel of a cozy cabin that someone accidentally stocked with serious cocktails. West Seattle locals treat it like a living room, which is more or less what it is.

The lounge at the Wayfarer has been around forever, tucked inside a low-slung, wood-accented building steps from the beach, with Haystack Rock framed through the window. It leans into whiskey, and the bar program swings seasonal: hot toddies and Irish coffee when the Oregon coast does its worst, blueberry lavender lemonade spiked with vodka when it relents. The kind of cozy corner where date night actually feels like one.

The restaurant's name painted across the side of the building sets the tone before you're even inside. Tori Tori is a Mills District izakaya, meaning you'll spend a happy evening moving between yakitori skewers, creative sake cocktails, and fried rice packed with crab. No reservations, so the drill is arriving early or accepting your fate in the line out front, which most regulars seem to take as a point of pride.

The entrance is a gated alley door with a buzzer, which already tells you something about the evening ahead. Trona is a speakeasy cocktail bar in Central East Austin that draws equally from Mexico and Japan, so mezcal and tequila share the back bar with Japanese whisky. The space runs narrow with a small patio, and reservations are the move. Bringing a date here feels a little smug, which is kind of the point.

Villa Nova is a no-frills, family-run pizzeria in suburban Stickney, the kind of place where the pie arrives square-cut, the way thin-crust tavern pizza is supposed to. The sausage is fennel-forward and left in chunky, meatball-ish clumps, which is a bold choice for a topping and a good one. It's been around forever, so expect regulars who haven't looked at the menu in years. Eater included it among Chicago's best tavern-style thin-crust spots.

A wine shop and tasting room tucked into Edgewood, steps from the Candler Park-Edgewood MARTA station, which makes the flight of three half-pours feel almost responsible. The daily wine flights rotate, and you can also order by the glass or pick up a bottle to take home. A patio out front catches good weather, and the sandwich shop next door means nobody has to drink on an empty stomach.

Tetsuya Wakuda made Las Vegas his US debut, reportedly because the Strip's energy reminded him of Shinjuku, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on your tolerance for spectacle. This fine dining room inside The Venetian pulls Japanese seafood, Canadian lobster, and Tasmanian oysters into a menu that moves between traditional and contemporary Japanese cooking. A hidden omakase room exists for those who know to ask, with rare whisky alongside the meal.

WG Pizzas is a Lakeview tavern-style pizzeria, a spin-off of an old suburban Highwood joint that has been feeding Lake County for ages. The crust is cut thin but keeps a few proud bubbles at the edges, so it lands chewier than the cracker-crisp stuff, closer to what South Side spots turn out. Order online, grab a BLT pie, and mind the monthly chef takeovers, which are a good excuse to pretend you planned ahead.

Zarella is a River North tavern-style pizzeria run by the Boka group, which means the thin, cornmeal-dusted pies come with a cocktail menu and a downstairs speakeasy lounge. Two well-known Chicago chefs developed the crusts, and the toppings include mortadella and all-beef pepperoni, so expect River North prices for what is, technically, bar pizza. Eater has named it among the city's best tavern-style pizza spots.

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

A sleek, AAA Three Diamond hotel a short walk from downtown Atlanta's convention halls and concert venues, which either thrills you or doesn't depending on why you're here. The compact rooms keep things minimal, platform beds, clutter-free desks loaded with charging points, and nearly all bathrooms are shower-only. The lobby bar runs tapas and craft cocktails, and there's a seasonal outdoor pool with terrace seating when the weather cooperates.

A converted vintage office building in the middle of downtown Atlanta, this Hampton Inn puts every major sports venue and attraction within walking distance, which matters more than you'd think on a game night. Rooms are compact and stylish, with an oversize TV and a proper desk, though "seating" often means the desk chair. Suites add a living room with a pull-out sofa. Hot breakfast is included daily.

The breeze-block bones of the original 1962 structure are still visible near the pool, a quiet reminder that this downtown Atlanta hotel was the city's first integrated hotel, which is a genuinely significant thing to just be staying next to. The midcentury modern furnishings and retro mini-fridges lean into that history rather than papering over it. Every major sports venue downtown is walkable, which either thrills you or doesn't.

Lion-head door knockers greet you at every guest room in this boutique hotel, which leans hard into its self-appointed "pride of Atlanta" identity, right down to stone lions carved into the facade. Rooms are compact but dressed in layered patterns that feel intentional rather than cramped, and the rooftop lounge has city views through windows that open when Atlanta cooperates and close when it doesn't, which is often.

The menu is divided into Acte I, Acte II, and Acte III, which tells you everything about the neighborhood this French brasserie has anchored for decades. Hayes Valley locals and pre-curtain opera crowds fill the room most nights, and the kitchen leans into French classics with a fondness for deconstruction. The beverage program keeps pace, with seasonal cocktails and a French 75 built on a French single malt that somehow feels obvious in retrospect.

Tiger-striped wood, tile-topped bars, and hanging light tubes give this Capitol Hill cocktail bar a look that's somehow both designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life and still easy to be in. It shares a back door with the pasta restaurant Spinasse but runs on its own logic, with small plates and a drinks list to match. Date-night couples fill the tables while bartenders occasionally step out to take orders, keeping the whole thing warmer than the room suggests.

The bar at Au Cheval is the part of the diner you can sit at without a two-hour wait, assuming the wait stays tolerable, and the whole place runs on dim lighting, a cocktail list, and the knowledge that a griddled burger with a fried egg is coming either way. It's a moody, no-frills diner-bar, and the cocktails do real work while you stare at the people who got the table. Difford's Guide gives it four stars.

The bartender here is a fourth-generation New Orleanian who will mix your Ramos Gin Fizz while narrating its entire biography. Bar Uncommon is a cocktail bar tucked into the Renaissance Pere Marquette, with the spare, hotel-adjacent look you'd expect, but Chris McMillian, one of the founders of the Museum of the American Cocktail, is the reason regulars overlook the lobby entrance. Classics, made the old way, with a history lecture included at no extra charge.

A red light above an unmarked door in a Chelsea coffee shop is the only signal that there's a cocktail bar behind it. Once through, the room opens into flocked wallpaper, fringed lampshades, and an antique copper bathtub sitting squarely in the middle of things, which everyone photographs and then pretends they weren't going to. The seven-seat copper bar is the calmer alternative. Dressed-up but not stiff, and a long way from the espresso machine out front.

A wood-stone oven dominates the back of this cocktail bar on Valencia, turning out pizza while the bartenders run a tight menu of drinks built on a few well-chosen flavors rather than a paragraph of modifiers. The room hits that sweet spot between lively and unpretentious, with filament bulbs over the bar and a crowd that looks like they found the place before it was a thing, even though everyone has found it by now.

A black and white marble floor runs from the front door all the way back through the bar, past the restaurant, and out into a quiet courtyard, putting a lot of physical distance between you and Bourbon Street without much effort. The cocktail bar leans into New Orleans classics like the Vieux Carré and Ramos gin fizz alongside bottled punches and house recipes built on acid phosphate and champagne vinegar, which is not a sentence you read every day.

Rum drinks without a single plastic volcano or flaming garnish in sight. Cane & Table is a cocktail bar that calls itself "Proto Tiki," rooting its menu in the centuries of trade between rum-producing islands before the tiki craze gave everything a grass skirt. The room on Decatur Street feels genuinely New Orleans, which helps. Pisco Punch and signature coladas share the menu, and the whole thing moves like a history lesson you'd actually stay for.

Bare cement walls, a rope-strung ceiling, and Edison bulbs doing almost nothing to warm the place up: Churchill is a neighborhood cocktail bar that leans into its chill rather than fighting it. Early-90s hip hop keeps things honest, the cocktails are carefully made, and the bourbon-spiced nuts are the kind of detail that earns loyalty. Car headlights sweep through the windows as drivers take the Market Street turn, which adds a bit of unplanned theater.

The name comes from Aristophanes: "Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine so I may wet my mind and say something clever." An intimate neighborhood wine bar connected by a knocked-through wall to the Cork & Bottle shop next door, Clever leans into its origins without being precious about them. The list is serious, the cocktails are well made, and the beers are worth a look too, which is either scope creep or just good sense.

Frenchmen Street runs on live music, but D.B.A. is there for the beer, the spirits, and the wine, with bands as a bonus rather than the point. Two redwood-lined rooms share a central bar, one leaning lounge, one leaning jazz club, both dim and ceiling-fan slow. The New York sister bar genes show a little, which gives this New Orleans dive a slightly unlikely polish that the regulars seem happy to ignore.

The building is roughly the size and shape of a railway car, wedged next to a gas station on Saint Charles with fairy lights strung through the overhanging trees. Delachaise is a wine and beer bar where the front terrace somehow becomes exactly where you want to be, watching the street roll by. Over 40 wines by the glass keep the options interesting without the prices getting precious about it.