The Best Chinese Food in the United States

Salvaged gold floral chandeliers hang over lazy Susans in a high-ceilinged Chinatown room where Brandon Jew, a James Beard Award winner with a Michelin star, reworks the Cantonese cooking of his youth with California produce and genuine affection. The scallion milk bread with honey butter and the Peking duck are the two things regulars pretend they're deciding between, then order both. Dress up slightly more than you think San Francisco requires.

Penelope Wong's Park Hill lunch spot keeps limited hours, which only seems to sharpen the crowd's focus. The menu rotates around dumplings, wontons, and potstickers, with daily specials pulled from her Chinese and Thai background. Wong won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mountain, and the New York Times put this on its restaurant list, which for a weekday lunch counter is the kind of attention that makes Tuesday feel like a reservation you forgot to make.

The gilded dining room inside the Wynn was designed to stop conversation mid-sentence, and the food takes the same approach. Wing Lei is a fine dining room built around Cantonese, Sichuan, and Shanghainese cooking, and it holds a Forbes Five Star, a distinction no other Chinese restaurant in North America can claim. The Peking duck arrives on a custom cart and gets carved tableside, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds.

A curved chef's counter wraps around an open kitchen in this Hell's Kitchen fine dining spot, where the tasting menu moves through modern Chinese cooking with a Michelin star and a steady hand. The chef's touch lands somewhere between inventive and deeply familiar, so dishes arrive feeling both surprising and earned. The room is small, the ambition is not, and the AAA Four Diamond rating signals you're dressing up a little.

Walls plastered with Polaroids and faded Cantopop posters set the mood at this Chinatown restaurant, where the cooking is as high-energy as the room. The menu is compact Cantonese with a loose, playful hand: claypot rice with bacon and sausage, mapo tofu spaghetti that shouldn't work but clearly does. Reservations vanish fast, and the walk-in line forms before doors open. Bon Appétit and Esquire both named it among America's best new restaurants in 2024.

The carts still roll here, which is the whole point. Yank Sing is a dim sum shop in the Financial District that holds to the old push-cart service at a time when most places gave it up. Staff wear headsets and radio the kitchen when something you want hasn't come around yet, a detail that somehow makes it feel both retro and efficient. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Expect a wait at peak hours.

The abacus-inspired light fixtures alone could convince you this is a design hotel lobby, but Mott 32 is a fine dining room doing serious contemporary Chinese food inside The Palazzo. The menu pulls from Cantonese and Sichuanese traditions, and the applewood-roasted Peking duck has a following of its own. The dim sum spreads run all-you-can-eat without feeling like a cafeteria, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

One seating a night, about twenty guests, and chef Ling Qi Wu cooking in front of you: that's the whole deal at this dinner party-style Chinese tasting menu tucked into a strip mall on Research Blvd. Dumplings arrive shaped like animals with fillings like steamed lobster and crawfish with XO sauce, and duck with foie gras and caviar shows up alongside a bao bun with a cutout in it, somehow both silly and serious. The Michelin Guide has it listed.

The dim sum here comes plated like jewelry, each shumai crowned with a different color of tobiko. This is Chinese luxury dining of the kind you rarely find outside Asia, served on the fourth floor of the Peninsula with Michigan Avenue spread out below. A dedicated abalone section signals where the menu is headed, and the prices follow. Come with a reservation and dressed for the occasion.

Tucked into Mandarin Plaza on Broadway, this contemporary Chinese American restaurant and bar is the project of a first-generation chef cooking his own story onto the plate. The cocktail program is serious enough to earn national bartender recognition, so start there before the food arrives. Dishes are built for sharing, the kitchen is open to the room, and the whole setup feels more like a dinner party than a transaction.

A yellow neon sign greets you at the door of this small Columbia Heights restaurant, and everything inside quietly contradicts it: white floors, blue banquettes, geometric screens carving out private nooks. The menu runs through modern Hong Kong cooking, the kind where high-heat wok technique meets unexpected pairings. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the chef picked up a James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

The name references Denver's original Chinatown, but the room itself is all polished RiNo cool, dark and loud in the way that makes you feel like you're already having a good time. Hop Alley is a sleek Sichuan-leaning restaurant where the kitchen takes familiar Chinese formats and torques them sideways. The bar holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and was a James Beard semifinalist for its drinks program, which leans into Asian ingredients and geeky natural wine with equal conviction.

Chicken wings dusted in málà seasoning are the thing people keep coming back for, but the corned beef fried rice is the move that explains this place in one bite. MAKfam is a quick-casual American Chinese spot run by a married couple with roots in Chinatown takeout and a loose definition of tradition. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the James Beard Foundation named the chef a Semifinalist for Emerging Chef.

Hunan cooking is a different beast from the Cantonese or Szechuan you probably know, and this Kendall Square restaurant is one of the few places around Boston doing it right. The Michelin Bib Gourmand goes to a menu built around heat, funk, and ferment, where even the General Tso's runs on a house-made sauce. The spicy cucumbers alone have regulars ordering doubles. A lively room, casual prices, and the kind of food that makes you ignore your phone.

Soup dumplings, made by hand, are the reason to find this Chinatown storefront, which has been a Philadelphia institution for long enough that regulars still refer to the old address. It's a casual Chinese restaurant with a broader menu than the xiao long bao headline suggests, running through stir-fries, noodles, and a full roster of house-made dumplings. The newer space added a bar and private dining room, but the vibe stayed mercifully unfussy.

Thomas Chen's East Village fine dining room sits behind bay windows with a backlit bar and purple seats that somehow avoid feeling precious. The menu moves between Asian traditions and classical technique in ways that feel considered rather than calculated, and the Michelin-starred kitchen earns its star without announcing it at every turn. Service knows the food cold but doesn't lecture. A neighborhood room that quietly does serious work.

A four-course tasting menu in Bay View where the chef's Top Chef celebrity lands a little lighter than you'd expect. Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite run a focused, seasonal room, the kind where you follow the menu wherever it leads, from liver mousse and shrimp toast toward squash with red curry or something involving boudin blanc. A James Beard Nominee for Best Chef Midwest, the duo earns the room's easy trust.

Artichoke hearts turn up in a mala beef shin appetizer, which tells you everything about where this Cantonese restaurant is coming from. The Happy Crane is chef-driven contemporary Chinese in Hayes Valley, the kind of place where fennel and Italian charcuterie find their way into char siu and gold coin chicken without anyone apologizing for it. A James Beard semifinalist, and reservations are the first obstacle you'll face.

A dim sum shop that rose from a literal fire, HK Lounge Bistro landed in SoMa after its beloved predecessor burned down in 2019, and the regulars followed. The carpeted, low-key room inside an office building asks you to ignore the setting and focus on the food, which isn't hard. Shanghai soup dumplings, baked pork buns with a crackly top, and shrimp wontons in peppery sesame sauce do most of the persuading. The Los Angeles Times named it one of the 101 Best Restaurants in California.

Genting Palace is a white-tablecloth Chinese dining room inside Resorts World, with high ceilings, floral wallpaper, and tables spaced far enough apart that nobody hears your negotiations over the duck. Dinner is Cantonese fine dining, and the Sunday seafood buffet sets up in the same formal room, complete with a carving station. It holds a Forbes Four Star, so wear something with a collar.

The Chinoiserie wallpaper alone could anchor a design magazine spread, but this is a Chinese American restaurant where the food keeps pace with the room. The chef started with pop-ups exploring identity and landed somewhere more interesting than a thesis: Korean corn cheese egg rolls, dan dan noodles with wagyu guisada. A James Beard semifinalist, and the Victorian veranda fills up fast on sunny afternoons.

Peter Chang has quietly turned the D.C. suburbs into a Sichuan outpost, and Mama Chang is his tribute to the women of his family who actually did the cooking. The warm-wood dining room is upscale-casual Chinese, the kind where dry-fried cauliflower seems to land on every table without anyone admitting they ordered it. The New York Times and The Washington Post have both put it on their D.C. essentials lists, which for a Fairfax strip mall is a flex.

The original Chinatown location that started a Houston-wide Sichuan empire, this casual Chinese restaurant earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for cooking that doesn't just drown everything in chili oil. The heat and tongue-numbing mala tingle are there, but measured, so you can taste the food between the fire. Portions run generous, and the classics like kung pao chicken and dan dan noodles give the menu its spine.

Wood fire and a blazing wok run through nearly everything at this Pan-Asian restaurant on Porter Road, from the shishitos to the Wagyu brisket to a smoky half-chicken in wasabi white sauce. The menu roams freely across Asia without apologizing for it. The chef landed a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2025, and the New York Times put Noko on its Nashville list, which goes some way toward explaining why a reservation is the hardest thing to find in East Nashville right now.

Paper lanterns, deep red booths, and a playlist that makes the room feel like a set from a film you can't quite place. Double Luck is a Chinese-American restaurant that began as a pop-up and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand once it settled into a permanent home. The duck salad comes piled with crispy shredded duck over sesame cucumber, and the sweet and sour pork belly is the kind of dish that makes a cliché feel newly earned.

A chicken rice shop on Airport Boulevard where the whole birds go through a poaching-to-ice-bath-to-hang-dry process that makes the skin pull taut and the meat collapse at the knife. The cooking traces back to Chinese immigrants who brought their techniques to Thailand and rewired them with bolder flavors. The chef landed on the 2025 New York Times Restaurant List and is a 2026 James Beard semifinalist. Seven house sauces come with; order all of them.

Eight seats, eight seatings a week, and a reservation list that moves like continental drift. Fù Huì Huá is an omakase counter on 24th Street where a father-son team serves a tasting menu rooted in Huaiyang cuisine, shaped by time in Shanghai and Japan. The format reads kaiseki; the food is entirely Chinese. The San Francisco Chronicle ranked it among the top ten restaurants in the Bay Area.

Lacquer walls and deep-red booths give Jackrabbit Filly the feel of a Chinese-American restaurant your parents loved, except the chef behind the counter was a Top Chef finalist. The menu runs New American Chinese and shareable, from dumplings to cornmeal-crusted trout, with frozen drinks for anyone who needs something festive alongside the spice. North Charleston, which has quietly become the more interesting half of the metro.

A nondescript Katy strip mall is doing a lot of work here. Inside, the dining room runs to sleek fixtures and lazy susan-fitted private rooms, and the menu reads like a focused edit of Hong Kong classics rather than the usual encyclopedia. Congee, wonton soup, and candied walnut shrimp anchor things, with weekend seafood specials worth asking about. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, and the Houston Chronicle ranked it among the city's top restaurants.

Spago is a business-casual fine-dining room at Bellagio, and its patio has a front-row view of the fountains, which is why you'll be humming Sinatra whether you meant to or not. The menu sits between luxurious and familiar: pizzas, pastas, and a thick cheeseburger with charred onions. The chinois chicken salad has been on since the early eighties, the culinary equivalent of a band that still plays the hits.

Tucked into a corner of the Fontainebleau that most guests walk right past, Chyna Club is a fine dining room serving modernist Cantonese and regional Chinese, helmed by the chef who once earned the only Michelin star for a Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas. The tableside Beijing duck, all paper-thin wrappers and julienned scallions, sets the tone: this is banquet-grade precision in a room that doesn't announce itself.

San Tung is a Chinese spot on Irving Street where the fried chicken wings, sticky and sweet and shatteringly crisp, show up on nearly every table in a dining room that's always full. The noise level forgives toddlers and tired grown-ups alike. Order a few plates of wings up front, since one round never survives a family-sized table, and expect to wait for a seat.

Calvin Eng's Cantonese restaurant and bar sits on a nondescript east Williamsburg corner, close enough to the BQE that you'll feel the trucks. Inside, it reads like a retro Hong Kong diner, but the kitchen runs modern interpretations of regional Cantonese food, and the MSG Martini earned a spot on Esquire's national list. The Michelin Guide gives it a Bib Gourmand, and the James Beard Foundation named Eng an Emerging Chef nominee.

Hakkasan is a five-story Cantonese restaurant and nightclub in the MGM Grand, so dinner and the dance floor share a building and a dress code. A set menu keeps the bill friendlier than most Strip showpieces, and the dim sum arrives in colors that photograph better than they have any right to. The peking duck comes with caviar, which tells you how the evening is meant to end: upstairs, with a DJ and a bottle.

The Peking duck arrives whole or halved, which is the kind of choice that quietly tells you what sort of restaurant NiHao is. A contemporary Chinese spot in Canton, it draws from Sichuan traditions and dim sum alongside more ambitious plates, with a menu wide enough that vegetarians and serious heat-seekers end up equally occupied. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, it landed national attention fast and has held the room ever since.

The sink has a ruffled curtain skirt, which tells you everything about how seriously Jasmine takes its room. This fine dining Chinese restaurant at the Bellagio overlooks the fountain show through floor-to-ceiling windows, while inside, chandeliers hang over deep reds and gold-tinted flatware on floral plates. The menu moves across Cantonese, Sichuan, and Hunan traditions, and the Peking duck is carved tableside with the full ceremony that implies.

This tiny Chinatown dumpling house on Spring Mountain Road has a glass window where you can watch the staff fold your future soup dumplings while you wait, which is either entertainment or torture depending on your blood sugar. There are no reservations, and you may be asked to order before you sit, so study the menu in line. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist, and the xiao long bao are the reason the line exists.

Through a glass partition, you can watch the dumpling-rolling operation in full swing before you've even ordered, which makes restraint basically impossible. This bright Outer Sunset shop does stuffed dumplings, cold small plates, and a beef noodle soup so deeply flavored it reads as a direct rebuttal to the neighborhood fog. The New York Times put it on their San Francisco list, and the pig-ear salad alone will make you rethink your dumpling-only strategy.

A scarlet lobster logo, shells painted gold and silver on the wall, and half the tables splitting one at any given hour make the signature self-evident at this Cantonese restaurant in Alhambra. Henry's is an unassuming room doing homestyle cooking that's increasingly hard to find, selected by the Michelin Guide and named to the LA Times' 101 best. Come at dinner when the full menu opens up, and ask what vegetables are in season.

Red and cream lanterns glow over a warren of nooks on St. Marks Place, where a line almost always trails out the front door. Che Li is a Shanghainese seafood-leaning restaurant with an ambitious menu, so asking the server about regional highlights beats scrolling to the familiar end. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the fish stew with Sichuan peppercorns tends to be the last thing standing on the table.

One kitchen has a comal turning heirloom Oaxacan corn into tortillas; another steams dumplings. José Andrés planted this casual restaurant inside The Cosmopolitan on the premise that Chinese and Mexican cuisines belong together, and the menu doesn't argue the point so much as demonstrate it with antojitos, dim sum, noodles, and ceviche sharing the same table. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a room that eats this well without the formality.

Soup dumplings are the whole point here, and the kitchen treats them accordingly, wrapping every one by hand with skins thin enough to test your chopstick nerve. This casual dumpling shop on a Hayes Valley corner earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the stacks of bamboo steamers that fill the room explain why. The fillings run wider than the usual pork-only lineup, and the broth inside is cleaner than most.

The dried chilies arrive in a mound that buries the fried chicken underneath, which is your first clue about where things are headed. Z & Y Peking Duck is a Sichuan restaurant in Chinatown where the heat is the point, not a warning label, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand backs that up. The room is worn and relaxed, the service matches, and parking is its own ordeal. Come ready to sweat a little.

The Ferry Building and Bay Bridge fill the windows of this upscale Cantonese restaurant and dim sum spot in Embarcadero Center, which feels more like a special-occasion destination than a Sunday cart-and-stamp-card affair. The space runs large, with sun-drenched rooms, intimate nooks, and an outdoor patio. Lunch brings an extensive dim sum menu; dinner leans into Cantonese classics. The coffee lava buns are the kind of thing you'll think about afterward.

Wonton soup, congee, and lacquered duck are the foundation, but the menu at this Cantonese restaurant keeps going through whole fish, stir-fries, and enough elaborate dishes to keep a large table busy for hours. The BYOB policy makes group birthdays feel practically festive on a budget. It sits at a corner where the Lower East Side runs into Chinatown, and the room fills accordingly with the full diversity of both neighborhoods.

Chengdu Taste does not negotiate with your spice tolerance. This Alhambra Sichuan restaurant has been packing in crowds for years without once softening its approach, and the dining room smells like chili oil and vindication. Toothpick lamb, heavy with cumin, is the move that everyone talks about. The Michelin Bib Gourmand is on record here, and lunch is the local's trick for skipping the line that forms most evenings.

The laziji arrives as a vivid tangle of dried chilies with well-seasoned chicken and peanuts hiding somewhere inside, which tells you everything about the kitchen's approach at this Sichuan restaurant on West Colonial. Chef "Tiger" Tang goes for depth over alarm-bell heat, so the mapo tofu is silky and the chili oil on the pork wontons actually has flavor. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, with portions generous enough that regulars rarely finish everything.

The strip-mall facade on Las Tunas gives nothing away, but inside, the room goes full imperial, red and gold and blue, with the kind of scale that makes you feel a dinner party is the minimum viable unit. This is fine dining rooted in royal Manchu cuisine from the Qing court, so luxury ingredients arrive without apology. Come with a crowd and order widely; the menu rewards the ambitious table. A Michelin Guide selected restaurant.

The aunties behind the counter have been known to yell, and there is always a line, and nobody seems to mind either. Good Mong Kok is a Chinatown takeaway dim sum counter where the har gow come stuffed with real chunks of shrimp and the char siu bao run softball-size. Portsmouth Square is a short walk away if you need somewhere to sit. Bring cash, keep your order ready, and let the crowd move.

Getting to this moody Cantonese fine dining room means running the gauntlet of the Fontainebleau lobby, a spectacle of beach bodies and night owls that does nothing to prepare you for the dark, clubby calm inside. Ornate wooden slat dividers and sleek marble tables set the scene, the music keeps the bass low and steady, and the kitchen leans hard into high-quality seafood alongside Cantonese classics like Peking duck with all its crêpes and hoisin.

Sichuan restaurant in a Pittsburgh strip mall where the dan dan noodles arrive loaded with minced pork and the cucumbers come in a garlicky dressing you will spend a week trying to reverse-engineer at home. The kitchen leans hard into Chengdu, and the family-style format makes it easy to cover the table. It's BYOB, which the regulars clearly know, since they tend to arrive with wine already in hand.

Carts trundle through this spacious Cantonese dim sum hall on weekends, and by midday the entrance is already a bottleneck of people clutching numbered tickets. Point at what rolls past: lacquered duck, chewy lo mein, dumplings, fried wontons. The servers are moving fast and the tables are crowded and dimly lit, and the whole operation hums along in cheerful, productive disorder. Phoenix New Times handed it Best Dim Sum in 2025.

A strip-mall Northwest Chinese spot on Convoy where you order from a QR code and then forget you were ever annoyed about it. The menu leans on lamb, hand-ripped noodles, and aged vinegar with real tartness, and the cumin lamb arrives smelling like it has opinions. It's casual, cheap, and loud with the clatter of people ordering more than they should. Plan on leftovers, because the magic travels well.

The whole Peking duck arrives lacquered and ready for ceremony, and a Chinatown institution like this one has been running that ceremony for a long time. It's a roast-meat Chinese restaurant with a big menu behind the duck, including beef chow fun, egg noodle soups, and walnut shrimp for the table. The bird also turns up in fried rice and spring rolls if you'd rather skip the full production. There's a stall at Reading Terminal Market, but the original room is the move.

Hand-pulled noodles are the whole point here, stretched to order and served in broth or dry, inside a no-frills shopping center on Buford Highway. This is a noodle shop that pulls Sichuan dishes into the mix alongside the namesake soups, and the roast duck bowl, bone-in and bobbing with bok choy, tends to stop conversation. A Michelin Selected restaurant with a James Beard semifinalist nod, it draws a serious lunch crowd that knows exactly what it's ordering before it sits down.

The dining room holds enough live-seafood tanks that you half expect a guided tour, but R&G Lounge is a Chinatown banquet-style restaurant where the point is the occasion. Dungeness crab fried in salt and pepper, black cod baked to the texture of soft butter, geoduck sliced thin for sashimi. The seafood swims until you order it, which settles the freshness question before it's even asked.

Pork and duck puffs shaped like little black swans are the opening move at this upscale dim sum house inside Ghirardelli Square, where the room earns its own attention with colored lanterns, tiled murals, and candle tea warmers. Classics come with upgrades: lobster where shrimp usually goes, squid ink in the fried rice. The bay-facing patio fills up fast on Sunday mornings with people who planned ahead, and a few who got lucky.

A high-ceilinged casual dining room with sizzling woks going on what feels like a hawker center's worth of burners at once, China Live sprawls across multiple floors of Chinatown to fit in a retail section, a cocktail bar, and a fine dining room besides. The main floor does Chinese cooking in several regional styles, from scallion breads rolled like cinnamon buns to mapo tofu that earns the word tingly. Chatty tourists fill the place, which seems to suit everyone just fine.

Two brothers who started cooking congee in their college apartment now run one of the more quietly singular breakfast and lunch spots in Seattle. The bowl is Thai at heart, so expect tom yum shrimp or mala lamb shoulder alongside the straightforward chicken, with seasonal riffs keeping regulars guessing. The New York Times put it on their Seattle list, which tracks. Open mornings through early afternoon only, so plan ahead.

Hong Kong cinema posters line the walls and a glowing marquee floats above the chef's counter at this high-energy Cantonese American restaurant on Chrystie. The cooking is generous and unfussy, built on good ingredients without making a big speech about it. The XO fried rice and salt and pepper fried chicken pull regulars back repeatedly. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and priced like they mean it.

The koi ponds in the dining room are the first hint that this isn't your average dim sum operation. Koi Palace is a sprawling, upscale Cantonese dim sum hall in Daly City that's been an anchor of the Bay Area scene forever, and the carts still move with unusual confidence. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws weekend crowds willing to wait for siu mai that skew smaller and fresher than the genre norm.

Dim sum ordered off a menu rather than flagged down from a cart means everything arrives from the steamer still properly hot, which sounds obvious until you've had the other kind. This Cantonese seafood restaurant in Rosemead holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and draws the kind of crowd that fills large round tables for both weekend dim sum and proper evening dinners. The seafood is the reason to stay through dinner.

The strip mall on Turkey Lake Road does nothing to prepare you for the room inside, which runs to chandeliers and private dining spaces with the full sweep of a Cantonese seafood clubhouse. Dim sum arrives made to order rather than off a cart, so everything lands hot. The selection runs deep, from siu mai and egg tarts to sticky pork dumplings with a crispy, mochi-soft interior. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, and the move is to come with a crowd and keep ordering.

This is a Cantonese dim sum hall out on Division, with a banquet-room floor plan and carts that never seem to stop circling. Come daytime for congee and shrimp rolls the color of a sunset, or after dark for whole crab fried with ginger and scallion. The parking lot is always packed, and a great uncle seems to be permanently posted outside. Tables turn slowly, which tells you everyone has settled in.

The handmade dumplings and rope-thick noodles in sesame paste have kept this Northern Chinese restaurant an anchor of Oakland's Chinatown for what feels like forever. The room is utilitarian in the best sense: Lazy Susans, communal tables, and staff who will seat you next to strangers when the place fills up, which it does. Order something chewy and don't expect to spend much.

Carpeted walls and glass cases displaying the day's ingredients signal that this isn't your average dim sum hall. Dragon Beaux is a contemporary Cantonese spot in the Richmond where the siu mai comes topped with crab roe and the barbecue buns have a crunchy sugar crust that makes you rethink every bun you've had before. Save room for the custard dumplings, which arrive looking demure and then absolutely don't.

The carts are back, loaded with dumplings, chicken feet, shrimp balls, and sticky rice, and on weekend mornings a line forms outside before the doors open. Star Kitchen is a dim sum parlor tucked into a strip mall on Mississippi, the kind of room that rewards a large, hungry group with a working knowledge of chile oil. Dinner happens too, but the morning rush is the whole point.

A Hong Kong-style cafe in Quincy where the French toast oozes with creamy egg yolk and the ji cheung fun comes loaded with beef brisket or curry fish balls. The menu pulls from classic cha chaan teng tradition and gives it a modern, careful reworking. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod and a Bon Appétit best new restaurant mention, which explains the regulars making the trip from the city.

Order at the wood counter, catch a glimpse of the kitchen behind it, and try not to eat the pastries before your food arrives. Liu's Cafe is a small, low-key Chinese diner on 6th Street where the seats fill fast and the menu leans into comfort: wontons, braised pork belly rice, chili oil noodles, a pot of milk oolong on the side. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the sesame cold noodles won a LAist Best Bites nod.

The line out the door in Sunset Park is a reliable fixture regardless of weather. This Sichuan restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and packs its two floors with backless stools and no-frills wooden tables, which keeps the focus on the food. The kitchen goes lighter on the chili oil than you'd expect, coaxing complex flavors rather than just heat. Staff with earpieces navigate the room efficiently and are happy to guide first-timers through the menu.