The Best Latin American Food in the United States

Plant-based Peruvian tasting menus in Shaw sounds like a premise that requires a disclaimer, yet Mita holds a Michelin star and a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant. The chef's team pulls from across Latin America, so the flavors run from Andean to coastal without apology. Two tasting menu lengths mean you can commit at whatever level feels reasonable on a Tuesday. The bar program is serious enough that Punch named the team among its best new bartenders.

The CTA rumbles overhead while the chef rattles off ingredients like an auctioneer building to a close. This intimate Uptown tasting menu spins Mexican cuisine through a restless, personal lens, moving from "chips and salsa" rendered as salsa verde jelly and tortilla crumble to a lamb tartare tostada seasoned al pastor-style. Counter seats put you close enough to watch the small team work. It holds a Michelin star and landed on the New York Times Restaurant List for 2025.

A chocolate sphere melted tableside sets the tone at this Latin American restaurant inside Lake Nona's Wave Hotel: dramatic is the operating mode. Warm wood, vivid color, and ceilings tall enough to lose a drone in frame a menu that roams Central and South America with a tropical lean. Small plates and bigger signature dishes share the card, and a service robot circulates among the banquettes without anyone seeming to find it unusual.

The arepa arrives wrapped like a little gift, seared masa around a fried egg, tomato, cotija, and avocado. This all-day Latin American spot on Florida Avenue runs from morning coffee through dinner without any of the fuss, and the price point reflects that. Upstairs, an intimate room with original details fills with regulars chasing the pork empanadas and masa gnocchi with braised beef.

Colorful murals from local artists cover every wall at this plant-based Latin restaurant on East 6th, where the smell of spices hits you before the door closes. The menu is scratch-made and mostly vegan, pulling from Mexican and Latin traditions with jackfruit carnitas and al pastor tacos that don't apologize for the absence of meat. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2024, which tracks with how seriously the kitchen takes the food.

The ceviche is the obvious draw, but the skirt steak with chimichurri and cheese-mashed potatoes quietly argues that this is as much a steakhouse as a ceviché bar. Anthony Lamas's Latin American restaurant on Bardstown Road has been around long enough to predate Louisville's dining boom and still fills the room on its own terms. He earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2022, which tells you something about how seriously the kitchen takes the menu.

Michael Schwartz's waterfront Latin-inspired restaurant sits on Biscayne Bay, where the patio has the kind of views that make everyone at the table look better than they are. The menu pulls from across South America, farm-to-table in spirit, with dishes built for sharing under open sky. The drinks program is a James Beard Semifinalist, and the cocktails lean into the Florida-tropics overlap without apology. Go when the weather cooperates, which in Miami is most of the time.

Pan-Latin cooking from Geoff Cox and Peruvian chef Diego Muñoz lands on the eighth-floor rooftop of the Source Hotel, with views of Denver spread out below like a consolation prize for anyone who couldn't get a table. The menu moves through octopus carpaccio, mushroom tacos, and crushed avocado loaded with pomegranate and quinoa, while the wine list leans South American. Westword named it a top rooftop restaurant in 2026.

Mariposa is a sit-down Latin grill on a Sedona hillside, drawing from Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, with a menu built around steaks and seafood off a wood-fired grill. It comes from the chef behind a small Sedona restaurant empire, and the red rocks outside are doing a fair amount of the work. Expect a proper dinner at a proper price, with a patio where everyone ends up angling their chairs toward the scenery.

Coconut rice arrives in a cast-iron skillet at this creative taco shop on Larimer, which should tell you this isn't a strictly traditional taqueria. The menu roams through Latin American and international territory, everything served family style so the table fills up fast. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, and a second location followed soon after. Come hungry enough to share a few things.

This West Loop steakhouse cooks Argentinian-style asado over an open hearth in a dining room built so you can watch your dinner get the full campfire treatment. It's a dressed-up night out with a check to match, and the menu has fun with itself: the bone marrow doubles as a shot glass for mezcal, and the "Party Steak" arrives with a trio of sauces, presumably so no one has to share a favorite.

The cocktails here are built from kitchen scraps, tinctures and syrups made from what most places throw away, which tells you everything about how seriously this modern Latin vegan restaurant takes its zero-waste kitchen. The menu swings from Yucatecan pumpkin-seed dips to a jackfruit Cubano, and the seitan carne asada crunchwrap is an unironic love letter to Taco Bell that somehow works completely on its own terms.

The skylight over the dining room does most of the heavy lifting at this Latin American restaurant and rum bar on Sansom Street, flooding plates of vaca frita with the kind of light that makes you briefly question which city you're in. The daiquiris are serious, the ceviche keeps pace, and the piña coladas have a small but devoted following. A James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist runs the kitchen.

The coffee here is sourced directly from Guatemala, and the Latin-inspired food menu follows the same ethos. This West Highland coffee shop takes its name from the tradition of gathering around food and drink, which explains a lot about the room: murals on the walls, a crowd that includes Central American immigrants and neighbors who've clearly been coming since week one, and a general feeling that someone thought hard about what welcome looks like.

Fried green plantains stuffed with cheese and paired with a sharply herbed aji criollo set the tone at this cheerful Ecuadorian and Andean neighborhood restaurant on Central Avenue. The kitchen runs seven days a week, which is convenient when you need a proper seco de pollo on a Tuesday. An old-school institution in the best sense, the kind of place where the regulars have strong opinions about the brunch menu and are not shy about sharing them.

Chica is a Latin American restaurant inside the Venetian, and its weekend brunch plays out in a dim, purple-lit room with a DJ, which makes the eggs benedict feel slightly illicit. It's a sit-down meal at resort prices, with arepas arriving by the basket and a chocolate skull that gets set on fire at the table. Eater and The Infatuation both put it on their Las Vegas brunch lists, which seems fair given the pyrotechnics.

Wicker fans spin overhead, leather sofas line the walls, and colorful tile covers the floor in what amounts to a fantasy of old Havana in downtown Los Angeles. DAMA is a full-service Latin American restaurant where the tropical cocktails at the central bar are keeping pace with the kitchen, and the front patio is dense with greenery. The menu runs from aguachile to lamb chops to paella meant for sharing.

The bi-level dining room turns heads before a plate arrives, all warm light and an open kitchen pulling focus. Seven Reasons is a contemporary Caribbean restaurant drawing from Venezuela, Peru, and the islands, with portions generous enough to make a point. The cooking leans bold and colorful, the kind of place where a dessert list actually earns your attention. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

Industrial bones warmed up with wood and bright Latin American art set the tone at this Fox Point restaurant, where the menu roams from Guatemalan to Portuguese without much apology for the mileage. The bar runs lively, the small plates change with the seasons, and the paella arrives with enough shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, and chouriço to make ordering anything else feel like a mistake you'd regret quietly.

Bolivian pop music at full volume is the first thing you notice, the second being the line of regulars who already know their order. This tiny Woodside counter serves Bolivian street food and traditional dishes, with saltenas, the crimped pastry pockets full of soupy chicken or beef filling, doing a lot of the convincing. The peanut soup is as comforting as it sounds, and the fried chicken sandwich brings genuine heat.

The plates here are handmade by a Venezuelan artisan, which tells you something about how seriously this Brooklyn restaurant takes the full picture. Chef Isbelis Diaz and her son run a warm, colorful room built around Venezuelan cooking, the kind where the staff steers you through the menu like they mean it. The short rib braised for two days in burnt sugarcane is the dish people talk about on the way home.

Amador is a Spanish-leaning dinner spot in a Chinatown strip mall where parking is more of a rumor than a policy. Every table gets five house salsas with tiny spoons and droppers, so you'll be dosing your own food like a very delicious science project. You can graze through margaritas and croquetas before karaoke next door, or commit to the tasting menu. It's been on The Infatuation's list of the 25 best restaurants in Las Vegas.

All-black walls with iridescent orange accents set the mood at this Latin American cocktail bar and small-plates spot on the northwest side. Argentine and Chilean wines arrive in penguin-shaped ceramic pitchers, and the cocktail list leans on pisco and yerba mate. DJs spin from a booth in the center of the room, a fire pit runs along one wall, and the whole thing gets progressively better after midnight. Book ahead if you want a seat at the bar.

Café de olla arrives in a clay mug at this Latin-inflected coffee shop tucked into a converted bungalow in Montrose. The traditional Mexican brew, steeped with cinnamon and piloncillo, is reason enough to visit, but empanadas and tamales with plantain chips make a reasonable case for staying through lunch. Laptops outnumber idle hands on most afternoons, and the horchata keeps the non-coffee crowd from feeling like an afterthought.

A downtown Latin restaurant where the salsa section gets its own dedicated menu real estate, which tells you something about priorities. The chef, a Wilmington native, does BLT arepas and blackened tuna over cilantro-lime quinoa alongside tacos and tostadas at lunch. Sunday brunch draws a crowd large enough that you'd be wise to plan ahead. The vibe is casual and local, the flavors are bright, and the room moves.

Wepa Cafe started as a food cart parked at local breweries and has since grown into a multistory restaurant in Garden City with a rooftop patio, which is a fairly dramatic promotion for a cart. The menu is Puerto Rican, with mofongo and pastelón, a lasagne that swaps plantains for pasta. It's a casual, order-at-your-own-pace spot, and 5 percent of annual profits go to rebuilding homes in Puerto Rico. Eater lists it among Boise's 30 essential restaurants.

Casa Kenji is a Japanese-Latin sushi restaurant on Allen Parkway where the crudo arrives with stonefruit and coconut, and the ponzu has clearly been spending time with chimichurri. Expect aguachile, grilled octopus under mojo verde, and maki that flirts with caviar. The bar leans on sake, Japanese whisky, and cocktails heavy on yuzu and lychee. It's a dressed-up-a-little dinner, not a sushi-counter hush.

Matilda is a River North restaurant that puts Mexican and Peruvian cooking in one kitchen and lets them argue it out on the plate. The guacamole arrives as a roasted avocado you mash yourself at the table, which feels like homework you'd happily do. The wine list is entirely Mexican, tequila and mezcal run the cocktails, and a hidden door leads to a speakeasy, because of course it does. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

Fried corn arepitas topped with pork cracklings set the tone at this Venezuelan bistro tucked into Bywater. The chef spent years cooking other people's food across town before opening a place rooted in family recipes from home, and the menu reads like the argument he was building the whole time. Cachapa, tiradito, good cocktails, warm room. The kind of neighborhood spot that makes you feel like you found something before everyone else did.

Las Cazuelas is a family-run Salvadoran restaurant on Figueroa where the recipes come down through the owner's mother, and nobody seems inclined to edit them. Pupusas are the draw, the revuelta with crisped chicharron and a three-cheese stretch in particular. The leather booths are roomy, the prices are easy, and the back lot has parking, a rarity in Highland Park that feels almost like a dare.

A crepe shop where a slice of choco flan cake sometimes ends up folded inside the crepe, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Olla Olla runs both sweet and savory, leaning into a Latino-meets-French sensibility that feels natural rather than gimmicky. The parking lot doubles as a venue for live music and markets, so on any given weekend the crowd is half here for breakfast, half for whatever else is happening.