The Best Restaurants in the United States

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.

Spam musubi is a 7-Eleven staple in Honolulu; at Māze it arrives with a gossamer strip of Wagyu over rice steeped in Wagyu fat. This omakase, rooted in Asian and Hawaiian traditions and pronounced like the Japanese word for "to mix," folds cocktails into the tasting menu itself, drinks built in collaboration with the chef rather than offered alongside. A James Beard semifinalist and a two-star New York Times Critic's Pick, it reads as the kind of place that earns those mentions quietly.

The Sanskrit logo rings the window of this lively neighborhood Indian restaurant on a Capitol Hill corner, and the sidewalk fills up the moment the weather cooperates. The kitchen, run by Rasika veterans, takes classic Indian cuisine sideways, folding blue cheese into tandoor chicken kebabs and sending minced bison into momos. A Michelin Bib Gourmand for a room that buzzes rather than whispers.

Chris and Idie Hastings have been cooking in Birmingham long enough that the city has essentially grown up around them, and now their New American restaurant anchors the Pepper Place market district with a curved chef's counter and a menu that moves with the seasons. The heirloom tomato salad in summer is the kind of thing regulars plan around. The Michelin Guide has it listed.

A century-old ranch house just outside Beaver Creek Resort, and the chef's family actually lives there, which goes a long way toward explaining why this French fine dining room feels less like a white-tablecloth performance and more like someone's very well-fed home. The European-trained kitchen leans into generous portions and old-school indulgences, with a dessert course the menu treats as non-negotiable. Dress up a little; the room earns it.

Dover sole filleted tableside is the kind of move that makes the name feel earned. Splendido is a fine dining room in the Beaver Creek area where the menu runs from pomegranate-marinated Colorado lamb to a chocolate and peanut butter pavé, threading a line between creative and classically comfortable. Service is warm and attentive without being stiff. The crowd tends toward après-ski celebration mode, and the room is happy to oblige.

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.

Seafood flown in from Tokyo lands on a menu that changes fast enough to make the printed version decorative. UNI is an innovative Japanese restaurant tucked into the Back Bay, the kind of place where the server steers you toward five small plates and somehow that's exactly right. The signature bite, uni with caviar and quail egg, makes a pretty compelling case for letting them run the whole show. AAA Four Diamonds.

A former fire station in Oakland's Dimond District, Bombera earns its name twice over: "firewoman" in Spanish, and the wood-fired oven at its heart burns corn husks whose ash goes straight into the masa. It's a contemporary Mexican restaurant where the tortillas are nixtamalized in-house and the moles are layered enough to make you stop mid-sentence. The Michelin Bib Gourmand and a spot on the L.A. Times' California 101 follow naturally from that kind of seriousness.

Corn sourced from Oaxaca and nixtamalized in-house gives you a sense of how seriously this upscale-casual Mexican restaurant in Dupont Circle takes its sourcing. The menu covers raw bar, sopecitos, and mains like halibut with mole, plus sides that quietly steal scenes. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, it started as a pop-up, which might explain why the cooking still has a point to prove. The papaya dessert alone earns its real estate on the menu.

The 40-layer lasagna, built with short rib and truffled mornay, is what most people are already planning to order before they walk in. This Italian restaurant in the Capitol Crossing development earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand, with a wood-burning grill and pizza oven doing plenty of heavy lifting alongside the pasta. Soaring ceilings make it feel a bit grand for a Tuesday, but the counter seats keep things grounded.

Pupusas made with heirloom corn, stuffed with seasonal produce, and cooked over a wood flame set the tone at this live-fire restaurant in Old Oakland, where the menu moves between Salvadoran and Mexican traditions. The New York Times called out the guacamole with tortillas brushed in asiento, pork lard left over from making chicharrón. Bon Appétit named it one of America's best new restaurants, and the San Francisco Chronicle ranks it among the Bay Area's top ten.

Soft tofu is the anchor of the menu at this homestyle Korean restaurant in Koreatown, which makes a quiet case for everything that isn't barbecue. Bubbling casseroles, spicy stews, pajeon, bibimbap, and cod roe omelet fill out a menu that reads like someone's grandmother wrote it. The dining room is wood tables and close quarters, warm enough that you forget you're on 35th Street. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and on the New York Times list of the city's 100 best.

A wine bar on Clement Street doing Turkish food with a California edit, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand to prove the combination works. The börek arrives golden and shatteringly flaky, the hummus floats in chili oil, and the künefe kadayif pulls cheese under a crunch of pistachio. The wine list runs deep and leans affordable, which explains why nobody at the small tables seems to be in any hurry to leave.

Tucked behind an auto repair shop on Lewis Street, this narrow Vietnamese restaurant with exposed brick and wood floors is easy to miss and hard to forget. A Serbian-born chef runs the kitchen, which tells you something about the cooking: contemporary Vietnamese with French technique and Texan instincts folded in. The Michelin Bib Gourmand recognizes what regulars already know. Bao, brisket, nuoc cham, and coconut lemongrass panna cotta somehow all belong on the same table here.

Rattan light fixtures and dark wood set the mood at this Hell's Kitchen shared-plates spot, where the kitchen focuses on Southern Thai cooking. The menu runs through curries, noodle dishes, and seafood plates that lean traditional rather than trend-chasing. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod. Pre-theater crowds from nearby find it fits the timeline without feeling rushed.

This is a casual sandwich shop on Jackson Avenue where the menu reads like a dare: a collard green melt stacked double-decker on rye, wrapped in swiss and a pickled cherry pepper dressing. The place made the national circuit as one of Eater's best new restaurants in America and has since spawned a small empire of siblings. Order at the counter, eat fast, and expect the sandwich to follow you home.

The fried chicken here has been drawing Atlantans to this tiny soul food cafe on MLK Drive since before most of their parents were born. It's takeout only, which doesn't slow anyone down. The menu runs classic Southern, with daily specials and sides like tangy-sweet beans alongside whatever protein you came for. Finish with a cobbler. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times put it on its Atlanta list.

A wood-burning oven churns out sourdough pita at this Mediterranean grill house in San Antonio's Pearl District, where the menu roams from North Africa to the Levant without losing the thread. The terrace overlooks a courtyard, the cocktails lean into the same bold spicing as the food, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Dress is casual, the vibe is lively, and the food punches well above the price point.

You order at the counter, then walk through the kitchen to reach the patio, which tells you most of what you need to know about this colorful little regional Mexican spot in Sonoma. The menu shifts with the seasons, and fellow diners will cheerfully brief you on the day's highlights before you've found a seat. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place that rewards coming with enough people to order half the menu.

Parked at the edge of the Union Station train tracks, Tavernetta is a polished Italian restaurant from the Frasca Hospitality Group, whose wine list alone draws a certain kind of devoted regular. The room is bright and roomy, with a comfortable bar up front and an open kitchen in the back. The menu runs classic, cacio e pepe and lamb ragu with rigatoni, prepared with real care. The Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand, and lunch is a particular moment to go.

Carol Nguyen's Lower Greenville Vietnamese restaurant pulls its menu straight from Hanoi street food, the kind of cooking where portions are generous and every bowl arrives already fragrant. Rustic wood, a lively room full of families and groups, and a kitchen that keeps things bright and balanced. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks: this is the neighborhood Vietnamese spot Dallas didn't know it needed until it had one.

Sujan Sarkar's follow-up to Indienne lands on Lincoln Avenue with a focus on regional Indian cooking, the sharing-plate kind that turns dinner into a group negotiation. The room runs warm and the menu swings between vegetarian and non-vegetarian plates, all designed to pile up. Walk-ins can park at the full bar. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026 suggest the neighborhood noticed.

The dining room looks like it was decorated by a child who just discovered neon, which turns out to be exactly right for Isan-style Thai cooking this loud and alive. This Elmhurst restaurant earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for fiery northeastern Thai food built for sharing, heavy on dried shrimp, electric fish sauce, and whole fried fish. Showing up alone is technically possible but spiritually inadvisable. A New York Times top-100 pick.

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.

Pozole comes in five broths here, which is already an argument. This no-frills Mexican restaurant on Larimer holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and landed on the New York Times Restaurant List, with dark wood floors, vivid walls, and an extensive mezcal selection to keep things interesting. The chef was a James Beard nominee two years running. Weeknight deals keep the regulars cycling through more than once a week, which tells you something.

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.

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 roaring wood-fire grill anchors this Ridgewood neighborhood steakhouse, casting the dining room in amber light most places only manage with candles and wishful thinking. The bar upfront handles cocktails; the back handles fire. Polenta bread comes out fluffy and smoky, the dry-aged steaks arrive with green garlic butter, and the servers seem constitutionally incapable of being cold. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the chef is a James Beard semifinalist.

A roll of paper towels sits at the center of every table, and that tells you most of what you need to know about eating here. The Jerk Shack is a Caribbean spot in an industrial space west of downtown, with warehouse floors, high ceilings, and vivid art on the walls. The mixed plate of grilled jerk chicken and fried chicken is where to start. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and the chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Texas.

An Italian restaurant on Sycamore where the bread basket arrives housemade, breadsticks and focaccia folded in together, and the menu moves through antipasti, pasta, and secondi at a pace that discourages rushing. The crispy potato gnocchi has a following, and the malfatti comes cacio e pepe style, which is either a provocation or a compliment depending on your Roman loyalties. Tiramisu closes things out.

A wedge-shaped fine dining room tucked off the highway near downtown Houston, Justin Yu's place seats you close enough to the counter that you'll feel like a regular by the end of the first course. The food is shareable contemporary cooking that looks simple and then isn't, seasoned with real intention. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and it landed a James Beard semifinalist nod for Outstanding Hospitality, which tracks for a room this warm.

Flour tortillas wrapped tight in foil are the move at this fast-casual breakfast taco counter in Mt. Pleasant, which grew out of a pop-up and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand doing it. The menu is short on purpose: coffee, soft scrambled eggs, creamy pinto beans, chorizo, brisket, and queso. No reservations, no long-term planning required. Come with a hangover or come without one; either way, the tacos will sort things out.

Reclaimed timber, exposed brick, and beamed ceilings make this Bloomingdale spot feel like a farmhouse that somehow ended up in DC. It's a rustic Italian restaurant where the pastas do the heavy lifting, particularly a rigatoni with fennel sausage ragù that regulars order without looking up. The three-sided bar is your best friend if you didn't plan ahead. The Michelin Guide has awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

The blue door and whitewashed facade in Miami's Design District look like someone shipped a Greek island courtyard over wholesale, and the interior mostly confirms it: mature trees, orchids, and ceiling fans shading wood tables outdoors. This mezze-heavy Mediterranean bistro earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand on small plates, baked feta, and grilled fish, with house bread arriving in little paper bags. The honey pie with salted shortbread crust is the reason to save room.

Persian crispy rice arrives with egg yolks that make sharing a genuine moral dilemma. Kismet is a casual Middle Eastern restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard where seasonal vegetables and bright flavors run the show, and nothing on the table feels heavy. The Michelin Bib Gourmand room draws a Los Feliz crowd that looks like they biked here and also know exactly what they're ordering. The staff matches the energy perfectly.

A refurbished car wash with vendors in the old bays is an unlikely home for some of the most focused cooking in Nashville. S.S. Gai is a chicken house with a single obsession: Thai street-style fried chicken, crispy in that way that makes you slow down and pay attention, served with sticky rice and tamarind chili fish sauce. The Michelin Bib Gourmand and a New York Times nod suggest the obsession is well-placed. Order at the window and don't skip the mango sticky rice.

The kitchen sends out a warm bite the moment you sit down, and it sets the tone for everything that follows at this creative fine dining spot in Audubon Park. Chef Tim Lovero runs an ever-changing shared plates menu where dessert might arrive as panna cotta with cocoa nibs and actual French fries, which sounds chaotic and somehow isn't. A Michelin Bib Gourmand for a room this inventive feels almost cheeky.

The menu at this tiny taco shop on Pulaski is exactly one thing: birria, slow-stewed goat, served bone-in or bone-out, on a plate with handmade corn tortillas or drowning in a bowl of rich consommé. That's it. The bone-in is the move, and the quesadilla is the move you make when no one's watching. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a room where nobody's there to be seen.

A converted bungalow in Montrose hung with vinyl records, Nobie's is the kind of New American neighborhood restaurant that makes you feel vaguely guilty for not living closer. The menu runs from creative vegetable dishes to very serious pie, baked daily and non-negotiable. The staff treats everyone like a regular, which is either charming or slightly eerie depending on how you feel about warmth. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A sandwich bar that also takes cocktails seriously, Your Only Friend sits in Shaw with a menu full of pun names and a genuinely considered drinks list. The sandwiches lean into comfort food done with some wit, and the sides and bar snacks fill out a meal without much effort. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, which means the kitchen is doing something right at a price that won't sting.

Steamed rice cakes topped with fried pork rinds arrive at nearly every table in this Little Saigon restaurant, and plenty of regulars stop right there and just keep ordering them. The kitchen specializes in the elegant cuisine of Hue, central Vietnam, and holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The server will warn you that you've ordered too much, which is your cue that the order is about right.

A tasting menu restaurant in the Columbia River Gorge where one chef handles both the savory and pastry sides of the kitchen, which is either deeply impressive or mildly terrifying depending on your perspective. The New York Times named a rhubarb-and-apple dessert here among the best restaurant desserts eaten across the country in 2025, and it holds a AAA Four Diamond rating. Hood River turns out to be an excellent reason to drive east.

Cowboy boots and whiskey bottles share shelf space with teapots and lanterns, which tells you everything about what Kemuri Tatsu-ya is trying to do. It's a casual izakaya and BBQ shop where brisket comes in a sesame-pecan rub and taiyaki gets stuffed with corn bread, and somehow none of it feels like a gimmick. Most dishes land in the middle of the table, so bring people. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

Chris Bianco's trattoria keeps a rotating pasta menu built around local flours matched to specific shapes, which sounds precious until you taste it. The kitchen runs classic cacio e pepe alongside whatever Arizona's season hands them, and the drink program goes equally deep into esoteric Italian amari and house-made liqueurs. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the room feels like it earned that quietly.

A mural of Michelle Obama in a hanbok greets you at the door, which sets the tone for a Korean steakhouse that doesn't take the expected route. The room is sleek but warm, with large windows onto Milwaukee Ave. and a semi-open kitchen. The menu reads like familiar Korean comfort food seen sideways, banchan on every table, kimchi stew, fire chicken, and Wagyu tartare brightened with Asian pear. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

A contemporary Mediterranean restaurant named for Queen Charlotte's mother, which is the sort of local-history flex only this city would attempt. The menu folds Southern habits into the Levant and the French bistro, so hanger steak frites and labneh chicken coexist without a fight. Solo diners claim the bar while the dressed-up date-night tables fill in, and Michelin lists it as a Selected Restaurant.

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls frame a sweeping Phoenix skyline view, which does most of the decorating in this contemporary fine dining room beside the historic Wrigley Mansion. The chef runs a live-fire kitchen where modern French technique shapes the menu, prix fixe on weekdays and a full tasting menu on weekends. The full-service bar has a direct sightline into the kitchen, so you can watch things catch fire while sipping something civilized.

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.

South Indian small plates anchor the menu at this casual, cheerful restaurant, where orange booths and bright accents set the mood on a stretch of Orange Blossom Trail you'd typically blow past. The dosa stuffed with potato, paneer, and cabbage served with coconut sambal and curry gravy for dipping tells you something about the kitchen's ambition. Vegetarians eat well here, too. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The bar keeps dog biscuits on hand, a nod to the chef's late dog whose nickname gives this Summerhill restaurant its name. Chef Jarrett Stieber runs an open kitchen with a menu that shifts constantly, spanning the globe without any particular allegiance to one corner of it. A prix fixe runs alongside the à la carte. Locals pack it, often with their own dogs in tow, so book ahead. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand.

Tucked into Little Saigon on the North Side, this Oaxacan restaurant draws a room full of people who have been to Oaxaca and know the difference. The focused menu runs to pork tamales with green mole and wide, crackling tlayudas, all brought to the table with quiet care. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place where regulars probably have opinions about your order. The neighborhood setting keeps the vibe relaxed; the cooking does not return the favor.

Cochinita pibil marinated in citrus and achiote, pulled and served with fresh tortillas, is the kind of dish that makes Yucatán cooking click. This modern Mexican restaurant in Tustin focuses on the smoke- and spice-driven food of the peninsula, and it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Mezcal cocktails come customized with tamarind and mole bitters, and the charred habanero salsa arrives whether you ordered it or not, which is the right call.

The omakase option is how regulars talk about this place, and the downtown room backs it up with a charged, buzzy atmosphere that makes sitting still feel like a missed opportunity. Nobu Downtown is fine-dining Japanese in a sleek, energetic space on Broadway, where the menu leans into small plates built for sharing. The celebrity-chef brand is global at this point, but the kitchen keeps the standards high.

A wood-burning oven anchors the room in this cottage-sized California restaurant in the Sonoma Valley, and almost everything that comes out of it earns its place on the menu. The chef did time at the French Laundry before settling into something cozier, and the seasonal wood-fired cooking here has a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod to show for it. Biodynamic produce from a nearby farm keeps the vegetable dishes honest.

The menu at this casual Houston Heights spot traces the old Portuguese trading routes through Goa and East Africa, which makes for a sharper, stranger combination than the usual fusion pitch. Small plates move between Indian spicing and Portuguese technique without much fuss. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the custard tarts at the end make a convincing argument for the whole journey.

Dark green ceiling, brass chandeliers, and live plants spilling overhead set the scene at this chic little prix-fixe spot near Lake Merritt. The deal is a three-course Italian dinner, two choices per course, no reservations. House-made pasta with a slow-braised tomato sugo is the constant around which everything else rotates. The wine list leans interesting and uses symbols so you don't need a sommelier. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

The Crunch Bar dessert has kept regulars coming back to this Castle Hills neighborhood restaurant long enough to feel like a local institution. The menu shifts constantly, landing somewhere between globally curious and quietly unfussy, with vegetables given real attention alongside the occasional surprise like trout roe on crispy polenta. The wine program is serious without making you feel underdressed for it. A 2023 James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Texas.

Neon blue letters above the open kitchen ask "did you eat yet?" and the correct answer, upon arrival, is no. This Mission small-plates spot draws on Southeast Asian and Vietnamese flavors and bends them through a California lens, with a rooftop drowning in plants and a cocktail list that leans tropical. The Michelin Guide named it a Bib Gourmand. Reservations fill fast, but the bar usually has room for walk-ins willing to show up early.

Tortillas made on-site and griddled all day set the tone at this counter-service taqueria tucked into Finn Hall in downtown Houston. The chicharrón, cured pork belly with pumpkin seed vinaigrette and crispy shallots, is the kind of thing you think about later. Breakfast tacos and a cult carrot taco round out a menu that's more considered than the food-hall setting suggests. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

Jackets are required, which should tell you everything about the register here. This fine dining landmark sits right under the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline fills the windows the way a painting would if you couldn't afford the real thing. The prix fixe menu is formal and unhurried, the waitstaff operate with genuine poise, and couples have been proposing at these tables for decades.

Glowing jars of preserved lemons and backlit wine bottles line the walls at this warm California-Mediterranean brasserie near 26th Street, which has the feel of a very well-dressed farmhouse. The menu leans into the kind of sun-soaked, produce-forward cooking that makes New York briefly forget it's New York. The room fills with people who know exactly what they're doing here, which is a compliment.

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.

José Andrés fills this mezze restaurant with the energy of a market that never quite closes, the open kitchen turning meat on spits while the room hums in Aegean blues. The wide-ranging menu covers dips and pita, flatbreads, smoky vegetables, and braised lamb, built for sharing and grazing in whatever order feels right. The bar pours coastal spirits and riffs on classics. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A Federal-period Georgetown townhouse carved into six dining rooms across three floors, each one feeling like it belongs to a different century of the same family. This is the fine dining room where Georgetown parents take their kids to celebrate things, and the veteran servers have clearly done this long enough to find the whole ritual quietly amusing. The French-influenced New American kitchen runs on classic instincts, and holds a AAA Four Diamond rating.

A prix-fixe restaurant on Folsom Boulevard where the pasta is made in-house and the wine list leans hard into Italy, with pairings overseen by the beverage director. The Cal-Italian kitchen follows the seasons and favors West Coast seafood. You choose three, four, or five courses, which is either pleasantly low-stakes or a surprisingly consequential decision depending on your appetite. A Michelin Selected restaurant.