The Best Restaurants in the United States

Pendant lights strung with thick grass ropes and a gleaming marble bar signal that this is a fine dining Indian restaurant with a point of view, not just a curry house in a jacket. The kitchen has a taste for unexpected combinations and sharp presentation, with the menu moving across regions rather than playing it safe. Flatiron regulars who know to book ahead fill tables that have been sought-after for years.

Tucked into a residential building on Peachtree, La Grotta has been an old-school institution for northern Italian fine dining in Atlanta. The room is quiet and elegant, the kind where people linger over an extensive, owner-curated wine list rather than check their phones. A patio with a fountain and lush landscaping handles warmer nights. It holds a AAA Four Diamond rating.

The olive-green velvet and marble floors aren't decorating choices so much as a thesis statement: this is a French fine-dining room where the vegetables are the point and the fish and meat play supporting roles. The chef builds a produce-driven tasting menu with the kind of seasonal precision that makes a lemon tart with tarragon ice cream feel inevitable rather than precious. Midtown somehow disappears entirely once you're inside.

The gleaming open kitchen is the first thing you see, all stainless steel and quiet drama, before the eight-course French tasting menu even begins. It started as an underground dinner party circuit, which explains the intimate feel that downtown Brooklyn's fancier arrivals don't quite manage. The team walks you through wine pairings course by course. An AAA Four Diamond restaurant, and the room takes that seriously without making you feel graded.

A brick townhouse on North Square, deep in the North End, sets the scene for this intimate Italian restaurant where the menu changes daily around whatever's fresh and local. The cooking leans northern Italian, with creative enough combinations that it reads as a special-occasion room rather than a red-sauce institution. AAA Four Diamonds. Reservations are the right instinct here.

The whisky list arrives on a retro departures board, which tells you something about how seriously this West Loop modern Japanese restaurant takes its own theatrics. Multiple kitchens run simultaneously across an impeccably designed space, turning out robata, sushi, and small plates to a crowd that books well ahead. The private dining room upstairs is styled like a mid-century boardroom, in case you needed more proof this place has a sense of humor about itself.

Sweeping ceilings, a marble bar, and an open kitchen visible from the dining room signal what Tamarind is before you've opened the menu. This is Indian fine dining in Tribeca, the kind of room that cost real money to build and hasn't forgotten it. The cooking is region-spanning and precise, with the tandoor doing serious work throughout. Service is unhurried and professional, and the crowd tends toward the quietly well-dressed.

The Grant Grill is the dining room of the old U.S. Grant Hotel in the Gaslamp, still running on the energy of a 1960s power lunch, minus the three-martini part. It's white-tablecloth California cooking with a seasonal bent, covering breakfast through dinner, and AAA gives it Four Diamonds. Dress like you might close a deal, and if you're feeling flush, there's a caviar-and-Champagne order waiting for you.

Paper-thin flour tortillas arrive with a spread of grilled onion, toreado chili, and black garlic before any protein lands on the table, which tells you where this place is coming from. Mezquite is a Sonoran Mexican restaurant inside Pullman Market, sun-bleached decor and all, serving the hyper-regional cooking of the Sonoran desert rather than anything resembling Tex-Mex. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Potato pierogi with czarna salsa is the kind of detail that stops you mid-sentence. Apteka is a vegan sit-down restaurant in Bloomfield riffing on Central and Eastern European cooking, and the menu reads like someone's Polish grandmother went fully plant-based and never looked back. The homemade cordials and tinctures are their own thing, worth ordering slowly. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

A Vietnamese restaurant in a Las Vegas Chinatown strip mall that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand by doing exactly what it says on the tin. The steamed rice rolls arrive buried under fried onions, the turmeric crepes come with enough fresh herbs to reforest a small country, and the bún bò huế is the kind of broth that makes you sit up straight. Everything is made to order, which means it arrives hot, and portions run large enough that you'll want company.

Hand-pulled noodles are the whole point here, thick and chewy and landing somewhere between a bowl of Chinese noodles and a Middle Eastern lamb stew, which is exactly what Uyghur cooking is. Jahunger holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the menu is short, halal, and unapologetic about spice. A Cambridge noodle shop that quietly draws a crowd happy to wait.

A smudge stick salad opens the meal, which tells you most of what you need to know about Ishtia's ambitions. This intimate tasting menu in Kemah builds a multicourse experience around Indigenous American ingredients and tradition, run by a chef who also operates a molecular gastronomy restaurant nearby, because apparently one mode of cooking wasn't enough. Seating is limited to Thursday through Saturday, so reservations are not optional.

A single chef's counter runs the length of a cool, dark room in Wicker Park, putting every diner front-row for the kitchen. Valhalla is a tasting menu spot where the food roams freely, pulling from Filipino, Mexican, Chinese, and Indian traditions in the same meal. The cocktail and wine pairings are taken as seriously as the food, which is saying something. The Banchets named the sommelier of the year for 2025.

The dining room at this Uptown restaurant is painted floor to ceiling in bubblegum pink and emerald green, which turns out to be an accurate preview of the food. The kitchen calls itself "inauthentic," leaning into Asian and Indian flavors with detours wherever it wants, and the results hold a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Weekend brunch draws crowds happy to order everything and share. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2024.

Jerk chicken wings with pineapple curry sauce set the tone at this African-Caribbean fusion restaurant on Cerrillos Road, a casual, colorful room where the chef's roots on the Kenyan island of Lamu show up in every bowl and skewer. Goat stew in island curry, chicken curry over cumin-scented coconut rice, it all reads like a very specific passport. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod confirm the kitchen punches above its strip-mall setting.

The restaurant is named for chef Michelle Carpenter's grandmother, whose fried chicken recipe anchors the menu at this contemporary Cajun and Creole spot in Oak Cliff. Dark-meat, deeply seasoned, and handed down through generations, it's the kind of dish that makes everything else feel like a warm-up act. The charbroiled oysters with Parmesan and andouille crumbles suggest the kitchen has range. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant in 2023.

Every time someone lifts the lid on the rice cooker, garlic fills this narrow Filipino restaurant on Western and essentially announces the whole menu's priorities. Started as a food stall, it holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a James Beard semifinalist nod. Pork runs the show in several forms, steelhead trout swims in tamarind broth for balance, and the deep-fried plantain spring roll dusted in brown sugar is the kind of dessert that reframes what dessert can be.

Across from a college library, this wood-paneled izakaya has tatami nooks where you remove your shoes and low tables that make the outside world evaporate. The yakitori bar at the back glows with binchotan smoke, and the chicken runs deep, from thigh oysters to knee cartilage. The shochu list is one of the longer ones you'll find anywhere in the Bay Area. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A lineup of house sambals lands on the table before you've made any decisions, which is a useful way to begin at this easygoing Malaysian restaurant on Beverly. Chef Johnny Lee's Chinese-Malaysian cooking runs from satay and charred okra to beef rendang with buttery roti, and the plates are sized for sharing, which softens the slightly higher tabs. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Kothu roti, the Sri Lankan street staple of shredded roti, meat, and egg, landed on the New York Times list of top dishes in the city, which tells you something about what the kitchen is doing here. This Upper East Side restaurant draws on the chef's upbringing in Kanyakumari, where southern India and Sri Lanka blur together, and the cooking tastes like it. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the Times ranked it among the city's top 100 restaurants.

Ajja is a Mediterranean restaurant in Five Points where the backyard patio is practically its own neighborhood, and the dining room inside is painted so brightly you'll feel underdressed in beige. The menu runs on shared plates, with vegetables doing most of the heavy lifting and the cocktails keeping pace. It holds a Bib Gourmand, and was a James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant.

Okàn is a sunny, window-lined dining room in Bluffton where West African, Caribbean, and Lowcountry cooking share a menu without anyone fighting over it. Banquettes are cushy, local art covers the walls, and a big bar sits dead center like it's running the place. Portions run generous and meant for passing around a table. The chef was a James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand.

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.

Three cauldrons of rice and soup stay warm at the bar up front, which tells you a lot about how Odre thinks about hospitality. This East Village prix-fixe leans into Korean comfort at a pace that feels considered rather than rushed, with a set menu that moves through banchan, a main like grilled duck with black garlic, and snow crab mandoo that the New York Times singled out. Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the room is narrow, minimalist, and usually full.

VHS tapes line the walls and neon washes over the tile at this Magazine Street restaurant from the chef behind Turkey and the Wolf. Mason Hereford runs his kitchen the same way he always has, cooking loud, maximalist food that borrows freely across cuisines and somehow lands in harmony every time. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and named to Bon Appétit's best new restaurants list. Subtlety fans may want to eat somewhere else.

Spanish-Asian doesn't sound like it should work, yet Tracy Chang's Cambridge restaurant has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand for making it feel inevitable. The menu roams from patatas bravas to crab laksa to pork belly bao without ever seeming lost. Beyond dinner service, the team runs cooking classes and whole suckling pig dinners, so the place is always up to something. A James Beard semifinalist two years running.

Lemon-yellow walls hung with paintings of overflowing produce set the mood at this Mediterranean-leaning Marin restaurant, where California ingredients meet Middle Eastern flavors in a white-tablecloth room that never feels stiff. The kitchen leans hard into mezze and grilled meats, and a takeout counter in the back stocks house-baked bread, salads, and condiments for people who planned ahead. The Michelin Guide has awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

A live-edge wood counter and closely spaced tables give this Fairfax izakaya the feel of a Tokyo side street, which is a reasonable trick to pull in Marin County. The small-plates menu moves through takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and a short but careful nigiri selection, with a sake list overseen by an actual sake sommelier. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand. No reservations, so weekend lines form early and move slowly.

Maritime murals and leather benches set the mood at this fine dining Mediterranean spot off the Strip, where the kitchen leans hard into Italy and Spain with a particular fondness for Catalonian tapas. Sharing plates, pasta, risotto, and a tasting menu in omnivore, vegan, or vegetarian form give the table options. The chef was a James Beard nominee for Best Chef Southwest.

The reservation line forms before doors open, which tells you everything about the temperature of this contemporary Indian restaurant inside the Aria. The room is all velvet and low light, the service is composed, and the kitchen pulls from street-food traditions without being precious about it. Curries are built for sharing and arrive bold enough to hold the table's attention, even by Las Vegas standards.

A glass-walled pasta room lets you watch fusilli and tortelli take shape before they land on your table, which at this Ocean Beach trattoria feels about right. The menu is mostly mix-and-match, pasta shapes paired with sauces, and a server will gently steer you away from a wrong turn. Tableside tiramisu, mismatched hand-painted pottery, Valpolicella on the list. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the room earns the noise.

Corn is flown in from Mexico and nixtamalized in house, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Mexican restaurant's priorities. Named for the Zapotec god of maize, it's a fonda-style spot where tortillas and quesadillas come from scratch, a hickory hearth does real work in the salsas, and the bar runs a margarita built on elote mezcal. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and the room fills up accordingly.

The word "post-authentic" painted on the window tells you something about the ambition here before you sit down. This Yemeni restaurant in Bay Ridge fills a brick-and-dark-wood room with families, neighborhood lifers, and northward refugees all tearing into great rounds of rashoosh and heaping plates of lamb. The New York Times put it at number 31 on its 100 best list, and Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand. Portions are sized for sharing whether you planned to or not.

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 one decision you make at this Korean diner on Allen Street is which protein you want. Everything else arrives whether you're ready or not: rotating banchan, crispy jeon, soy-cured shrimp, the works, with refills waved over without asking. The whole thing costs $36, lunch is $19, and a coffee from the machine by the door is on the house on the way out. It's modeled on Korea's taxi driver restaurants, which is exactly the energy.

A strip-mall raw bar in North Miami Beach that you will absolutely drive past the first time. The menu runs about a dozen dishes, no starters, no desserts, just Peruvian seafood prep done with real focus: causas, ceviche, and beautifully cured fish with clean, bright sauces. Counter seating, a warm room, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand for the kind of cooking that doesn't need a dramatic backdrop to make its case.

An Echo Park izakaya with exposed red brick and a sake list the servers are eager to walk you through. The menu is built for sharing, running from chawanmushi with dungeness crab to grilled skewers and delicate tempura, all of it casual in presentation and careful in execution. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and ranked among the Los Angeles Times' top restaurants in the state. Book well clear of a Dodgers home game unless you enjoy circling the block.

Tile floors, wine bottles lining the cabinets, quaint little tables: La Fête is a French bistro that commits to the bit without making you feel underdressed for it. A partnership with sister bakery Bandit means anything involving pastry earns its place on the table. The menu runs from boudin blanc to a dry-aged cheeseburger, which is either a betrayal of the theme or the whole point. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

José Andrés's colorful Mexican restaurant near the Mall earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand on the strength of regionally inflected cooking: black bean soup with avocado leaves and crema, chilaquiles with real crunch, quesadillas on housemade tortillas. The ceviche bar is the move if you want a seat with a show. Mezcal and tequila cocktails are taken seriously, and guacamole arrives unfinished, mixed tableside to your specification.

The biscuits come in jalapeño-cheddar if you want them to, which tells you most of what you need to know. This Southern breakfast and brunch shop in Grant Park earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand turning out the kind of food that started as a pop-up and never got pretentious about it. Baked goods run deep, cinnamon rolls included, but the biscuit sandwiches stacked with hot honey chicken and pickles are the reason the line forms before you've had coffee.