The Best Restaurants in the United States

The small orange building on Blake Street looks like it could be anyone's house, which is sort of the point. Hannibal's is an old-school soul food restaurant where the menu leans hard into Lowcountry seafood, with crab and shrimp rice that locals and working chefs both talk about. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the room makes clear why: nobody here opened a menu for the first time today.

The chef's counter at this vegan tasting menu spot on Belmont seats you close enough to watch the kitchen improvise, and some dishes on any given night will never appear again. Aaron Adams moves between produce-forward simplicity and molecular technique without making either feel like a statement. The sourcing runs local and specific, down to tofu from an old-school Portland maker. The New York Times put it on their Portland shortlist.

The menu arrives handwritten each day with exactly two appetizers, two mains, and two desserts, and you won't know what they are until you sit down. This romantic neighborhood restaurant is tucked into a house off a gravel path in a way that makes even locals double-check the address. The feel is a dinner party at a well-traveled friend's place, the food seasonally European and quietly confident. Booking ahead is wise; guessing the menu is the game.

Naturally leavened pizzas anchor the menu at this East Nashville neighborhood restaurant, though the kitchen moves seasonally enough that what lands on top is anyone's guess. Philip Krajeck also runs the more formal Rolf & Daughters, but Folk is the warmer, wood-paneled sibling where the cooking feels unfussy without being unambitious. The Michelin Guide has it selected, which tracks for a room that fills up with locals who clearly never needed a reason to return.

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.

The open live-fire grill runs the length of the kitchen and puts on a show whether you book a counter seat or not. This Argentine-inflected steakhouse has been an institution on MLK forever, with Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton behind the flames. The asado is built for at least two people and their ambitions. The chowder, meanwhile, arrives with a smoked marrow bone floating in it, which tells you everything about the kitchen's sense of humor.

A postcard mural splashes the back wall of this fast-casual Filipino spot in the International District, setting the tone for a menu that's equally unsubtle about what it loves. Bulalo, the clear beef shank soup, is the centerpiece, and Melissa Miranda's kitchen pulls it off with enough technique to make a simple bowl feel considered. The pancit, the lumpia, the sinigang wings, all travel well in the same direction. The New York Times has named it among Seattle's 25 best.

A wood-fired grill anchors the dining room at this lively Mexican restaurant on the Trinity River, where the move is to start with a drink at the horseshoe bar and watch the kitchen work before settling in for a round of shareable plates and grilled meats. The tequila and mezcal list runs deep, and the crowd skews festive in the way places do when the patio has won awards and someone nearby is building tacos at the table.

Crystal chandeliers hang over dark-paneled walls covered in jazz-themed artwork, which is either perfect or a lot, depending on your mood. This Southern fusion dinner spot runs on house-infused spirits and live music, and the kitchen leans New Orleans by way of the Southwest: gumbo with Andouille and hush puppies, pasta soaked in lobster broth and crawfish. The kind of room that feels designed for a date night where everyone is trying slightly harder than usual.

Masa-based dishes anchor the menu at this Mexican restaurant on East Sixth, where chef Fermín Núñez runs an open kitchen in a space that feels rustic and a little buzzy. The cooking moves between tuna tiradito, wood-grilled vegetables, and tacos built on confit wagyu brisket. A James Beard semifinalist and a Michelin Guide selection, it draws a crowd that tends to linger well past the last tortilla.

A small Vietnamese soup counter in a Southeast Powell strip mall, open each morning until the pots run dry, which happens faster than you'd expect. Two or three soups rotate daily, with Saturday drawing people specifically for the cao lầu, a Hoi An regional noodle dish that rarely makes it this far from home. The Vietnamese iced coffee hits harder than you're ready for. Come early, bring cash, and don't stress the menu because there isn't much of one to stress about.

The smash burger with house-cured pork jowl and jeaw condiment is either a flex or a provocation, possibly both. Taurus Ox is a casual Laotian restaurant that moved out of its original counter spot into a proper dining room, and the menu came with it. Khao poon and a family sausage recipe built around lemongrass anchor the Lao side of things, while that burger quietly complicates any notion of what the restaurant is supposed to be. The New York Times named it among Seattle's 25 best.

A sandwich shop on Haight doing exactly one thing from New Orleans: the muffuletta, served in a wedge like a slice of savory pie, toasted or cold. The meat version layers prosciutto, mortadella, soppressata, and provolone under a spicy olive spread; mushrooms and scallions handle the vegetarian side. The pickled egg salad with potato chips stuffed inside is its own argument. Seating is tight, but Buena Vista Park is a short walk away, which seems intentional.

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.

The cheeseburger, griddled and stacked with onion aioli and double cheese on a toasted sesame bun, has its own reputation to manage. But The Loyalist is a proper basement brasserie doing quiche Lorraine, anchovy toasts, and trout grenobloise with a polish that quietly nods to the tasting-menu restaurant upstairs. It sits below Smyth, which holds three Michelin stars, and the kitchen shares the same sensibility at a fraction of the formality.

Freya is a tasting-menu restaurant where the courses change daily and a pierogi gets dressed like a Coney dog. It's fine dining, but the room is loose enough that you can flip through a binder of the owner's vinyl and request a song, which is not a sentence you hear at most places with a James Beard Semifinalist nod. The wine list leans toward small, sustainable producers, and the Dragonfly bar next door handles cocktails.

Other Mama is a Japanese neighborhood spot in a Durango Drive strip mall, where the fish comes in so fresh you'll forget you're in a desert. The daily catch and oysters live on a chalkboard, and the French toast caviar started as a special and never left. The room feels like a polished dive bar, with the chef's trinkets on display, so jeans and a low-stakes date night both fit.

Handmade pasta rooted in Roman and Lazio tradition is the point here, and Evan Funke's Italian restaurant inside the Fontainebleau takes that seriously enough to make everything else on the Strip feel like a reheated punchline. The room is modern rustic, open enough to clock the occasional famous face drifting through, with quieter tables along the edges for anyone who'd rather not. Seasonal antipasti, handmade pasta, the full Roman heritage treatment.

Takeout-only lunch counter in a Kahului strip mall, where Top Chef alum Sheldon Simeon built a line that hasn't really stopped. The move is a bowl of garlic noodles under fried chicken or pork belly, with daily specials that lean into his Filipino roots. Grab a spicy fried chicken sandwich if the board shows it. The picnic benches at Kanaha Beach are the dining room, which, honestly, isn't a downgrade.

A casual lunch counter on Oretha Castle Haley that serves New Orleans Creole the way the neighborhood expects it: red beans, gumbo, Gulf seafood po' boys, priced so that going twice in a week doesn't require a conversation. The staff includes students learning the trade as part of a job-training mission, so the meal comes with a side of genuine purpose. The chef behind the kitchen spent years in upscale rooms before landing here, and the cooking shows it.

The potato pierogi has been on The Infatuation's list of dishes that define New York, which tells you something about Veselka's place in the city's food mythology. This East Village Ukrainian diner has been around forever, serving borscht and pierogi to the neighborhood at all hours, 24-hour service now restored. It draws tourists, yes, but also the people who grew up eating here and aren't stopping. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist, and cheap enough that you'll go back.

The green salad here became a Philadelphia talking point, which tells you everything about what kind of tavern this is. Meetinghouse is an American bar and kitchen in Fishtown where the menu looks almost suspiciously plain, right up until the food arrives. The hot roast beef sandwich and pork-and-beans both suggest a kitchen treating simple things as the whole point, not the backup plan. Named to The New York Times Restaurant List for 2025.

Tuna crudo in charred green tomato aguachile is not the Italian that built this city's red-gravy reputation, and that's the whole point. This trattoria in the Faubourg Marigny does vegetable-driven antipasti, fresh pasta, Neapolitan pizza, and roasted meat with a lightness that locals treat as a minor civic relief. The New York Times named it among the 25 best restaurants in New Orleans, which feels about right for the neighborhood canteen that quietly rewrote the local Italian conversation.

Etc. is a stylish Southern restaurant in the Loop, a neighborhood not known for fluorescent pillars or an R&B soundtrack that makes you forget you're a few blocks from a Willis Tower gift shop. Couples split smoked turkey rice and fried okra, friends pass lamb chops, and the oxtail comes under gravy, next to purple grits. The chef is a James Beard Best Chef: Great Lakes semifinalist, if you like your comfort food credentialed.

Burnt terracotta walls and 65 seats keep this Melrose Hill Italian restaurant feeling like someone's well-appointed dinner party. The team does twice-weekly farmers' market runs, so the menu follows the seasons rather than the other way around. The wine list moves through France, Italy, and California without showing off. A James Beard semifinalist nod for Best Chef California in 2025 tracks for a room where regulars rarely bother with the menu.

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.

Three kinds of larb on the menu signals where Gai Noi's heart is. Ann Ahmed's fast-casual Thai-Lao restaurant in Minneapolis draws from the Lao city of Luang Prabang, so the menu runs toward khao poon gai, banana-leaf-steamed whitefish, and four versions of jeow, the spicy Lao dipping sauce. It's the looser, louder sibling to Ahmed's more formal Khâluna, the kind of place where you order generously and don't overthink it. The New York Times put it on their 2023 restaurant list.

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.

Shave ice made with Maui-grown persimmons is not the shave ice you grew up with, and that gap tells you everything about this mid-priced Hawaiian regional restaurant. The team behind it came up through Alan Wong's, and the dining room has that same warm, attentive feel without the formality. The pastry side has drawn James Beard semifinalist nods two years running, and the desserts show why.

A corner spot on East Passyunk with awnings, a few sidewalk tables, and a spare interior that somehow feels warmer than it looks. Mish Mish is a vegetable-forward Mediterranean small-plates restaurant run by a former food writer who traded criticism for a kitchen, which tracks. The menu leans shareable, smoke and char doing most of the talking. The New York Times named it among Philadelphia's 25 best restaurants right now.

The mole menu alone runs seven or eight deep, which tells you what kind of Mexican restaurant this is. Red Iguana has been an old-school Salt Lake institution long enough that regulars treat the wait like a ritual, and there is always a wait. House-made corn tortillas, deeply worked sauces, the kind of cooking that takes all day. A neighborhood place that happens to draw the whole city.

Arched windows look out over Columbus Avenue from the upstairs dining room, where a tasting menu covers a lot of ground, swinging from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia with seafood turning up often. Chef Carl Dooley rotates dishes frequently enough that regulars rarely order the same meal twice. The service stays loose rather than ceremonial, which helps, because the room could easily tip formal. The New York Times named it among Boston's 25 best.

Eric Adjepong's Ghanaian restaurant spreads across multiple floors, each with its own look, all of them full on a weeknight. You can do a tasting menu or graze from the à la carte bar menu, a riff on Ghana's casual chop-bar tradition. The cooking moves between smoky, tangy, and deeply savory in ways that feel unfamiliar and completely right at once. The seafood jollof pot alone has colonized a lot of dinner conversation in this city.

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.

A white clapboard house north of downtown, Olamaie holds a Michelin star for contemporary Southern cooking served prix-fixe in a room that feels like someone's very well-appointed living room. The buttermilk biscuit with whipped honey butter is the kind of thing people mention unprompted for weeks. The cocktail list is genuinely clever, which helps when you're deciding whether to linger, and the answer is usually yes.

Dutch crunch bread is the move at this no-frills sub shop on the edge of the Excelsior, where an 8-inch sandwich still clocks in under $15. The chef behind the counter has Michelin-starred kitchen experience, which explains why the vegetarian sub, built on a hummus base with roasted peppers and cucumbers, quietly outshines the Italian. A classic neighborhood sandwich shop that happens to punch above its weight class.

Chaval is a Spanish-leaning restaurant on Pine Street that runs on Maine ingredients with French habits tucked in, so a local pork chop can show up wearing a shellfish cream sauce and nobody complains. The rooms are warm, there's a patio for when the weather cooperates, and the pastry side of the house means dessert is part of the plan, not an afterthought. Dress for a nice dinner, not a lobster bib.

The bread here is a soft roll with a thin, crispy crust, and it does most of the explaining. This Vietnamese bánh mì shop draws long lines across its San Jose locations, staffed fast enough that the queue moves before you've had time to reconsider your order. The dac biet packs headcheese, cha lua, ham, and pâté into one sandwich, and the buy-four-get-one deal means regulars rarely leave with fewer than five.

Cafe Colucci shares its spacious, spice-farm-decorated room with Brundo Spice Co., its in-house spice brand, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities. This Ethiopian restaurant in Emeryville has been an East Bay institution forever, and the move to a bigger space hasn't dulled anything. Injera arrives fluffy and sour, scooping up mushroom tibs or silky raw beef kitfo with equal enthusiasm. The San Francisco Chronicle named it a Top 100 Bay Area restaurant.

Pasta is the point at this Italian restaurant on Mass Ave, where around nine varieties rotate through the menu on any given night. The all-Italian wine list keeps things honest, and the counter seats along one wall are held for walk-ins if you didn't plan ahead. It fills up fast and stays full, but the room handles it without breaking a sweat. A Michelin Selected pick that also made the New York Times' Boston shortlist.

Mesquite-grilled carne asada is the throughline at this modern Mexican steakhouse in downtown Tucson, where exposed brick and wooden beams split the difference between industrial and hacienda. The menu pushes traditional Mexican cooking into unexpected territory, lobster stuffed inside masa, chile verde stirred into mac and cheese, surf and turf riffing on enchiladas. A long tequila and mezcal list means no one is leaving dry.

The barbari bread is baked fresh each morning, which tells you something about how seriously this casual Silver Lake cafe takes Iranian cooking. Azizam runs on the kind of labor-intensive prep that doesn't announce itself, from herb-packed sandwiches to the kofteh Tabrizi, a single family-size meatball in tangy broth. Named to the New York Times Restaurant List and the L.A. Times 101 Best, it landed on Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurants list, too.

Wood-paneled walls, beers on tap, a game on the TV, and then the menu arrives and reminds you that the chef grew up in the Pacific Rim. The Duchess reads like a neighborhood pub but cooks like something else entirely. The shrimp and corn patties, crisp and spiced with Chamorro chile paste, landed on the New York Times list of best dishes eaten across the country in 2025. Wear whatever you'd wear to a bar.

The ceiling, bar, and floors are all wood, giving this Northern Vietnamese restaurant a sleek, downtown-polished look that suits its Mason Street address. Lunch runs toward phở and bún chả for the neighborhood office crowd; dinner opens into turmeric cakes topped with caviar and braised short rib that take their time. The sugarcane juice with calamansi is the move if you're not sure what to drink.

A BYOB tasting-menu spot on a quiet South Boston corner, small enough that you can hear the chef narrate every course from the stove. No sommelier, no ceremony, no acres of white tablecloth: just a handful of seasonal courses, meat or vegetarian, with a cooking style that wanders wherever it likes. The chef is a James Beard semifinalist, which makes the bring-your-own-wine, share-with-the-next-table looseness feel like the whole point.

The jalapeño cornbread waffles have held a spot on the menu since day one, which tells you something about the kitchen's confidence. This Wesley Heights New American spot has a Michelin listing and a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the food roams freely, from pork belly dumplings with shiso to Outer Banks scallops over couscous. The room feels unhurried, the sourcing is local without being preachy about it, and the three-course option is the move.

A white bungalow on a quiet stretch of Second Street, with string lights on the porch and climbing plants inside, that happens to be one of Phoenix's better French brasseries. Marble tables, exposed brick, and a vinyl record spinning somewhere set the mood for oysters on the patio or baked brie and beef tartare by candlelight. The wine list pulls from around the world, which keeps the date-night crowd very happy and very unhurried.

This is a full-service American restaurant inside the Park MGM, set in a dim, two-story library lined with thousands of books that no one is allowed to check out. It feels like a movie set where someone is about to be accused of something in the study. Expect popovers, a roast chicken built for sharing, and cotton candy with the check, which is a very Vegas way to say goodnight to a room full of literature.

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.

The dining room inside La Jolla's Grande Colonial Hotel is more beach-casual than grand, which suits a crowd that keeps sunglasses on through dinner. Nine-Ten is an elegant restaurant with a Caribbean lean, running from sandwiches and salads at lunch to a tasting menu at dinner that the kitchen calls "mercy of the chef." The pastry program punches above its hotel-restaurant weight, from brunch pastries through a creamsicle dessert worth the wait.

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.

The coco bread isn't on the menu, but regulars know to ask for a hunk of it to sop up the oxtail braised in brown sauce. This no-frills Jamaican lunch counter has been an old-school institution in Miami for decades, turning out clamshell containers of curry goat, jerk chicken, and flaky beef patties to a lunchtime crowd that doesn't linger. The New York Times put it on their Miami list.

A whole snapper, deep-fried twice for a crunch audible from across the room, arriving upright as if still swimming, tells you everything about what kind of soul food restaurant this is. Six tables on Staten Island, pitchers of rum punch and sangria on nearly all of them, and a dining room that always feels like a party that forgot to wait for a reason. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants in 2024.

Portland's original farm-to-table restaurant has been around forever, and after a near-death experience a couple of years ago, a social media S.O.S. brought the regulars flooding back. The dining room is a proper sit-down affair, seasonal and ingredient-driven, with a rustic bistro in back that runs a serious burger and one of the better beer lists downtown. A block from the Arlene Schnitzer, it's the obvious pre-concert answer.

Sweedeedee is a small all-day café in North Portland where the mugs are pottery, the shelves are hand-tagged, and a turntable plays records the house sometimes trades food to the neighbors at Mississippi Records for. Breakfast runs on griddled corn cakes, a thick Spanish tortilla, and a pastry case that changes daily. It is so thoroughly Portland that you may feel the urge to apologize for your phone.

A spare, unassuming Korean storefront where the chef's résumé includes Saison and Jungsik, and the menu makes no effort to hide it. This is contemporary Korean dining where a broth-poached yellowtail rosette sits a few items from fried rice threaded with squid ink and kimchi. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and the room fills with people happy to order widely and share, which is exactly how you should go.

The baked Alaska arrives tableside with the kind of theater that makes you glad you dressed up. Mister Charles is an Italian-influenced French restaurant in Dallas where the room is sweeping and the menu runs from fusilli with caviar to wagyu beef Wellington, with canapes and showy presentations filling the space between. The wine list is substantial, the cocktails are deft, and nobody here is pretending this is a casual Tuesday.

The photo wall by the door, stacked with chefs, actors, and politicians, tells you everything about how long Park's has been the go-to Korean BBQ spot in LA. Servers manage the tabletop grills for you, slicing and flipping prime cuts from bulgogi to galbi, with American Wagyu for the committed. The kimchi pancakes arrive on cast-iron skillets, hot and crisp, and the cold noodles cut through all that smoke.

The whiteboard of daily specials is where regulars look first at this old-school Japanese restaurant and bar in the International District, an institution that has been around forever and shows no interest in pretending otherwise. No-nonsense aunties keep things in order, traditional cooks keep the kitchen honest, and the wait for a table is more or less constant. Come hungry and unhurried.

A set meal here arrives as a Korean feast built around barley rice, with banchan multiplying across the table until there's nowhere left to put your elbows. Fried kelp, acorn jelly, mung bean pancakes, and snails in vinegar are just the opening act before the soups arrive. Seasoning runs gentle, so the gochujang and sesame oil on the table are less condiment, more instruction. The New York Times put it on their Los Angeles shortlist.

Tucked into an airport business park (yes, really), this contemporary restaurant from a chef who grew up in Côte d'Ivoire brings West African-inflected cooking to a town that usually runs on truffle butter and expense accounts. Wildflower vases, bare tables, and a breezy terrace set an unfussy tone. The food follows: bold spicing, real technique, prices that don't assume you're on a ski-week budget. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist in 2022.

A small banchan shop with a courtyard that turns a quick lunch into something you'll spend the afternoon on. The menu changes with whatever caught the chef's eye at the farmers' market, so the marinated okra or rolled omelet you're hoping to find may or may not show up. Korean fermentation and California produce, in a conversation neither had planned. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: California.

A vintage toy car holds down the check at this casual Italian restaurant in a former auto shop on Mount Pleasant Street. The menu shifts constantly, but lamb skewers with chili oil and bubble-crusted pizzas stay put, and the gelato arrives piled improbably high. The kitchen's commitment to good ingredients is quiet but obvious. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2024.