The Best Restaurants in the United States

The line forms before you find the sign, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Vietnamese restaurant tucked inside Falls Church's Eden Center. Rice Paper has been an old-school institution in the Northern Virginia Vietnamese dining scene, turning out coconut curries, lemongrass chicken, and herb-heavy salads to a room that fills fast and empties slowly. The Washington Post named it among the 40 best restaurants in and around D.C.

The hot ham with melted Swiss on a bun costs $7, which tells you almost everything about this retro burger shop. George Motz has spent his career obsessing over regional American hamburger joints, and the menu reflects that slightly unhinged dedication, with monthly tributes to obscure local styles and an off-menu grilled cheese that hides a burger inside. The New York Times named it one of New York's best new restaurants of 2024.

Housemade corn tortillas are the baseline here, warm and soft, and everything else is a riff on the form that lands somewhere between street food and genuine curiosity. Macheen is a taqueria operating as a pop-up, rotating through Boyle Heights and Smorgasburg, with a menu that might pile daikon pickles and grilled rib-eye onto one taco and sweet smoky beets al pastor onto another. The New York Times put it on their 25 best L.A. restaurants list, which tracks.

The lechon arrives as a pinwheel of pork with skin so shatteringly crisp it sounds like a problem. Lenox is a Caribbean restaurant in Belltown doing Nuyorican cooking with palm-print wallpaper, rattan fixtures, and a rum-heavy cocktail list that leans hard into the beach-bar premise. The spice mixes are made in-house, the piña coladas get poured generously, and Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

The blonde wood sushi bar is the room's focal point, and the chefs behind it move like they've been doing this forever. Miyake is a classic Japanese restaurant on Fore Street where the kitchen fuses traditional sushi with French and Italian technique and leans hard into Maine seafood. Every seat fills fast, and the counter draws regulars who know exactly what they're ordering before they sit down.

The counter seats maybe a dozen people, the room is barely wider than a hallway, and it runs noon until late without a break. Petit Trois is a French bistro in Hollywood doing the classics straight: escargots, steak frites, a legendary omelet. French hip-hop plays while the kitchen ignores it completely and turns out textbook bistro cooking. The "Big Mec," a double cheeseburger finished with bordelaise, is the one concession to the neighborhood.

Custom Rookwood pottery displayed above the open kitchen pass sets the tone at Jose Salazar's namesake restaurant, a mid-sized dining room where servers stand with hands clasped, quietly hunting for glasses to refill. The format is tapas in spirit: order everything at once, and the team paces it out. Dishes lean seasonal and arrive with an almost theatrical commitment to color, the kind of cooking that makes you notice it before you taste it.

Schulte & Herr is a small, low-key German restaurant on Cumberland Avenue where fresh rye bread and a paprika-heavy quark spread arrive before you've finished sitting down. It's BYOB with no corkage fee, so the real planning happens at a wine shop beforehand. The plates are homestyle and generous, built around things like sauerbraten that sends its gravy into the bread dumplings. Expect to leave needing a nap, and not minding.

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.

The injera arrives with every order, a spongy sourdough flatbread that doubles as plate and utensil, and first-timers get a menu with a glossary to help them figure out what they've just ordered. This Ethiopian restaurant has been an ASU rite of passage for what feels like forever, a family-run strip mall spot that leans hard into vegetarian dishes and fragrant stews. The dining room is cozy and carpeted, and the coffee ceremony is not decorative.

A Mexican restaurant in a converted brick building in Garfield, where the large windows keep things bright enough that you don't feel like you're day-drinking when you order a Paloma at noon. Gallo Blanco runs all three meals, so the crowd shifts from coffee-and-eggs regulars to the burrito-and-margarita contingent by midday. The guacamole and chips make a persuasive case for arriving hungry and starting slow.

The cardstock to-go box comes with chopstick handles built into the sides, which is either the cleverest packaging in Phoenix or a sign that the city has simply been doing lunch wrong. This grab-and-go dumpling shop on a downtown corner keeps the menu short: pick your base, pick your filling, pick a sauce. The whole thing runs about thirteen dollars, which buys considerably more than whatever sad situation you had going on at your desk.

Ten tables, Anita Baker on the speakers, and a basket of house-made potato chips arriving before the tasting menu begins, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. This fine dining spot in downtown Petaluma runs four or seven courses of California cooking with French technique, from a chef trained at Institut Paul Bocuse. The Chronicle's Top 100 lists have noticed. Go for the longer menu and don't skip the Parker House rolls.

The handwashing station near the door is not decorative; injera this fresh demands clean hands and full attention. This Ethiopian restaurant on Esplanade Ridge fills its corner spot with wicker light fixtures, natural textiles, and wood tables with mustard cushions. The injera is made in house daily, the sambusas arrive golden and stuffed, and the vegetable combination platter is how you learn the menu before you know what to order.

The original Crack Shack is a counter-service fried chicken spot on Kettner, built around an outdoor courtyard with picnic tables, lawn games, and the general mood of a backyard cookout run by someone with a spreadsheet. You order sandwiches, bone-in trays, or a bowl for the one friend who's being good, and everything involves pasture-raised chicken. It's casual, loud, and fine in flip-flops.

The pressed-tin ceilings and Art Deco mirrors have been pulling SoHo together since the nineties, and Balthazar still runs the same play: a classic French brasserie where the onion soup gratinée and steak frites are the point, not a consolation prize. The room is cavernous and warm, the crowd ranges from fashion people to tourists who did their homework, and the whole thing hums along like it has nothing left to prove.

Jollof rice finished with herby lamb chops or jerk cauliflower is the kind of menu decision that takes longer than it should. This West African-Californian restaurant in Inglewood grew out of a pandemic pop-up, and the cooking still carries that energy, all sticky honey chicken berbere and root beer-braised short ribs with whipped yams. The room got a modern refresh and the cocktails are genuinely cooling. The Los Angeles Times put it among the best restaurants in California.

The menu answers a question most Denver restaurants don't ask: what if you just focused on Emilia-Romagna? This RiNo dinner spot is the younger sibling of Restaurant Olivia, and it carries the same low-key elegance while going deep on the region that gave the world prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano. Traditional stuffed pastas, griddled flatbreads, braised meats, and a Lambrusco list that will make you rethink sparkling red wine.

Three separate dining rooms, three separate reservations to even consider: teppanyaki, sushi omakase, or traditional washoku, each run as its own operation. The spirits company behind the whisky built an elegant Japanese restaurant in Waikīkī that takes itself seriously without making you feel like you wandered in underdressed. The drink menu is, predictably, excellent. Pick your room before you call.

Marble bar, exposed brick, and blue velvet banquettes make this Bolton Hill neighborhood restaurant look as good as the brownstones outside. The menu swings from Caesar steak tartare to crispy pork knuckle with beer gravy, and a wagyu brisket-chuck burger with smoked tomato-bacon jam has earned its own following. Tamarind-lime daiquiris help with the decision-making. Baltimore Magazine named it one of the city's top restaurants for 2026.

The Indian-inflected Italian restaurant in the Highlands neighborhood where the chef's masala aioli turns up on elk tartare and the pasta always involves goat. Her husband painstakingly sources small-producer wines from across Italy and makes his own amari in-house, which is either obsessive or exactly right. The room is intimate and the hospitality famously warm. A James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Hospitality, and the reputation makes sense from the first drink forward.

Fabio Trabocchi's fine dining room at the Wharf is all coastal blues and polished brass, with floor-to-ceiling windows over the Potomac that make the room feel like it floats. The Spanish menu runs from jamón croquetas and spreadable sobrasada to paella loaded with lobster and giant prawns, with impeccably simple fish in between. The crowd dresses up, as they should.

A converted warehouse in Little Italy with barrel-vaulted ceilings and enough candlelight to make everyone look good, Herb & Wood is a wood-fired New American restaurant where the menu swings from blistered pizzas to venison over buttermilk polenta without losing its footing. The PB&C dessert, chocolate-whiskey cake with peanut butter mousse, has its own following. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, and the room tends to fill early with people who look like they come here often.

The smashburger here started as a pop-up, and the crispy-edged, cheese-laced results made a permanent address feel inevitable. This is a casual counter-service spot on Washington Avenue doing smashburgers with special sauce, loaded fries, and milkshakes in a room that leans into the gritty aesthetic of a New York bodega. The chopped cheese quietly competes with the burgers for most people's attention by the second visit.

House-made blue and yellow corn tortillas arrive before you've even thought about ordering, which tells you something about how this Oaxacan restaurant in Riverdale operates. The room is modern and low-lit, with clay masks and pottery that nod to the region without tipping into theme park territory. Mezcal gets serious attention at the bar, and the dark mole negro on the enmoladas de pato is the kind of sauce that takes days to make.

Orders get called out over a crackling intercom at this warehouse-sized Indo canteen and grocery store in Berkeley, where metal trays and disposable sporks set the tone immediately. The chaat is the reason to come, those hollow puffs and tamarind-drenched bites that make the whole elaborate category make sense. Thalis, tandoori chicken, and a glass case of colorful sweets fill out the picture. The San Francisco Chronicle has it in their Top 100 Bay Area restaurants.

Flaky roti canai folded and crisped to order, torn apart and dragged through curry, is the move that explains Phat Eatery in a single gesture. This casual Malaysian street food spot in Katy draws a crowd happy to share plates of Hainanese chicken, beef rendang, and satay across a loud, affordable table. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Texas, which for a strip-mall canteen in the Houston suburbs is a sentence worth sitting with.

Despite the name, nobody comes to this strip-mall Thai spot for the wings. The real draw is the menu, a laminated binder that wanders through Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Chinese cooking and has photos of everything, which helps, because you'll need help. Wear whatever you wore to work, bring an appetite, and pick something within five minutes, since the binder will happily outlast your lunch hour.

The tin pressed ceiling and flickering candles do a lot of the work before the food arrives. This Brooklyn Heights neighborhood tavern has the bones of an old bar and the kitchen instincts to match, running from duck poutine croquettes to braised rabbit without making either feel out of place. The kind of room where regulars settle in for the burger and stay through the blackout cake, and nobody seems to mind.

Fake flowers cascade over the entrance and hang above the kitchen at this Palestinian restaurant on Atlantic Avenue, where the decor and the cooking share the same go-big instinct. The mezze platter is enormous by design, the saj bread comes hot from a domed oven by the door, and the rice dishes arrive in mounds built for sharing. It's a Michelin-selected room, and the crowd tends to arrive hungry and in groups.

Cute tile floors and globe lights in a relaxed Old City row house, and the menu reads like someone just got back from Lyon and had a lot of feelings about it. Chef Christopher Kearse runs a modern French bistro where escargot and frog legs share the card with dry-aged duck, all handled with a genuinely classical hand. Grab a bar seat up front for snacks if you're not committing to the full dining room.

You enter through the back of a neighboring cafe, down a hallway, through a wooden door, and suddenly you're somewhere else entirely. This moody Oak Cliff speakeasy-style cantina stocks only bottles sourced from Mexico, and the cocktail menu is organized by historical era, walking you through the evolution of Mexican drinking culture. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist, it also does pre-Hispanic Oaxacan small plates for when the mezcal needs company.

A volcanic stone installation cascades from the ceiling of this sleek modern Japanese restaurant in Midtown Center, where the lighting is calibrated precisely enough to make everyone look good. The menu runs from robata-grilled skewers to sushi, and the Japanese whiskey list is long enough to require a strategy. The kind of room that reads more New York than D.C., which the crowd seems to know.

A neon sign reading "Bless Your Heart" anchors the bar, which tells you exactly the kind of contemporary Southern restaurant this is. The menu leans hard into local vegetables and whatever the season is doing, with dishes that manage to be creative without being precious about it. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice too. Date-night crowd, candlelit tables, the works.

B & M is a Caribbean grocery where the restaurant is wherever the chef happens to be, which is the kitchen at the back. You walk past the shelves, lean in, and tell her what you want, and she returns with oxtail or curry goat over rice and peas, or wrapped in a roti. Cow foot soup turns up some days. The pepper sauce is bottled in-house and sold at the register, so keep a tissue handy. Order is cheap, casual, and done standing up.

A Lebanese restaurant on Capitol Park named for the family matriarch, Leila leans into home-cooking warmth rather than white-tablecloth formality. The New York Times called out the Lebanese Sundae among the best dishes eaten across the country in 2024: rose ice cream with orange blossom water hidden under a cloud of fairy floss, the whole thing buried in pistachios, arriving at the table looking like it has somewhere to be.

A sourdough starter that's been going for decades anchors the bread program at Christopher Kostow's wood-fired California restaurant in Saint Helena, where nearly everything on the menu passes through flames at some point, including the soft serve. The courtyard, strung with lights and wrapped in greenery, adds heated yurts when the valley cools down. The cheeseburger has its own following, and the soft serve is not an afterthought.

The Ethiopian coffee service, brought to the table with ceremony, is a good sign you're in a homestyle Ethiopian restaurant that takes its cues seriously. The family team runs a warm, unfussy room in Miami Gardens, turning out doro wat and shiro on a spread of sour injera. The New York Times put it on their Miami list, which feels right for a place that quietly fills a gap the size of Miami-Dade County.

The frita at this old-school Cuban cafeteria on Calle Ocho is a smash burger built Havana-style: beef patty seasoned with cumin and paprika, crispy potato strings, diced onion, and a soft Cuban bun. The founder, now in his late eighties, still takes his afternoon glass of wine at the end of the counter. The New York Times put it on their Miami list, alongside the other half of a local argument that runs the way Philly's cheesesteak debate does.

Madroño is a Nicaraguan sit-down restaurant in a West Flagler strip mall, where white tablecloths are laid for comfort food that usually arrives in a takeout container. It's a family-occasion room, the sort where a First Communion party feels perfectly on brand. Groups order the bandeja, a lazy Susan of greatest hits, and birthdays get a shower of streamers. It made The Infatuation's list of Miami's 25 best restaurants.

A chalkboard menu that changes daily, just 20 bar stools, and a kitchen running on two induction burners and a small convection oven: The Wren looks like every other dim, welcoming Fells Point tavern, and that's precisely the cover it's working. The pub food, though, is meticulous seasonal cooking. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, and Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants. Come for the draft beers; stay through the beef-and-ale pie.

Dark sea-green walls, plush booths, and a covered parklet out front set the mood at this French bistro, where California ingredients do their best impression of a Parisian menu. The wine list splits evenly between Burgundy and Sonoma, the cocktails are serious, and the frites come with Dijon mayo in case you needed a reason. Bar Zola next door handles the cocktail crowd if the dining room is full.

The sashimi that put this small Botanical Heights restaurant on the map layers Japanese technique over Southeast Asian flavors, which is basically chef Nick Bognar's whole project in one bite. Forty seats, no wasted space, and a menu where the fish does the heavy lifting. A James Beard semifinalist with a following that was national before the neighborhood caught on.

A food truck parked across from West Alabama Ice House, which makes the move obvious: grab barbacoa or chicharron tacos here, then carry them next door to a picnic table with a cold beer. The fillings are generous and the price point belongs to a different era. It's been a Montrose fixture forever, and the crowd has never needed a reason to overthink it.

Raoul's has been on Prince Street since before SoHo had a real estate pitch, and the art-crammed walls still feel like a bohemian time capsule in the best possible, no wait, a very specific way: the kind of French bistro where regulars order without looking up and the tableside hot fudge on profiteroles arrives like a point being made. The cooking is French American, the vibe is lived-in, and the cocktails arrive before the nostalgia sets in.

Starry lights over soft banquettes set the mood at this fine dining room on Capitol Hill, where the kitchen turns very local ingredients into something quietly elegant. The four-course tasting menu gives you real choices at each round, which makes it unusually painless for people who normally flinch at tasting menus. The hospitality carries the same care as the food, a James Beard Semifinalist nod for Outstanding Hospitality confirms that's not accidental.

A North Denver brasserie modeled on the casual wine bars of Montreal, which explains both the natural wine list and the fact that nobody feels overdressed in flannel. The menu runs steak frites and chicken fricassee alongside blood sausage fried wontons, which is either an identity crisis or a perfectly good reason to order both. Westword named it the best restaurant for a breakup, which is a compliment, however you slice it.

A fine dining chef trading white tablecloths for a burger shop is either a crisis or a revelation, and here it reads as the latter. Single-source USDA prime beef is the whole point, dressed simply in brioche with the usual suspects done well. The fries are double-cooked in beef tallow, which is either old-school or very on-trend depending on your crowd. The Michelin Guide has taken notice.

The menu changes with the seasons, which sounds like a cliché until you notice the cocktail list follows suit too. This bright, energetic contemporary American restaurant in the Bishop Arts District leans heavily on vegetables and local produce, with occasional detours through dukkah, harissa, and miso that feel considered rather than restless. The focaccia is a reliable opening move. A Michelin Selected pick that also lands on Eater's essential Dallas list.

The wood art on the walls is the first thing you notice, then the menu, which shifts with the seasons but keeps a few old faithfuls around. This is a polished contemporary dining room on Galisteo Street, the kind of place where global technique quietly nudges the New Mexican pantry sideways. A James Beard nominee for Best Chef Southwest, and a Michelin Selected spot. Couples on date night and solo diners at the bar seem equally at ease.

The oyster comes out and someone brands it tableside with a hot coal before dousing it in ponzu and rice vinegar mayo, which sets the tone for the rest of the meal. This is a Spanish tapas restaurant in downtown Miami with concrete floors, a dim room, and servers who dress like they just came from somewhere better. Paellas and seafood-forward small plates are made for groups and loud tables. Next door, the same team runs a natural wine bar.

Blue corn tortillas made from scratch, with corn sourced from small Midwest farms and nixtamalized in-house, are what this casual beachside taco spot in North Beach built its reputation on. The chef was early to the whole process in Miami, and the operation has since grown into a local institution. Palm trees, ocean air one block over, and salsas worth asking about, especially the charred jalapeño.

A hoagie shop and wine store in the Outer Sunset that lets you drink your bottle purchase on-site for a small corkage fee, which is either a genius loophole or just good hospitality. The outdoor tables face roughly toward the ocean, making a clear evening here feel earned. The sandwiches lean ambitious, the wine list runs deep, and the neighborhood tends to show up in layers, from dog walkers to people who know what they're doing with a natural wine.

The rotisserie smoke reaches you before you open the door, which is either a warning or a promise. This counter-service Peruvian chicken shop on East Thomas keeps things focused: whole or half birds off a hulking oven, Peruvian sauces on the side, and thick-cut fries that Phoenix New Times handed a Best of Phoenix nod to. Wash it down with an Inca Kola and you're done. Eater named it one of the best new restaurants in America in 2025.

A neon sign behind the open kitchen reads "Al Dente or Die," which tells you most of what you need to know about this downtown Phoenix pasta joint. Frank Ocean plays where Sinatra might, and "The Sopranos" loops on the wall behind the bar. The vodka sauce built a cult following when the place was a food truck, and the no-reservations line outside suggests that reputation held. Craft cocktails and low-intervention wines round things out.

The name comes from Édith Piaf's nickname, and the French bistro that follows it leans into the reference without being precious about it. The menu is compact and classic, with a Southern accent that surfaces in small ways. The New York Times singled out the French onion soup specifically, which tells you something about where the kitchen's priorities are. Thick-cut, triple-fried frites with Raclette service keep the regulars from straying.

Burmese food in Portland, done by three friends who started at a farmers market and still shop like it. Rangoon Bistro is a casual neighborhood spot with warming curries, noodle dishes, and thoke, the fermented-tea-leaf salads that arrive in a satisfying tangle of crunch and funk. A Malaysian-style fried chicken with coconut rice and belacan nods to where two of the founders spent time living and working. Patio seating, to-go, delivery, the whole deal.

LUVI is a Japanese and Shanghainese restaurant on Tchoupitoulas, tucked behind a door that swaps the traffic for a colorful, hushed dining room. It was serving Shanghainese dishes in New Orleans before most of the city knew to ask. The move is ordering far too many plates, dumplings and the dan dan noodles included, then losing count somewhere around the fourth round. The chef was a James Beard semifinalist.

The signature move here is the Hazz blend, carne asada folded with mild green chile and melted cheese, and it shows up across the menu at this no-frills Sonoran taco shop in west Phoenix. Order at the counter, everything à la carte, then stake out a table and work the salsa bar, which runs from fresh green to roasty red to a piquant orange. The horchata comes in a bucket. Phoenix New Times has it in their top 50 right now.

Long Gong is a Chinese banquet hall set so far west on SW Eighth that the road gives up and the Everglades take over. The tables are big enough to seat a dozen friends, each with a lazy susan roughly the size of a tractor tire. Dishes arrive in bubbling cauldrons kept hot over little grills, which makes a Wednesday lunch feel like someone's birthday. It sits at #23 on The Infatuation's Miami list.

Pancakes with crispy edges and a savory bowl of eggs and Portuguese sausage over rice in bacon cabbage broth on the same menu, and the real problem is choosing between them. Over Easy is a neighborhood breakfast and brunch spot in Kailua that's been the area's anchor long before brunch became an O'ahu-wide pastime. The menu is short enough to read fast and long enough to make you wish you'd brought someone to split the ordering burden.

The 40-seat dining room shares a building with a nightclub, which does set a certain tone. Present Tense is a Japanese restaurant where the chef's Italian background keeps surfacing on the plate, squid ink noodles with nduja and wasabi, koji chicken with shoyu au poivre. The New York Times named it one of Nashville's 25 best restaurants. The chef's counter fills early, and by the time the martinis land, nobody's rushing anywhere.

Flower-strung lights and live music greet you at this downtown Santa Fe Mexican restaurant, where the kitchen gardens supply much of what lands on the table. The menu runs traditional with a knowing detour or two, and the lamb posole in guajillo bone broth earned a nod from the New York Times. The room is warm and a little festive on a Wednesday, which is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your mood.

Pink Lotus is a casual Thai neighborhood spot in West Midtown, tucked inside a big brick building where industrial bones meet decor that's colorful and a little goofy. The menu skips the sweet-and-sticky Americanized staples and heads for regional dishes, including a smoky northern chili dip and khao soi. Lunch sets pair two dishes, which is the polite way to order twice without anyone noticing.

Tucked inside ABC Carpet & Home, this vegetarian restaurant runs on the kind of clean-lined, chandelier-scattered energy that makes a green juice feel entirely appropriate in a wine glass. The menu moves through breakfast, brunch, and lunch with pressed juices and kombuchas alongside clever plant-based plates. The New York Times named it among the 100 best restaurants in the city, which the business crowd and the ladies-who-lunch set have known for a while.

The menu changes daily and fits on a single card, which tells you most of what you need to know about King. This SoHo neighborhood restaurant runs a short Mediterranean lineup built around whatever looks good at the greenmarket, with a bar up front that fills early and an intimate back room hung with bright art. The team met at London's River Café, and that unhurried confidence shows in food that makes simplicity seem like a deliberate flex.

The menu at this Uptown Mexican restaurant isn't fully translated into English, which the staff treat as a feature rather than a bug. Chef Erasmo Casiano's cooking runs from dry-aged hamachi crudo to duck carnitas tacos, and the cocktails lean on prickly pear, tomatillo, and jicama. Esquire named the Martini Cochinero among the best martinis in the country, which tells you something about where the bar program sits.

A converted 1921 bungalow in Mount Dora's compact downtown, dressed up with coastal-eclectic touches and spread across several small dining rooms. The restaurant runs a rotating menu built around local, sustainable ingredients, so the kitchen has a reason to stay interested and so do you. Parker House rolls arrive housemade and fluffy, and the fried green tomatoes with Benton's bacon and tomatillo sauce have clearly become a fixture. A good reason to make the drive from Orlando.

Tucked inside the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, this casual museum restaurant takes the global-folk-art mandate and runs with it on the plate. The menu hops from rock shrimp gyoza to lamb kibbeh to Thai green curry without breaking a sweat, and the plant-based options feel like full commitments rather than checkboxes. A monthly dinner series works through a different world cuisine each time, which keeps the regulars guessing.