The Best Restaurants in the United States

Shakshuka and a Negroni sounds like a contradiction until you sit down at Mayfield, a modern Mediterranean restaurant in San Juan Capistrano where Levantine and North African flavors run alongside classic California instincts. The menu moves from Turkish eggs with labneh at brunch to za'atar fried chicken at dinner, with a harissa-aioli burger at happy hour for anyone who needs convincing. The cocktail list keeps pace.

A small cut-out in the kitchen door lets you watch each dumpling wrapper get rolled, filled, and pleated by hand before it hits the boiling water. This tiny Chinese restaurant in a Point Loma strip mall specializes in dumplings from Liaoning province, alongside Dongbei beef noodle soup and rougamo flatbread sandwiches. The boba tea is made with muddled fresh fruit, which sounds like an afterthought until you order one.

Gold, green, and burgundy set the tone in this full-service American grill downtown, where the menu swings wide from pasta and sushi to steaks and craft cocktails. It's the restaurant group's attempt to gather everything they've learned across their other spots under one roof, which sounds like a hedge but mostly works. The Pyro burger and a French dip riff pull regulars back to the sandwich menu.

Mike's Kitchen is a cash-only, cafeteria-style Italian counter tucked inside a VFW outpost in Cranston, which means you order at the line and eat among Rhode Island accents thick enough to need subtitles. Polenta arrives as a soft, custardy square under red sauce, with a meatball or sausage on top. Bring bills, expect to hear about the old days, and don't be surprised if a neighbor offers beach advice unprompted.

Mings On Broad is a counter-service sandwich spot in Cranston where the fried chicken sandwich comes Asian-inspired and the portions seem to assume you're feeding a second person. Pho-tine fries arrive buried in beefy gravy and cheddar curds, and the pandan colada with toasted rice shows up to remind you there's a bar menu. The Infatuation put it on its Providence list. Order to go and eat it messily at home, unobserved.

A wok that produces real smoky hei on Indo-Chinese noodles is a good sign you're not at a standard curry house. Munch India is a casual South Asian restaurant in Berkeley that draws from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, with California produce and the occasional Japanese ingredient folded into the mix. The menu rotates monthly, kebabs go over hardwood charcoal, and everything is available for takeout and delivery.

The brewing tanks practically share the room with you at this airy warehouse brewery on the edge of downtown Cleveland. Belgian strong ales, altbiers, and kölsches anchor the tap list, with hazy IPAs filling in the rest. The food runs to corndogs, nachos, and sandwiches, which is exactly what you want when you're sitting five feet from a working brewhouse.

Knife-cut noodles made in-house anchor the menu at this casual College Park storefront serving the bold flavors of northwest China. Mouth-numbing red chilies and black vinegar show up everywhere, from chili-oil dumplings to griddled flatbread sandwiches. Kumquat lemon tea and sour-plum juice are on hand for anyone who underestimated the heat. The University of Maryland crowd has clearly done the math on the price-to-fire ratio.

Noura Cafe is a casual Lebanese counter spot in Jacksonville that doubles as a small grocery, so you can order a desert rider, that cold-cut-stuffed pita the city is oddly devoted to, and leave with imported tahini and lupini beans. Shawarma platters and kibbeh share the menu with Egyptian stews, and neighborhood moms grab spinach pies on the way home from work. It's cheap, quick, and nobody's dressed up.

Obon Shokudo is a small, bright Japanese comfort food spot on SE Grand where the whole menu happens to be vegan, a fact it mentions about as loudly as a houseplant. Udon comes in brothy curry or chilled with sesame, and the onigiri get a smear of miso made from things like hominy or pistachios. Fermented hot sauce and tofu get made in-house too. Portland Monthly put it on its 50 Best Restaurants list.

An Armenian and Caucasian grill tucked into an Aurora strip mall, where the khachapuri arrives topped with egg and cheese and the beef dumplings, called khinkali, are large enough to require a small plan of attack. The menu runs from hearty stews and hand-pulled noodles to eggplant rolls stuffed with garlic-walnut spread. Georgian wine, from a region that considers itself the cradle of viticulture, is the right call alongside any of it.

A family-owned restaurant and market where the steam trays hold Samoan turkey tails, Tongan taro leaf stew with lamb, and Hawaiian musubi, not the usual local lunch options. The LDS church's long missionary ties to the Pacific islands drew Polynesian communities to Salt Lake City, and Pacific Seas has quietly become their gathering place. Cool off with a mango 'otai, a blended coconut-and-pineapple drink that earns its space on the tray.

Halal tandoori from a wood-fired oven and curries priced so low you'll order three things you didn't plan to, at a Pakistani-Indian restaurant that's been a Tenderloin fixture long enough to feel like infrastructure. The chickpea masala and chicken tikka masala are the moves, with naan arriving in quantities that suggest the kitchen is rooting for you. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the top South Asian spots in the Bay Area.

A pop-up food stand rooted in two traditions, Liberian and Jamaican, that the co-owner grew up eating. The menu built around jerk chicken wings and jollof rice draws long lines wherever it lands, whether that's the downtown farmers market every other week or the sprawling Ragbrai bike ride across the state. In Iowa, in February, the smell of jerk spice doing its work is a reasonable argument for following a food stand around like a grateful stray.

The former showroom for Vitrolite tile is now an all-day Italian-leaning cafe in Ohio City, and the bones of it still run the room: fifteen-foot ceilings, graceful arches, and walls covered in pigmented glass tile in colors that catch the afternoon light. The menu is lean and unhurried, moving from morning coffee through grain salads and warm vegetables to aperitivo by early evening, which is exactly the kind of pacing Cleveland did not know it needed.

A Vietnamese soup-and-sandwich counter tucked inside C Fresh Market, which means you might reach your table past a wall of fish sauce and dried noodles. The pho bowls are the main event, deep and aromatic, and the banh mi are packed with enough herbs to qualify as a salad. Order the wonton soup too. The name comes from north-central Iowa's area code, a quiet nod to the community that built the place.

A century-old house on artsy Larchmere, converted into a full-service restaurant with mahogany fixtures, exposed wood beams, and a four-seat cocktail bar that makes the wait feel intentional. Seating spills onto an enclosed porch, a renovated second floor, and a patio with its own bar in the carriage house. The chef's seasonal small and large plates shift with what's good, and the cocktails are taken as seriously as the food.

Nashville-style fried chicken sandwiches from a chef who used to fence with Bobby Flay on television, now happily running a fast-casual spot instead. Viet Pham, formerly of fine dining, keeps the menu tight: hot chicken sandwiches, crinkle-cut fries, a Mexican street corn salad, and a few house sauces. The move from tasting menus to paper trays is either a pivot or a relief, and the lines suggest nobody is complaining either way.

Punjabi Kitchen is tucked inside an Indian grocery and beer store, which means you could walk right past it and just buy a six-pack. Don't. The family-run dining room doubles as a craft beer taproom, and the combination of vegetable biryani, potato-stuffed parathas, and a flight of local ales turns out to feel completely logical. El Sobrante is not exactly a dining destination, which is exactly why the regulars here look so pleased with themselves.

Puranpoli is a vegetarian restaurant in Santa Clara run by siblings, zeroing in on the food of Maharashtra, the western Indian state that gave the world pav bhaji and vada pav. The menu leans into the less-traveled stuff, too, like zunka, a chickpea flour paste sautéed with aromatics and curry leaves that tastes like someone's grandmother made it. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best South Asian spots.

Thick griddled corn arepas, stuffed or served alongside shredded beef and rice, are the spine of this Venezuelan Caribbean restaurant in downtown Mesa. The team graduated from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar, and the kitchen still rolls out hot cheese sticks every morning. The patacon swaps buns for fried plantains, and the cachapa, a sweet corn pancake, earns its own detour. A bar handles tropical drinks.

Quiote's handmade blue corn tortillas are the first thing you notice, that deep indigo color doing real work before you've taken a bite. This casual Mexican restaurant in downtown Petaluma leans into the flavors of Jalisco, with each taco built around its own sauce rather than a one-size condiment bar. The cochinita pibil, slow-roasted pork in banana leaf, gets nothing but pickled onions and habaneros, which is a confident call. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best tacos.

Richard's is the restaurant tucked inside the Inn at 500 Capitol, which means room service here comes with actual cannelloni instead of a club sandwich under a steel dome. The menu is Italian-ish Northwestern, heavy on house-made pasta, and the wine list gets taken seriously, with periodic wine dinners for people who enjoy being told about soil. Think date night in a nice shirt, not a weeknight in a hoodie.

This is a Saturday farmers-and-makers market tucked under the Fuller Warren Bridge, running 10am to 3pm, so wear sunscreen and bring cash for jam. Along with the candles and produce stalls you'd expect, the food vendors include a vegan seitan smashburger stand and a small-batch Indian dairy selling mango lassi. Take your haul to the river or the skate park next door, where teenagers will ignore you gracefully.

A lounge-y small-plates spot in Lakewood where the dessert menu competes hard with everything that came before it. The kitchen leans into seasonal Midwestern vegetables with some global seasoning along the way, and the pastry work is serious enough that skipping it would be a mistake. New ownership from the group behind Cloak and Dagger brought in fresh culinary talent, and the room has found a new sense of itself since.