The Best Restaurants in the United States

Crawfish cooked wok-style, the way you'd handle crab or lobster in Chinese cuisine, so every crevice gets a proper coating of spice and oil. This Cajun-Asian boil spot in southwest Houston does mudbugs in flavors like Thai Basil or a butter-garlic-citrus house special, and the heat scale runs up to something called Cray Cray, which should tell you all you need to know about who's ordering it.

A chef's counter anchors the dining room at this modern American restaurant on Camperdown Plaza, where the team trained at places like the French Laundry runs an animated small-plates operation and still finds time to stop by every table. When the weather cooperates, the room spills outside onto one of Greenville's prettier public squares. The lamb loin is the kind of dish that makes you rethink ordering small plates only.

Carnitas Uruapan is a casual carnitas house where the order is measured in pounds, not tacos, though a single taco is allowed. The pork follows a recipe from Michoacán, the region that more or less invented the whole idea, and it comes with cactus salad, pickled chiles, and chicharrón. Brain quesadillas are on offer for the committed. The family now runs three locations, and the one on 55th St hosts the loyal regulars.

Casa Di Amore is a red-sauce Italian restaurant that also happens to be a tiki bar, a pairing that sounds like a dare and somehow holds together. The room glows red, with stained glass chandeliers shaped like rings of parrots, and the garlic bread comes buried in melted mozzarella. The chicken parm is plate-sized, and in summer there's an outdoor tiki bar out back for frozen piña coladas.

Patio seating looks out over the rolling Ozarks with a sliver of Table Rock Lake in the frame, which sets expectations high before the food shows up. This is an Italian restaurant where the pasta is made from scratch and the wine list is long enough to require help. The chef trained formally and spent time on the West Coast before landing here, and the cacio e pepe and burnt Basque cheesecake suggest he paid attention.

A former movie theater in the Solaris complex went full Alice in Wonderland and never looked back. Chasing Rabbits is a members' social club open to the public, folding a speakeasy, screening room, nightclub, arcade, and Mediterranean restaurant into one surreal evening. Members get liquor lockers and secret menus; everyone else gets the braised rabbit Bolognese and the satisfaction of finding a nightclub in Vail that actually has a theme worth committing to.

Chéri Rooftop is a French restaurant perched up the Eiffel Tower in Paris Las Vegas, which means you're dining in a replica of a landmark while looking at the real Strip. Expect Champagne, caviar cones, and a steak tartare that suits the date-night dress code. The chocolate soufflé takes an extra 15 minutes, a delay that couples tend to find suspiciously convenient. Eater lists it among its romantic restaurants in town.

The spaghetti arrives buried under shredded cheese that stays stubbornly unmelted, swimming in sweet sauce you'd never mistake for Italian. Chibog is a Filipino homestyle restaurant in Daly City where weekends mean families crowded around platters of crispy pata and lechon kawali. Solo diners can work through silog-style meal sets without feeling lost. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best restaurants on the Peninsula and South Bay.

A Chinatown noodle shop where the namesake bowl, listed plainly as "Chongqing hot numbing spicy noodles," does exactly what it promises with Sichuan pepper and red chile oil doing most of the talking. The menu is narrow by design, each strand matched to a mood, and the tan tan noodle soup goes richer and heartier for anyone who needs a reason to stay. Prices are firmly in the single digits, which explains why the stools fill fast.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan spot with so many Houston locations that you've likely driven past one this week. The menu leans hard on chili heat, with a flounder dish served in a bubbling pool of pepper and ginger, plus Sichuan beef and a fair amount of tofu for the vegetarians in the group. Expect a counter-service lunch crowd with a high tolerance for numbing spice, and a bill that stays comfortably in the twenties.

Flounder served in a hot bath of pepper, cucumber, and ginger is the kind of dish that announces where Cooking Girl stands on the question of restraint. It's a Sichuan restaurant with outposts scattered across Houston, so the odds are good one is nearby. The menu leans into the numbing, oily heat the region is known for, with beef, chicken, and tofu all pulling their weight. A practical neighborhood spot, not a special-occasion production.

This Sugar Land outpost is a casual Sichuan restaurant, one of a chain that has quietly spread across Houston until you're rarely more than a few exits from one. The menu leans hard into numbing, chile-heavy cooking, with the flounder in the hot diving fish as the signature, and the tofu section is long enough that vegetarians won't feel like a footnote. Dress code is whatever you wore to work, and so is the price.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan restaurant, and the Westheimer branch is one of a sprawling family that has put a location within a short drive of most Houstonians. The menu leans bold and numbing, with flounder in a chili broth that arrives looking like a small, spicy aquarium. Vegetarians get a real section of tofu to work through, and the check stays friendly. Bring a friend with a high tolerance, or a good water supply.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan restaurant with enough Houston locations that you're probably standing near one right now. The menu runs on numbing peppercorn heat, and the hot diving fish brings flounder swimming in chili broth with cucumber and ginger. Tofu dishes give vegetarians something more interesting to do than watch. It's a no-fuss spot where you wear whatever you wore to work and leave smelling faintly of chili oil.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan spot on Heights Boulevard, one of a small empire of locations spread across Houston, so a bowl of numbing heat is probably closer than your nearest pharmacy. The menu leans hard on chili and peppercorn, with a flounder dish served in a pool of broth that arrives looking like a dare. Tofu and vegetable dishes keep the non-meat crowd fed. Expect an easy dinner at easy prices.

An old stone cottage in Georgetown with a garden patio that reads more like a faded Italian estate than a Seattle restaurant. The Corson Building runs mostly prix fixe, with a seasonal menu that shifts constantly and leans heavily on vegetables without forgetting the carnivores. Thursday nights open things up to a la carte if commitment feels like a lot. The room is spare and candlelit, the kind of place where dinner takes the whole evening and nobody seems to mind.

The pairing of fried chicken and waffles sounds simple until you see a menu built around named combinations, each with its own waffle flavor, schmear, and sauce. Dame's is a soul food spot inside the Liberty Warehouse where lines form on a near-daily basis, and the kitchen gives you enough customization options that ordering becomes a minor project. A sweet potato waffle with orange-honeycomb schmear is not a thing you walk away forgetting.

Daofu is a casual Adams Avenue restaurant where a salad shows up before you've finished deciding what to order. It's free, built on house-made tofu and curly greens with a pulpy raspberry dressing, and it works as a warm-up for the bolder spices on the main plates. The salad menu stays under $11, which makes it an easy place to wander in on a weeknight in whatever you were already wearing.

A sandwich shop named for the round painted lucky dolls that fill the room, this sibling to ramen spot Menya Musashi does Japanese katsu sandwiches and a few things that upstage them. The nori-dusted fries are the thing people keep mentioning. The katsu curry plate, technically a detour from the menu's thesis, is what the regulars seem to order instead.

A molcajete that arrives looking like a stone-bowl still life, heaped with grilled meats, nopales, and queso fresco, sets the tone at this relaxed Mexican restaurant in Desert Hot Springs. The menu moves comfortably from huevos divorciados at breakfast through mole enchiladas and carne asada platters at dinner, the kind of cooking that takes its time. The margaritas and mezcal flights give you a reason to as well.

A casual dumpling restaurant in the Aria, where a glass-walled kitchen lets you watch cooks fold each xiao long bao by hand while you wait for a table. The soup dumplings come with vinegar sauce and a lesson in not burning your mouth. The cucumber salad and hot and sour soup are the usual sidekicks. Expect a line, mid-range bills, and a dining room full of people who have clearly done their research.

A neighborhood restaurant tucked near a cinema in East Memphis, Dory runs a full a la carte menu after years of tasting-menu-only service, so the room has loosened up considerably. The husband-and-wife team leans into composed, ingredient-forward plates that move between land and sea without committing to either. Pork loin shares the menu with scallops and mushroom dishes built around masa, which gives you a sense of how they think.

The crawfish come from the fields you can see from your table, which is either the most logical supply chain imaginable or a mild existential moment for the mudbugs. This BYOB boil house sits about an hour outside Houston, and the lines form by six, so early arrival is less a suggestion than a survival skill. Tours and boat excursions through the rice and crawfish fields are available if you call ahead. Order by the pound or go straight for the full feast.

The name means "two hands," which turns out to be underselling it. This elegant Mediterranean restaurant in downtown Aspen draws from the coastal kitchens of Italy and France, and the chef, an Aspen native who spent years at Matsuhisa, brings real finesse to the room. The crowd skews people who have already changed for dinner. Expect polished service and a menu that moves between crudo, whole branzino, and properly cooked chops.

Exposed brick and Edison bulbs in a Dauphin Street storefront, which is either charming or a cliché depending on your mood, but the modern Southern cooking tends to settle the argument. Dumbwaiter is a full-service dinner spot where Gulf-sourced ingredients do the heavy lifting, shrimp and grits built around Conecuh sausage, collard greens with some heat behind them, and warm bread pudding that arrives with ice cream already melting into it.