The Best Restaurants in the United States

Peanut Park Trattoria is a red-sauce Italian spot on Taylor Street, run by the people behind Coalfire Pizza, and it's the kind of place where the meatballs arrive before you've finished deciding. The room leans into the theme with a wine-cave wall and enough memorabilia to qualify as a small museum. Walk to the back for the Tony Fitzpatrick art, then order the baked ziti, which comes with 'nduja.

Mood lighting, a contemporary soundtrack, and Vietnamese-influenced food that slides easily into a night out, which is exactly what Peridot is angling for. The ketchup-fried rice, drawn from the chef's childhood, sounds like a gimmick until it arrives and you stop talking. Green papaya salad comes with beef jerky, the grilled seabream is built for sharing, and the cocktails are serious enough to stay for. Book ahead on Tock.

Piccolo Sogno is a sit-down Italian restaurant in River West, and its main trick is a lush garden patio that makes you forget Halsted Street exists. The name means "little dream," which is a lot to put on a menu of wood-fired pizzas and pasta, but the kitchen manages. Pasta comes in appetizer-sized portions, a gift to anyone who orders for the table and then argues about it. Eater lists it among Chicago's best Italian spots.

Pizano's is a casual deep-dish pizzeria in the Gold Coast, part of the small chain run by a son of the Malnati family, which in Chicago pizza circles is roughly the equivalent of royalty with better cheese. The crust comes from a recipe the owner's mother developed, and the sausage, mushroom, onion, and green pepper pie is the one to order. Eater lists it among Chicago's best deep-dish. Expect a long bake and no regrets about sitting still.

Potente is a fine-dining Italian restaurant across the street from the ballpark, which means the bar fills with people in jerseys making a plan for the evening. The spaghetti al tartufo gets its truffles shaved over the plate right at your table, a bit of theater that suits a place owned by the Astros guy. Expect linen-adjacent prices and a dress code of whatever you wore to the game, within reason.

Prep & Pastry is a sunny, white-washed brunch spot near Fashion Square, the Scottsdale outpost of a Tucson original, with a menu that runs to dossants, which are exactly what they sound like. Expect a cast iron duck confit, a chickpea scramble, and a Monte Cristo built on herb brioche French toast with pineapple and jalapeño mascarpone. It opens at 8 a.m. daily, and Eater has put it on a list of Phoenix brunches.

Complimentary valet parking at a Greek taverna in Lincolnwood is either a punchline or a promise, and Psistaria delivers on both. White tablecloths and a long menu of Mediterranean staples, from saganaki and gyros to grilled octopus and broiled whole fish, make it the kind of place that works for a birthday or a Tuesday. The wine list leans heavily Greek, the ouzo flows, and the servers know the menu well enough that you don't have to.

Pueblo Nuevo is a casual Portage Park spot built around Mexican street food, where the pambazo, a soft roll dunked in red guajillo sauce and stuffed with fried potato, is the kind of sandwich that ends any argument about whether bread can be a main character. The pozole runs green, made with tomatillos and chicken, and you set the heat yourself. Eater put it on its list of Chicago's best Mexican restaurants.

The back room contains a garden, a small bookstore, and a podcast studio, which tells you nearly everything about Queeny's vibe before you've even ordered. It's a casual sandwich and drinks spot in downtown Durham, the kind of place that stays open when everywhere else has called it a night. The birria French dip and a pork chop-banh mi hybrid keep regulars coming back, and the cocktail list is blessedly short and unfussy.

A glass case of house-made jalebi, burfi, and laddoo greets you before you've even found a seat at this old-school Indian sweets shop and snack counter in the Gandhi District. Samosas, pakora, and pani puri share the menu with full curry and tandoori service at lunch and dinner, though most people never make it past the front counter, which is arguably the whole point.

A no-frills counter in the ground floor of the Central Building that's been scooping rice bowls since before poke was a personality type. Red Bowls runs nearly 50 variations, from eight styles of bibimbap to bulgogi, fish, tempura, and vegetarian options, all piled high and served fast. No website, no fuss, and a line that moves. Seattle Met named it one of the city's top lunch spots, which tracks.

Fútbol scarves and pennants cover the walls at this family-run counter spot in a Boulder strip mall, where the empanadas come stuffed with steak and olives or mozzarella and tomato. The choripán with chimichurri is the other reason to go. They pour yerba mate, post soccer match times on Instagram, and the whole thing reads less like a restaurant than someone's living room that happens to sell food.

Susan Spicer's Mid City neighborhood restaurant is the kind of place where the shrimp creole does all the talking. A casual Cajun and Creole spot, Rosedale keeps the cooking steeped in New Orleans tradition without any of the ceremony that follows a celebrated chef around town. The room is low-key, the food is direct, and the whole operation runs like it was built for the people on the block, not the people writing about it.

The name comes from the Italian habit of dragging bread through whatever sauce is left in the bowl, and the kitchen here gives you plenty of reason to do exactly that. Scarpetta is a polished Italian restaurant on the Strip, the kind of place where you dress a little and the pasta justifies it. Tableside paccheri in truffle cream is a reliable splurge, and the agnolotti with short rib and bone marrow lands somewhere between rustic and indulgent.

The yeasted waffle is what people come back for at this daytime diner on Macarthur, light enough to make the standard griddle version feel like a practical joke. Sequoia keeps the American breakfast plate honest while also running a loco moco where the gravy soaks into Koda Farms white rice in a way that feels earned. They cure their own pork belly, make three hot sauces in-house, and generally behave like a diner with something to prove.

Korean-style shaved ice, known as bingsu, is the whole point here, served in bowls almost too pretty to disturb. Snowy Village is a casual international chain with a University District outpost where the milk-ice shavings come out feather-light and piled with toppings. The classic order leans into sweet red beans, chewy injeolmi rice cakes, and a dusting of soybean powder, though mango and Oreo versions exist for the less traditional.

The pressed French bread announces itself before you even bite down, cracking loud enough to turn heads. Sol Food is a casual Puerto Rican spot in San Rafael with outposts around Marin, built around hot-pressed sandwiches that pull serious lunch crowds. The Paraíso swaps the expected cheese-steak script by folding in ripe plantains, and the Cubano is one of the few worth seeking out in the county.

Spicy Girl is a casual Sichuan restaurant in Upper Kirby that stays open until 3:30 a.m. After 9 p.m. the menu shrinks to Chinese American staples like General Tso's chicken, Mongolian beef, and fried rice, all priced for people who just want dinner. You scan a QR code, seat yourself, and nobody asks how your night went. Wear whatever you wore to wherever you were.

Ssyal is a Korean restaurant on Lawrence Avenue, and the move here is the samgye-tang: a whole Cornish hen stuffed with sticky rice, jujubes, garlic, and ginseng, then simmered until the broth could talk you out of a cold. The hen arrives in its own tiny bird-sized sleeping bag of rice. Dolsot bibimbap, bulgogi, and ox bone soup fill out the menu, and takeout and delivery are an easy call when you're sniffling.

Tucked inside an old market building in downtown Petaluma, Street Social is a neighborhood restaurant where the menu changes weekly and lands in genuinely surprising places. Think prawn cocktail with absinthe granita, or pan-seared gnocchi topped with potato chips. The cooking reads like comfort food filtered through a restless imagination, and the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of Sonoma County's standout restaurants.

Handmade shu mai with its own devoted following is a reasonable thing to build a dim sum restaurant around. Sum Bar pulls it off with char siu pork, egg custard tarts, and Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce filling out the cart. Monday mahjong nights give regulars a reason to linger, and seasonal events like a Lunar New Year blowout keep the calendar lively. The proprietor co-produced a James Beard Award-winning documentary about opening this very spot.