The Best Restaurants in the United States

Missy Robbins runs an open kitchen inside a former car body shop in East Williamsburg, which tells you something about the bones of the room before a single plate arrives. Lilia is the kind of Italian pasta restaurant where everything is handmade and the mafaldini with pink peppercorns has turned regulars into a kind of informal cult. The New York Times gave it three stars, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

Dave Beran's Santa Monica bistro leans hard into France with no apologies and no asterisks. Wood beams, exposed brick, and white kitchen tile set the scene, and the pressed duck for two is the kind of centerpiece that makes the table next to you lean over and ask what you ordered. The marble bar handles a more casual drop-in just fine, with Champagne and caviar if you're feeling it. A New York Times pick for the city's best.

The patio looks out over the 18th hole of Torrey Pines Golf Course, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe: California-casual with a country-club undercurrent, Craftsman beams and amber lanterns inside. The kitchen leans hard into Southern California's year-round growing season, so the California New American menu shifts with what's actually good. A AAA Four Diamond fine dining restaurant where the dress code is implied but never oppressive.

Caviar arrives on mother-of-pearl spoons, and the potato gets the Robuchon purée treatment, which tells you exactly where you are: a polished French restaurant in an era when that's a rarer breed than it once was. The kitchen still bakes madeleines to order, and for a modest surcharge a waiter will shower Périgord truffles on whatever you're eating. The New York Times named it among Chicago's 25 best restaurants. Dress accordingly.

Jeremy Ford runs this modern tasting menu restaurant inside the Venetian, and the kitchen leans hard into vegetables without pretending it isn't also very interested in wagyu and foie gras. Two tasting menu lengths give you a choice of how long to commit, but the bar menu with its cacio e pepe puffs and charred jerk carrots is a genuinely good argument for just pulling up a stool instead.

An oxblood lacquered ceiling and a menu displayed on a glowing marquee running the length of the room set the scene at this French wine bar across from the Transamerica Pyramid. The kitchen leans on peak produce and serious seafood, with the wine list thick with under-the-radar Gallic producers. The New York Times named it to their Restaurant List in 2025. Walk-ins compete for counter seats; reservations go fast either way.

The underground RiNo dining room glows with neon, and the menu swings just as freely, pairing global flavors across courses in combinations that shouldn't work as well as they do. This is a casual but serious dinner spot where the cocktails lean on dates and balsamic vinegar and the kitchen hosts pop-ups for emerging local chefs. Westword named it among Denver's top fifty restaurants, and Eater puts it on their city essentials list.

Tavel Bristol-Joseph built his Austin reputation on pastry, so opening a modern Caribbean restaurant rooted in his Guyanese childhood was a genuine pivot. The cooking runs tangy, smoky, and coconutty, with fermented jerk seasoning and a roti that disappears faster than you'd expect. He earned a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the New York Times put Canje on its national restaurant list the year it opened.

A roaring fireplace anchors the dining room at this modern Mexican tasting menu restaurant inside Oceanside's Mission Pacific Hotel, where the pier view competes with what's on the plate. Chef Roberto Alcocer named the place after Baja's Valle de Guadalupe wine country, and the list leans into it. A Michelin star landed here for cooking that manages to be inventive without feeling like a dare.

The wood-fired octopus and French-Italian Riviera menu signal the ambitions clearly: this is fine dining, downtown Milwaukee, with tablecloths to match. Adam Siegel, who holds a James Beard Best Chef Midwest award for earlier work, shapes a kitchen that leans toward the sun-drenched coast without ever feeling like a theme. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, it draws the kind of crowd that books ahead and doesn't check the prices twice.

A Michelin-starred French fine dining room on the third floor of South Coast Plaza, which sounds like a punchline until you're actually sitting at the chef's counter watching a pristine kitchen run through a prix fixe that manages to feel personal rather than ceremonial. Tony Esnault's cooking leans classic French with a roaming curiosity. The patio is a quiet bonus, and the whole place moves at a pace that makes a mall feel very far away.

The sign is so discreet you'll walk past the townhouse twice before finding it, which is, in its way, a promise about how the evening goes. Vetri Cucina is an intimate Italian tasting room on Spruce Street, been around forever, with the kind of unhurried service that feels like it has nowhere else to be. A 1950s espresso machine holds court at the end of the meal, a fitting final argument from a kitchen that takes its classics seriously.

The patio at this Culver City contemporary French restaurant seats as many as the dining room, which tells you something about how the place pictures itself. Dinner is when the kitchen finds its stride, moving through chicken liver mousse in a delicate tart, clean fish preparations, and proper desserts. The wine list leans hard into by-the-glass options, which the room seems to appreciate.

A short, ever-changing menu of Spanish and Portuguese cooking in a cozy downtown dining room, where piri piri chicken gets finished with Wisconsin cheese without anyone apologizing for it. The chef is a James Beard Outstanding Chef semifinalist, and the kitchen takes dessert as seriously as the savory courses, which not every serious restaurant bothers to do. The kind of place where you eat things you won't find anywhere else in the city.

Ecuadorian and Peruvian cooking meet in a North Miami restaurant where the room feels genuinely celebratory without trying too hard. Chef Alejandra Espinoza runs a menu that moves from coastal ceviches through braised stews and into cassava fritters, all of it vivid and warm in a way that matches the decor. A Michelin Selected restaurant that doesn't feel like it's holding its breath about it.

The bottle gourd for their signature lau chingri comes from the parking lot out back, which tells you most of what you need to know about this small Bangladeshi-Indian neighborhood eatery in Jersey City. The chef and her daughter run the room, the cooking is homestyle but precise, and the dish landed on a New York Times list of the year's best across the country. A James Beard semifinalist, and NJ.com's top-ranked restaurant in the state.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto Lockerbie Square's old brick row houses while tasting menu courses arrive one by one to steal your attention back. Vida is fine dining, the kind where you're choosing between four and seven courses and the chef is assembling each plate like an argument. The team behind it has drawn two James Beard semifinalist nominations, and the room makes it easy to believe them.

Old wooden beams from the original building were milled into the chef's counter, which is where you want to sit at this New England French restaurant if you can get it. The menu runs refined and a little lusty at once, French technique laid over serious local sourcing. The New York Times and Esquire both noticed when it opened, and the room has been full ever since.

The red velvet booths are arranged in a circle so that everyone in this fine dining room can watch everyone else, which feels about right for Vegas. Carbone is the New York Italian-American institution transplanted to Aria, where tuxedoed captains serve dishes tableside with a theatricality that matches the decor. The menu leans into the classics hard, and putting yourself in the captain's hands is an option if the bill isn't a concern.

Heirloom grains milled in-house show up across the menu at this new American restaurant on Rainey Street, which is exactly the kind of detail that sounds pretentious until you taste the cacio e pepe. The kitchen runs its own fermentation program and leans hard on Texas farms, so the menu stays tight and shifts with what's around. The patio fills fast and the dining room isn't far behind. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Persimmon is an intimate American restaurant on Hope Street where the menu changes daily, so the website's answer to "what's for dinner?" is a shrug. The room is bright but cozy, and it fills with a cross-section of Providence, parents included, none of them there for the photos. It holds AAA Four Diamonds and was a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Hospitality. Dress like you're trying to impress someone.

A mushroom breakfast taco that Melissa Clark put on the New York Times list of best dishes eaten across the country in 2024 will tell you what kind of neighborhood restaurant this is. Ocotillo does scratch Tex-Mex in a city not especially known for it, and the housemade salsa macha alone justifies the detour. Brunch draws the loyal crowd, but the cooking has the kind of quiet confidence that makes you wonder what else you've been missing.

Sharply dressed guests line up outside a Beaux-Arts building in Southside before the doors even open, which tells you something about how this place operates. Bottega is an upscale Italian-Mediterranean restaurant where dark wood walls and high ceilings set a polished tone, and the servers are warm enough to soften the formality. A Michelin Selected pick and a James Beard Nominee for Outstanding Hospitality, it's been the city's grown-up dining room for longer than anyone's counting.

The Indonesian rosewood dining room looks out at Central Park South like it was born to, which sets the tone for an upscale Italian seafood restaurant where the power-lunch crowd arrives knowing exactly what it costs to sit here. Crudo and handmade pasta anchor the menu, the kind of cooking that earns its address without making a fuss about it. Dress up; this is not a jeans situation.

L'Ostrica is a Montford dinner spot with an open kitchen, polished concrete floors, and the sort of wood furniture that suggests someone had a plan. The menu is Mediterranean at heart, with Asian accents sneaking in, and Fridays and Saturdays bring a tasting menu. The wine list leans on grower Champagnes, so expect a room of people who have opinions about bubbles and a check to match.

A bungalow tucked behind banana trees and bougainvillea on a residential street, Baby Bistro runs a menu so short that ordering the whole thing is the obvious move. Miles Thompson's modern American cooking shifts constantly, so whatever's on the night you go may be gone the next. The wine list stays under $100 a bottle, the room is small and lively, and the whole thing feels more like a dinner party than a restaurant.

Chicken and dumplings unveiled tableside is the move at this East Nashville restaurant built around Appalachian and Southern cooking. The share-plate menu leans seasonal but keeps a few old-school anchors no matter what, leaning into ingredients like benne seeds and paw paws in ways your grandmother probably didn't but might wish she had. The vibe is rustic and cozy, the kind of room that makes you want to become a regular on your first visit.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over a pond, which sets the mood before the tasting menu even begins. This is polished fine dining in Falls Church, the kind where the monthly French-inflected menu chases both the season and chef Bertrand Chemel's restless imagination. Five courses, and you choose at each one, with vegetarian and meat paths running in parallel. A James Beard Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist in 2024.

Jason Vincent's Logan Square neighborhood restaurant holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earned a James Beard nomination, which is a lot of hardware for a place that puts onion rings on the menu without irony. The room is modern-rustic and small, with a chef's counter in the back for anyone who wants to watch the kitchen work. The food is familiar American but tilted just enough to keep you guessing what you ordered.

The owner has competed in the U.S. Coffee Championships, which tells you something about how seriously this small local coffee shop chain takes a cappuccino. Three locations across Omaha roast their own beans in-house, and the pours are consistent enough that remote workers and afternoon meeting people have adopted them as a second office. The Home blend travels well if you want to keep the habit going at home.

The famed red door on Sixth Street opens into one of Cincinnati's most serious fine dining rooms, the kind where comfort food quietly arrives in formalwear. The kitchen has been around forever, occupying the old Maisonette address, and the pommes soufflées remain a knowing nod to that lineage. The menu moves between reliable classics and sharper seasonal swings, and dessert gets the same attention as everything before it.

The parking lot reads like a car show, which tells you something about who comes to dinner in Del Mar. This is a sleek, dimly lit restaurant where the menu ranges from sushi to blue cheese soufflé with no apparent anxiety about that range. The chef leans into the contradiction, pulling from Europe and Asia with enough confidence that the international sprawl feels like a point of view rather than indecision.

Beef short ribs draped in velvety curry and pakora-fried kale arranged like a bird's nest signal that this SoMa restaurant is doing something more deliberate with Indian cooking than most. The room is high-ceilinged, colorful, and clubby, with a roomy courtyard for when the weather cooperates and branded blankets for when it doesn't. Cocktails lean inventive, the menu is built for sharing, and the pricing reflects the ingredient quality.

The dining room juts out from the Mt. Washington cliff face, so the three rivers appear to be directly below your table, which is a lot to process when you're deciding between apps. Altius is upscale American fine dining with portions that are, refreshingly, sized for actual humans. They seat you with warm popcorn before anything else, a small signal that the room won't make you feel guilty for enjoying yourself. AAA Four Diamonds.

Cowboy Star is a downtown steakhouse that goes all in on the Western set dressing, with cowhide chairs, a steer skull on the wall, and a door handle shaped like a giant spur. It holds an AAA Four Diamond rating, so the evening runs more tablecloth than saloon. Order a ribeye, but save room for the bronzed Parker House rolls, then talk yourself out of the mechanical bull nearby.

A stained glass window of, let's say, assertive subject matter sets the tone before you've ordered a thing. L'Opossum is a fine dining room where French technique meets full-on theatrical excess, the kind of place that serves lobster mac and cheese under a name like "swank bank" and wraps a cocktail in plastic like a certain *Twin Peaks* corpse. The bathroom is clowns. All of it is intentional, and somehow it holds together.

A converted ice skaters' warming hut on the edge of a Lincoln Park pond, with the Chicago skyline framing the water outside the windows. North Pond runs a tasting menu that moves with the seasons, the chef pulling in Latin and Asian influences alongside herbs from a rooftop garden overhead. The room is warm brick and candlelight, the kind of place that earns its romantic reputation without visibly trying.

Tucked into the wooded edge of Sonoma wine country, this fine dining restaurant earns its pastoral name without trying too hard. The kitchen leans into California's seasonal obsessions with real conviction, running a compact prix fixe alongside a longer tasting menu. Herb-laminated pasta, foraged mushrooms, Vietnamese-inflected black cod, the menu reads like a love letter to the region. The drive out from Santa Rosa is part of the deal, and nobody here seems to mind.

A hand-carved wooden angel watches from an overhead alcove while chef Nathan Lockwood plates Northwest ingredients on moss and stones below, which pretty much sets the tone. Altura is a fixed tasting menu restaurant on Capitol Hill, the kind of place where the cooking is polished but the service stays warm enough that you don't feel like you're being graded. A good call when the occasion demands it.

The original carriage house of the Wentworth Mansion holds this fine dining room, where white tablecloths and soft lighting set a tempo the rest of Charleston is still trying to match. The chef has been running these seasonal menus for what feels like forever, and the tasting menu moves through the Lowcountry with enough range to keep things interesting. A AAA Four Diamond property, and one of the more convincingly romantic rooms in the city.

A fire engine-red Berkel slicer sits in open view of the dining room, which tells you something about how seriously this fine dining French restaurant takes its charcuterie. Husband-and-wife team Florent and Amelia Marneau run a kitchen that moves between classical and modern French without making a fuss about it. The glassed-in kitchen and soft globe lighting keep things elegant without going stiff. The cocktail list tracks the seasons, and the wine pairings are unusually fairly priced.

Three renovated townhouses in historic downtown Charleston have been stitched together into an all-day Southern Italian cafe where the bones of an old bank still show through in the brass and marble. The room dresses up well, and so should you. Wood-fired pizzas and pastries carry the daytime crowd, but the house-made pastas are the reason to linger into evening. It holds a Michelin Guide selection and four AAA Diamonds.

The dark checkerboard floor and blue-gray leather banquettes make this West Village dining room feel like a romantic fever dream someone actually built. Don Angie is a creative Italian restaurant where the team bends the genre cheerfully, folding in fried rice and mezcal-braised chicken alongside handmade pastas without any of it feeling like a gimmick. The room fills with people who booked weeks out and don't regret it.

The dining room at this resort restaurant looks straight out at the Santa Catalina Mountains through big windows, with wood-beamed ceilings and wrought-iron chandeliers doing the rest of the work. It's a fine-dining room where the food skews toward slow-braised meats and careful plating, and the wine list has earned its own separate reputation. Brunch draws a crowd willing to dress for it.

The sink has a ruffled curtain skirt, which tells you everything about how seriously Jasmine takes its room. This fine dining Chinese restaurant at the Bellagio overlooks the fountain show through floor-to-ceiling windows, while inside, chandeliers hang over deep reds and gold-tinted flatware on floral plates. The menu moves across Cantonese, Sichuan, and Hunan traditions, and the Peking duck is carved tableside with the full ceremony that implies.

The corn husk meringue has been on the menu so long it's practically load-bearing. Cosme is a fine dining Modern Mexican room in the Flatiron, dark and handsome, with a serious bar up front pouring seasonal cocktails and roomy tables behind it where the menu runs short and focused. Chef Enrique Olvera put this kitchen on the map, and it remains very much a scene, for better and occasionally for worse.

A section of the menu simply called "On toast" tells you most of what you need to know about this New American bistro on Walnut Street. The chef trained under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and that classical foundation shows in the confident pairing of seasonal and luxury ingredients across small plates, raw dishes, and larger shared plates. The brownstone space runs two floors but stays intimate, with a counter facing the kitchen for anyone who wants to watch.

A chocolate sphere melted tableside sets the tone at this Latin American restaurant inside Lake Nona's Wave Hotel: dramatic is the operating mode. Warm wood, vivid color, and ceilings tall enough to lose a drone in frame a menu that roams Central and South America with a tropical lean. Small plates and bigger signature dishes share the card, and a service robot circulates among the banquettes without anyone seeming to find it unusual.

Roselily is a South Bend dining room where the multi-course tasting menu comes in a form you can actually walk into without a tie, though you'll want to look like you tried. It holds AAA Four Diamonds, and the menu changes often enough that regulars can't coast on habit. Vegetarians and vegans get real attention, white gazpacho included, and brunch on weekends and monthly wine tastings give you reasons to come back.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Jonathan Benno share the kitchen at this fine dining room on Park Avenue, where floor-to-ceiling windows flood the space with enough light to make the room feel both grand and surprisingly calm. The menu roams freely from French to Italian to Asian without apology, landing each time with precise technique. The New York Times and Esquire both named it among their best new restaurants in 2024.

A dining room with a hand-shaped table at its center sets the tone for this Neapolitan Italian spot in South Miami. Antipasti and secondi arrive family-style for the table to share, while the menu leans into Neapolitan classics, slow-cooked ragù and pasta alla Genovese, reworked with a chef's eye for unexpected pairings. The cocktail list skews international, the service stays warm, and the whole thing landed on the 50 Top Italy world ranking.